چکیده:
In recent years, international attention has become increasingly
focused on Hamas, as a nascent and increasingly influential Palestinian
political movement. Hamas has historically charted a path of political and
ideological resistance to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories
as a central platform of its agenda. As such, it has refused political
settlement, since its members consider that an occupied nation has the right
to chose all forms of resistance against its occupier.
International interest increased in Hamas after it won the legislative
elections for the Palestinian Authority in 2006. This is the same Authority
that signed the Oslo Agreement with Israel in 1993, and one which chose
political settlement as a means to resolve the conflict. As such, when Hamas
formed the Tenth Government, a very complex situation was created, that is:
A Palestinian Authority Government was formed whose charter was based
on rejecting the very agreement that created it for the purpose of ending the
conflict by peaceful means.
Many political commentators concluded that Hamas would change its
approach after being elected, and that it would become more politically
moderate. Many also thought that Hamas would accept the existence of
Israel, thus abandoning an agenda of continued political resistance, and
would instead opt for political settlement. None of these things have
happened. Hamas has instead insisted on its traditional political positions,
which some regard as the bases for recent and ongoing crises in the
Palestinian political arena.
At the same time, many writers, politicians, and media observers have
reported that a discernible discursive shift has occurred both in relation to
Hamas operations as a movement and as the national government. Some
have characterized the shift as a deliberate signal from Hamas to the
Western countries, especially the United States and Israel, that Hamas is
now a political force that cannot be ignored in any efforts to solve the
Palestine-Israel conflict.
In this study, I examine certain discursive strategies used by Hamas
Government's representatives as they are reported in the media. Central
findings from this analysis include the presence of overlap between
discourses of the movement and the Government, and a relative flexibility
in the Government’s discourse compared to that of the movement. I argue