The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence & Coexistence [Paperback]

What emerges from this account is a fascinating picture of a complex organisation, which continues to operate in a much more adaptive and pragmatic manner than might be expected by those who see Hamas only as it commonly portrayed in the Western media - hardline, fundamentalist, uncompromising.

The reality is far more complex, as Mishal and Sela show. The details concerning Hamas's internal agonising over whether to participate in the Palestinian elections is an enthralling and detailed example of the different forces at play within Hamas and the sometimes conflicting agendas of the various parts of its leadership.

They also make clear that Hamas is primarily about nationalism and resistance to occupation, rather than a part of some global Islamic movement. Its struggle is strictly defined with the borders of Palestine and has no interest in wider Islamic issues.

What a pity therefore that such an interesting subject and one that the authors clearly know well, should be marred by such stilted and jargon ridden prose. The book clearly suffers from having been written buy two authors with quite different styles. The first and last thirds are fairly painful to read, while the middle section flows reasonably well and carries the reader along. One or both authors has something of an obsession with the use of the word "normative" and sprinkles it liberally throughout. Towards the end of the book I counted six successive paragraphs each of which contained the word, which shows both poor style and bad editing.

One curious aspect of the book is that the authors make little of the fact (although they don't dispute it either) that Israel originally encouraged and facilitated the development and growth of what became Hamas, in order to provide a counterweight to the PLO and to try and divide the Palestinians and thereby deny the PLO its claim to be the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. I was at BirZeit University (the leading Palestinian university in the Occupied Territories) when the Israelis helped bus in 'militants' from the Islamic University in Gaza who then attacked students who were aligned with Fatah and the PLO.

It's a startling irony that the Israelis now bombard the Palestinian Authority for failing to 'control' a resistance movement that Israel helped to create in the first place.

It achieves what it sets out to do - and that is to reflect the true nature of Hamas - not just as an organization with a reputation for violence, but as an organization which has serious social, educational and religios concerns within Palestinian society. It shows the way in which the organization has adapted to the political changes and certainly gave me much to think about.