From the NYT last week:
Hamas makes a point of saying it does not impose strict Islam on others but merely sets an example. There are, nonetheless, Palestinians in Gaza who are more moderate religiously and who oppose Hamas, complaining of creeping theocracy in its rules and laws.
Despite the claim of Jund Ansar Allah that Hamas isn’t Islamist enough, it is apparently enforcing quite a bit of religion in Gaza.
Barry Rubin citing a report from the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (.pdf) lists some of Hamas’s activities.
…Hamas is gradually turning the Gaza Strip into an Islamist state by a wide variety of activities including: indoctrination of children in its Islamist beliefs, control of the media, gender segregation, banning of alcohol, spending considerable parts of its limited funds on building additional mosques (the number has doubled in eight years) fully controlled by Hamas, and creation of morals’ police.
Traditional weddings have been broken up (because they played music) and two singers have been arrested because of their song lyrics. Chewing gum is banned, clothing stores are inspected and items removed if they don’t correspond with Hamas’s dress code.
Paramilitary summer camps have been created to prepare young people to be terrorists. There, in school, and in children’s television shows, kids are being taught systematic hatred of Jews, Christians, and the West, while being told that violence is the remedy to wipe out all these evil forces.
Courts are being made into places purely for the enforcement of Islamic law as interpreted by Hamas. Fatah supporters are repressed or forced out of jobs. “Islamic” banks established and favored by Hamas to keep control of the economy in its hands.
The Hamas-controlled Gaza media publicize radical religious views, for example, that a father cannot stop his son from engaging in armed Jihad–which contradicts the traditional idea of him as the ultimate authority figure. Hamas doctrine is now to override family loyalty.
Dion Nissenbaum describes the control Hamas exerts over the population (after echoing an earlier encounter with Hamas authorities)
We cruise by the family home of Abdul-Latif Moussa, the Al Qaeda-admiring Gaza sheik who boldly declared Rafah part of a new “Islamic emirate” and then died in a brutal showdown with Hamas fighters.
Nervous relatives sit in a dusty Rafah alley filled mostly by empty white plastic chairs set out for the daring mourners willing to come by.
No one here will talk. Not now. They have been warned by Hamas, they say, not to talk to anyone. Especially the press.
(If you want to see pictures of the destruction wrought by Hamas see the Muqata.)
And Hamas is not just imposing its religious vision on the citizens of Gaza, it is still commandeering civilian supplies for military aims.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak was reconsidering the delivery of the cement after, according to IDF Southern Command intelligence, cement that was transferred for the renovation of a British War Cemetery in Gaza earlier this month was partially confiscated by Hamas.
The cemetery contains graves of British and other foreign soldiers who were killed in the region during World War I.
“Hamas is in desperate need of cement to rebuild its bunker systems and bases,” one official explained. “This is why it is so complicated to transfer cement to Gaza even if it is intended for civilian purposes.”
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
