Therefore, the proper process for redressing all of these failures, including the defeat in the wars against Israel, was first to educate Muslims about Islam and make them committed to their religion. Transforming people from ignorant Muslims into adherents would rehabilitate all of Muslim society and prepare it for the fight with its enemies, from the certainty of standing on strong ground. In the rhetoric of the Muslim Brotherhood this was called ‘preparing the generations’.
The Palestinian Muslim Brothers had a deep conviction in this principle, which they consistently used to justify their non-confrontation policy against the Israeli occupation during the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and until 1987. Against mounting accusations by other Palestinian nationalist and leftist organisations of cowardice or even of being indirectly in the service of the Israeli occupation, the Palestinian Islamists clung to their strategy of ‘preparing the generations’ for a long time. They argued that it was a fruitless effort to fight Israel with a ‘corrupt army’; instead one should build a devoted and religiously committed army, then engage in war against Israel.
This strategy came under continuous attack. For Palestinian nationalists and leftists, such an approach was a mere justification for refraining from joining the national struggle. It was also criticized as naive on two levels, the first being the association of an individual’s capacity and genuine intention to fight the occupation with his or her level of religious commitment, and the second being the contrast between the open-ended abstraction of ‘preparing the generations’ with the daily imperative of engagement with the enemy. The true preparation of people to fight for their national rights and liberation, critics argued, is to fully engage in the struggle, where people learn and empower themselves as they advance and suffer. Moreover, Israel was understandably happy with the Islamists’ concept of ‘delaying the struggle’ until the Palestinian generations were spiritually and morally well prepared and ready.
Hamas’s supporters retrospectively defend the earlier thinking of their mother organization. They say that it was just exactly this strategy that guaranteed a strong beginning for Hamas and its continuous achievements on the ground in the years which followed. For them, the need for gradual and patient preparation was actually justified because in the 1960s and 1970s the Islamists were militarily very weak, and had they involved themselves in fruitless confrontation against Israel then, they would have been crushed easily, serving neither Palestine nor Islam.
Regardless of their rationalizations, the Islamists paid a high price during the decades when they opted for a nonconfrontational policy. They provided the opportunity for their national rivals to outpace them, and put themselves in a disadvantageous position. More importantly, they deprived the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation of the participation and contribution of that significant segment of the Palestinian population who came under the influence of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood and its thinking.
Iranian Armed Forces help Turkey to put out forest fires
