Political Islam in Palestine in an environment of peace?

Abstract

The announcement in the summer of 1993 of secret negotiations between senior figures in the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Government of Israel came as a surprise to all those involved with the Arab-Israeli conflict. The product of these secret negotiations, the Oslo and Cairo Accords have paved the way for political momentum that is a controlled and incremental experiment in ending the state of conflict which has dominated relations between the Palestinians and Israelis for nearly a century. As the quote above illustrates, however, the vision of peace held by Palestinians, Islamists among them, has been at odds with the reality of the Oslo agenda. It is my intention in this article to explore the effects that these political agreements have had on the Palestinian Islamic movement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. I set out to question whether the post-Oslo environment has created a momentum for peace, reconciliation and understanding or whether, in reality, it has exacerbated the religious nature of the conflict, which was previously subsumed under the rhetoric of both Israeli and Palestinian nationalism. Paving the path to peace It has been forcefully argued that the only way in which the Palestinians and Israelis could end the spiral of conflict that had dominated relations since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in 1987 was through the opening of a secret channel of negotiations between the two. While the Arab-Israeli conflict continued, the outbreak of the uprising placed intense pressure on Israel to reach some sort of political settlement with the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The uprising had communicated to the Israelis the undeniable fact that the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip would no longer contain the Palestinian population. Yet, in secret, it was argued, the two sides could bridge the gap between them, flout the rules of conflict that kept them apart through the taboo of contact and allow them to experiment in top-level