Everywhere, Israel faces the rise of Islam, of militancy, of radicalism. Former allies are gone; erstwhile foes reign supreme. But the Islamists have different and broader objectives. They wish to promote their Islamic project, which means consolidating their rule where they can, refraining from alienating the West, and avoiding perilous and precocious clashes with Israel. In this scheme, the presence of a Jewish state is and will remain intolerable, but it is probably the last piece of a larger puzzle that may never be fully assembled.
The quest to establish an independent, sovereign Palestinian state was never at the heart of the Islamist project. Hamas, the Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, harbors grander, less territorially confined but also less immediately achievable designs. Despite Hamas’s circumlocutions and notwithstanding its political evolution, it never truly deviated from its original view—the Jewish state is illegitimate and all the land of historic Palestine is inherently Islamic. If the current balance of power is not in your favor, wait and do what you can to take care of the disparity. The rest is tactics.
The Palestinian question has been the preserve of the Palestinian national movement. As of the late 1980s, its declared goal became a sovereign state in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. Alternatives, whether interim or temporary, have been flatly rejected. The Islamists’ plan may be more ambitious and grandiose but more flexible and elastic. For them, a diminutive, amputated state, hemmed in by Israel, dependent on its goodwill, predicated on its recognition, and entailing an end to the conflict, is not worth fighting for.
They can live with a range of transient arrangements: an interim agreement; a long-term truce, or hudna; a possible West Bank confederation with Jordan, with Gaza moving toward Egypt. All will advance the further Islamization of Palestinian society. All permit Hamas to turn to its social, cultural, and religious agenda, its true calling. All allow Hamas to maintain the conflict with Israel without having to wage it. None violates Hamas’s core tenets. It can put its ultimate goal on hold. Someday, the time for Palestine, for Jerusalem may come. Not now.
In the age of Arab Islamism, Israel may find Hamas’s purported intransigence more malleable than Fatah’s ostensible moderation. Israel fears the Islamic awakening. But the more immediate threat could be to the Palestinian national movement. There is no energy left in the independence project; associated with the old politics and long-worn-out leaderships, it has expended itself. Fatah and the PLO will have no place in the new world. The two-state solution is no one’s primary concern. It might expire not because of violence, settlements, or America’s inexpert role. It might perish of indifference.
An Islamist era that picks up where the Ottoman Empire left off, the shutting down of the nationalist interlude, is far from preordained. The Brotherhood flourished in opposition largely because it remained secretive, displayed patience, and ensured internal obedience. It built up influence through years of quiet labor and struggle. Once Islamists compete for power, many of their assets become obsolete. They must move openly because politics are more transparent, adjust quickly because of fast-paced change, and cope with diversity within their ranks because the system has become more plural.
Tunisia’s ruling Islamists must make a choice regarding Islam’s place in the new constitution; if they opt for a more moderate outcome, they will infuriate the Salafists, fail to reassure the non-Islamists, and befuddle countless of their own. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood faces attacks from secularists for injecting too much religion into public life and from Salafists for not injecting enough. Members split to join more moderate expressions of Islamism or more rigorous ones. The Brotherhood’s emphasis on free-market economics and the middle class does not play well to the underprivileged.
The new Islamist language, insofar as it emphasizes freedom, democracy, elections, and human rights, earns praise in the West but skepticism from critics. These might only be words but words can matter; they can take on a life of their own, force policy changes, make it difficult to renege. At that point, the Brotherhood can become the party it says it is, and then what will remain of its Islamism? Or it can persist as the movement it has been, and then what will remain of its pragmatism? Historically a tightly regimented transnational organization, the Brotherhood no longer speaks with one voice inside a country any more than it does across borders. As power beckons, each branch has different, often competing, political priorities and concerns.
Islamists also face the dilemmas of foreign policy. Egypt’s new assertiveness, its attempt at a more independent diplomacy, could put it at odds with the West. Its apparent decision to suspend its anti-Western and anti-Israeli positions risks alienating its public. Many Egyptians crave more than a Mubarak ornamented with Koranic verses.
Islamists prospered in opposition because they could blame others; they could suffer in power because others will blame them. Dilute their domestic and foreign agenda, and they may well lose their rank-and-file; pursue it and they will alienate non-Islamists and the West. Postpone the struggle against Israel, and their rhetoric will appear disconnected from their policy; wage it, and their policy will appear dangerous to their new allies in the West. If they explain that their moderation is tactical, they will expose themselves; stay silent and they will confuse the base. There are only so many contradictions they can simultaneously straddle in this Olympian balancing act. The power of political Islam flowed chiefly from not exercising it. Its recent successes could signal the eve of its decline. How much simpler was life on the other side.
Amid chaos and uncertainty, the Islamists alone offer a familiar, authentic vision for the future. They might fail or falter, but who will pick up the mantle? Liberal forces have a weak lineage, slim popular support, and hardly any organizational weight. Remnants of the old regime are familiar with the ways of power yet they seem drained and exhausted. If instability spreads, if economic distress deepens, they could benefit from a wave of nostalgia. But they face long odds, bereft of an argument other than that things used to be bad, but now are worse.
That leaves an assortment of nationalists, anti-imperialists, old-fashioned leftists, and Nasserites. Theirs was the sole legitimate ideology in the Arab world, invoked by those who fought colonialism and by those who replaced the colonial powers. Similar ideas have been invoked too, unwittingly but unmistakably, by the demonstrators and protesters of these past months who spoke of dignity, independence, and social justice, and thus borrowed from the same ideological lexicon as those they eventually ousted.
This non-Islamist, “progressive” outlook has roots, appeal, and foot soldiers; it lacks organization and resources and has suffered from having been so thoroughly tainted and corrupted by generations that ruled in its name. Can it reinvent itself? If the Muslim Brotherhood plays down people’s nationalist feelings, if it ignores their aspirations to social justice, if it fails to govern effectively, an opening might arise. The more nationalist, progressive worldview could yet stage a comeback.
