 JERUSALEM -- The incoming Hamas government will move quickly to make Islamic sharia "a source" of law in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and will overhaul the Palestinian education system to separate boys and girls and introduce a more Islamic curriculum, a senior official in the movement said yesterday.
Spelling out the domestic agenda of Hamas for the first time since the group's stunning victory in a legislative election this week, Sheik Mohammed Abu Teir also said Hamas would not go to foreign donors on bended knee if they withdrew aid to the Palestinian Authority.
| That's okay, bended knee wouldn't work anyways. |
Mr. Abu Teir, who was No. 2 on the Hamas list of candidates for Wednesday's election, said introducing sharia -- a controversial moral and legal code based on the Koran -- would be the first act of the new Hamas-controlled Palestinian Legislative Council. "The No. 1 thing we will do is take sharia as a source for legislation. Sharia has a soul in it and is good for all occasions," Mr. Abu Teir said in an interview with The Globe and Mail over a lunch of traditional Palestinian dishes supplemented with Coca-Cola. The table was set under photographs of Sheik Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi, past Hamas leaders who were assassinated in Israeli air strikes.
| Which didn't seem to educate anyone present. |
The current Palestinian legal system is based on Western-style jurisprudence and a hodgepodge of Jordanian, Egyptian and Ottoman laws. It's questionable whether Hamas could push through legislation introducing sharia as the basic law, since any such bill would have to be signed by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, a social moderate.
| Well, not as long as he's alive. |
However, having won 76 of the 132 legislative seats in what observers billed the best-run election the Arab world has seen, Hamas -- which campaigned on the slogan "Islam is the solution" -- can argue that it has more popular support for its program than Mr. Abbas does for his.
Abu Teir was quick to clarify that the introduction of sharia didn't mean that alcohol would be banned, or that it would be made mandatory for women to cover their heads when outdoors, two fears raised by the group's liberal opponents.
Mr. Abu Teir's wording -- that sharia would be "a source" of law -- mirrors the language adopted in the new Iraqi constitution. Iran and Saudi Arabia use a strict interpretation of sharia as the only source of law and employ religious police to enforce it. That's not what Hamas has in mind, the sheik said. "We are centrists, we are against any kind of extremism. The motto that we operate on is that in religion, you cannot force people."
| "Until we have total control and all the Jooos are dead. Then watch us." |
Palestinian Christians, many of whom have expressed concerns about being ruled by Islamists, have nothing to fear, he added.
| "As long as they behave themselves, pay their higher taxes and let us have our way with them, they will be fine," he noted. |
The sheik, a resident of the Um Tuba neighbourhood of East Jerusalem, did say that he believes the consumption of alcohol is wrong, and that the Koran indicates women should dress modestly. He said Hamas hoped to lead by example and thus persuade people to change their ways and follow the teachings of Islam more closely. "We will not force a woman to wear the hijab [Islamic head scarf]; we hope that decision will come from inside her. I don't care to have women put on the hijab and then take it off when no one is looking," he said.
He made it clear that one way Hamas planned to encourage the next generation to follow sharia was to revamp the Palestinian education system, separating girls' and boys' classes and introducing a more Islamic curriculum. "We will take such measures because we look at examples in the West, like Sweden. They have the highest level of co-education and the highest level of suicides," he said. "We would like our children to have a protected environment. We don't want any distractions for our boys or our girls."
| "And that way we can make the girls wear the hajib." |
On external affairs, Mr. Abu Teir gave no hint that Hamas would adjust its hard-line stand of refusing to recognize, or negotiate with, Israel. He said that instead of pressuring Hamas to disarm, the West should be demanding that Israel leave the West Bank, release all Palestinian prisoners and allow the return of the 4.1 million Palestinian refugees.
| If they all want to live in Gaza, no problem. It can look like the south Bronx used to look. |
Mr. Abu Teir expressed dismay at how news of Hamas's victory was received in the West, saying he didn't understand why the West, after years of giving money to a Palestinian Authority run by the corrupt Fatah movement, was now considering withholding aid. "Why is the West worried? We're not thieves. Had that money been given to us, it would have found many good uses."
| "I mean, we're careful stewards with money, look at all the guns and ammo we've bought. We're shrewd bargainers when it comes to rockets, not like those Fatah guys who can't even get a rocket to land in Israel." |
However, he said Hamas would not go begging if aid were slashed. "Our people would rather live in poverty than live in humiliation with Israeli and Western aid."
| Right now you have both poverty and humiliation. |
Palestinian political analysts said Mr. Abu Teir's remarks reveal the political immaturity of Hamas. The responsibilities and realities of being in power, several have predicted, would require them to abandon much of their ideological rhetoric. "When Hamas starts doing these things, they will get into all kinds of trouble. Politically, socially, economically, they will not be able to do the kinds of things they are talking about," said Basem Ezbidi, a political scientist at Birzeit University in Ramallah. "Many people are truly worried right now."
| Especially the ones standing next to Teir. |
He said it is "insanity" for Hamas to say that it would not talk to Israel or that it does not need foreign aid. Palestinians regularly use Israeli hospitals, roads and the Israeli electricity grid, and the Palestinian Authority relies on Israel to collect sales taxes on its behalf. |