233 Peace with Hamas? The transforming potential of political participation International Affairs 80,  () ‒ JEROEN GUNNING * One of the enduring debates since the signing of the 1993 Declaration of Principles commonly known as the Oslo Agreement has concerned the role of Hamas in the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. Between calls to eradicate Hamas as an immutable enemy of peace and speculations that it would eventually acquiesce in a settlement and become a ‘loyal opposition’, the two underlying questions have been whether it is possible to make peace without Hamas, or, conversely, whether it is feasible to include Hamas in a peace settlement. 1 There is disagreement among both academics and policy-makers on the answers to these questions. Social scientists studying Hamas as a political organi- zation tend to conclude, on the basis of analysis of past behaviour, that Hamas’s penchant for pragmatism enables it, in principle, to adapt to a peace agreement. Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, for example, argue that Hamas ‘does not live up to its world image of a one-track organization with a monolithic, fanatic vision; unshakable fundamentalist interests; rigidly binary perceptions’. Rather, it has demonstrated ‘a willingness to base its policies on cost–benefit calculations’, making ‘a political understanding with Israel’ Hamas’s ‘lesser-evil alternative’. 2 Most would also concur with Khaled Hroub that ‘it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to destroy [Hamas] because it is so deeply rooted’. Even if the present organization were destroyed, Hroub insists that Hamas will ‘reproduce * I would like to thank Toni Erskine, Alistair Finlan, Jan Selby and Douglas Stokes for their helpful comments, and the Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust and the Rens-Holle Stichting for their financial contributions in the early stages of the research on which this article is based. 1 The only other organization besides Hamas with the capacity seriously to stall the peace process is the Al-Aqsa Brigade and its affiliates. The PFLP and Islamic Jihad are too small to have a sustained, significant effect if Hamas and the Brigade were to accept a negotiated compromise. Since the Al-Aqsa Brigade is affiliated to the ruling Fatah movement, it is more likely that it will be ‘brought into line’ with an eventual peace deal than is currently the case with Hamas. I will therefore focus exclusively on Hamas in this article. 2 Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, The Palestinian Hamas (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), pp. 169–71. Similar conclusions can be found in the main texts on Hamas: Khaled Hroub, Hamas (Washington: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2000); Beverley Milton-Edwards, Islamic politics in Palestine (London: I. B. Tauris, 1996); Ziad Abu-Amr, Islamic fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994); Andrea Nüsse, Muslim Palestine (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 1998). See also Graham Usher, ‘What kind of nation?’, Race and Class 37: 2, 1995. INTA80_2_04_Gunning 3/3/04, 2:10 PM 233