Interesting piece by Steven Erlanger in today’s NY Times about the power struggle in post-withdrawal Gaza between clans (or hamullas) and the Palestinian political factions, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah (or the PA). Money quote is the final graf:
Both Fatah and even the leftist parties, like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, are reverting to Islamist terminology, said Mr. [Hani] Habib, the political analyst. “The movement is in trouble and now must leave that style of secularism,” he said. “The language now is Hamas language. The leftist factions talk it, even if they don’t realize it. Even the left is now calling its ‘resistance’ a ‘jihad.’ “
The boundary between “secular” and jihadist forces is blurring — and one could even say the process is being mirrored in far-left circles in the U.S. and the UK (among ANSWER, SWP and Stop the War forces, which have all signed on with the Iraqi “resistance”).
Hitchens makes a related point about Iraq under Saddam:
The Saddam Hussein regime was based on a minority of a minority—a Mafia clique based in and around the city of Tikrit—and it stayed in power not by being “secular” or multiethnic but by being sectarian and by playing the card of divide and rule.
There’s an antiwar argument that goes like this: The Hussein regime was by definition anti-jihadist because “secular.” It’s true up to a point. But like the PFLP (see above), Saddam used the rhetoric of jihadism when it suited him politically. Lest we forget, he added the words “Allahu Akbar” to the Iraqi flag prior to the first Gulf War.
**Update: Let me add that “Allahu Akbar” is not in itself “the rhetoric of jihadism,” but when added to a national flag by a ruthless dictator, that is exactly what it is.
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