1

Liminality in EU-Hamas Relations

*** DRAFT PAPER ***
Please do not cite without prior permission from the author


Dr Michelle Pace, Senior Research Fellow and RCUK Fellow, Political Science and International
Studies Department, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, m.pace@bham.ac.uk

Paper prepared for the British International Studies Association Annual Conference 2009, University
of Leicester, December, 14 16, 2009. Session 5, Panel 5.9 organised by the BISA Working Group on
International Mediterranean Studies, on EU, Democracy Promotion and Normative Power: Neo-
Colonialism in the EU's External Relations Tilton John Foster Hall, Tuesday, 15
th
December, at
4.30pm 6.00pm.

Acknowledgements and Disclaimer: The author is grateful for funding for this research from the
British Academy (LRG-45504) and the Economic and Social Research Council (First Grants Scheme
RES-061-25-0075). This paper is based on the authors findings from her B.A. project and her on-
going ESRC project. It is thus work-in-progress.

Abstract
This paper captures, on the one hand, the liminal state in which the European Union found itself in,
since the coming to power of the Hamas movement, following Parliamentary elections in Palestine
during January 2006. On the other hand, it also portrays Hamass conscious state of being on the
threshold or in a liminal state, of or between at least two different existential planes, that of a
national social movement and a political party. This Lacanian mirror image of the liminal state of
both the EU as an external actor in Palestinian affairs and of Hamas as a popular movement in
Palestinian society is characterized by ambiguity and indeterminacy. This cognitive mapping shows
how both the EUs as well as Hamass sense of identity, to an extent, has been dissolving, bringing
about a sense of disorientation on both sides. The paper is inspired by and draws upon critical
writings on subjectivity to highlight how liminality from a non-Euro centric perspective, can refer to
periods of transition, where on the EUs side, what has been so far considered as normal and
which has limited the possibility of reflexive thought, self-understanding and behaviour can be
relaxed in a situation of encounter with Hamas officials from the political wing to lead to new
2

perspectives. The paper also draws upon extensive fieldwork conducted by the author in Palestine
during September 2007 and November 2009 and in Brussels during March and April 2009. The hope
is that the EU and Hamas do not remain locked in a permanent state of liminality as conceived from
a purely Eurocentric perspective. This will require EU and Hamas officials to engage in an exploratory
dialogue and on a more equal playing field.
Introduction
Theoretically speaking, there are various modes of liminality. European Union Foreign Policy /
External Policies can be taken as one example of how policies have the potential to create liminal
spaces or liminars and how in turn, these spaces evolve within this paradigm. The focus on Hamas in
this paper is taken as a case study to reflect perspectives on such liminality. As Karsten Friis (2000)
argues, a liminar can for instance be also representations of (what may appear to be) competing
world-pictures The liminars threaten the ontological order of the (external policy) entrepreneur (in
this case the EU) by challenging his representation of Self and Other and his mediation of chaos,
which ultimately undermines the legitimacy of his policy. The liminars may be securitized by some
sort of disciplination, from suppression of cultural symbols to ethnic cleansing and expatriation. This
is a threat to the ontological order of the entrepreneur, stemming from inside and thus re-
politicizing the inside/outside dichotomy. Therefore, the liminar must disappear. It must be made
into a Self, as several minority groups throughout the world have experienced, or it must be forced
out of the territory. A liminar may also become an Other, as its connection to the Self is cut and their
former common culture is renounced and made insignificant. Or, in Anne Nortons (1988:55)
words, The presence of difference in the ambiguous other leads to its classification as wholly unlike
and identifies it unqualifiedly with the archetypal other, denying the resemblance to the self. The
aim is for the liminar to be removed as an ontological danger (chaos), and for the mediation of daily
security (Huysmans 1998:242). Thus, through these strategies the EU as an external actor attempts
to discipline the unknown (Hamas) by not allowing the movements strategies to challenge the
order or the existing system and thus endeavours to make Hamas a visible, clear-cut Other. It
follows that the concept of liminality highlights the double-politics of subversion and domestication
at play in the encounters between the EU and resistance movements like Hamas.
1
While the EU
sought to impose order through the Quartets conditions after the Palestinian election results of
2006, the parastate Hamas,
2
through a number of processes such as resistance, has opened up
and situated the movement in a liminal space that subverts the EUs categories as these are being
created.

More recent studies of the liminal in International Relations invite scholars and practitioners in the
field to shift their gaze from the Self and its Other, to that which is to be found in between (Hamas is
such a case of an in-between: it is not a state actor but neither is it a non-state actor. Similarly, the
EU is not a state actor either). In the Middle East context, Halliday (2005: 229) convincingly argues:

1
The Arabic word hamas (zeal) derives from the verb hamisa, which in a philosophic sense denotes the idea of
throwing ones self wholeheartedly behind a cause. The word HAMAS is an acronym for Harakat al-
Muqawama al-Islamiyya (the Islamic Resistance movement).
2
This is a phrase coined by Erik Mohns, PhD fellow at the Center for Contemporary Middle East Studies,
University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark. The author of this paper was involved in a PhD workshop
on European Middle Eastern Encounters entitled Authoritarianism, Political Islam and Ethnopolitics in the
Mediterranean Region, December 3-4, 2009, during which I had to prepare responses to the PhD projects that
were presented at the said workshop.
3

as agents of political change in the region, Middle Eastern states are far from being alone
[F]orces other than the state, the non-state and the transnational, in the sense of that which links
societies without going through states, are recurrently important.
Dr Youssef agrees:
We have Hamas here which is not functioning within an independent state: this is a context of
occupation and sanctions. The people, in the main, voted for us but it is not easy to govern in such
conditions. We try to function as legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people but we have a
whole world conspiracy against us: Arab regional actors are afraid that this model could reflect badly
on their countries; Fatah they will not easily surrender their power and they will do all they can to
discredit our movement, they dont want us to succeed. Then we have the Americans who with their
war on terror consider Hamas a threat and have put us on their list. Fourthly, we have Israeli
aggression against us and now even the Europeans and most of the rest of the international
community are working to discredit us. So we are left to manage ourselves in a situation where the
political programme we had hoped to implement is becoming more challenging by each day that
passes. We understand that the people have voted against corruption and they want to see real
change on the ground here. So we have decided to focus on the things that we can achieve: an
enhanced state of law and order in Gaza and peoples basic needs. But it is not easy to function in
this grey zone that we find ourselves in.
3

Thus, in this paper I choose to focus on the agency of both the EU and Hamas: both units of analysis
operate as regional and international actors in their respective domains. This perspective privileges
processual dynamics over static conceptual frameworks and examines the challenges that arise in
the encounters between power centres (the EU in this case) and their increasingly vocal peripheries
(Hamas in Palestine here). With the de facto territorial fragmentation of the Occupied Territories
and Palestinian society that ensued soon after the Palestinian legislative elections of January 2006,
Hamas found itself not only struggling for a just order through its resistance strategy, but also in
competition with its main rival Fatah, over the legitimate representation of the Palestinian people at
the national, regional and international levels. Putting the history of rival tribal politics in the
Palestinian context to one side (International Crisis Group 2007), international actors like the EU
have been complicit in furthering and deepening the bi-polarization at the domestic Palestinian
level, as EU officials themselves admit in private:
In the case of Palestine, Hamas appeared as a force for change. And we pressed for elections and
then we didnt address the consequences personally, I think that was a mistake. And if we thought
they were not democratic then we should have excluded them from the elections. Thats the first
thing. Since they were allowed to participate, we should have recognized the result, recognized
these representatives and talked with them. I think that would have been much more positive for
the whole dynamic in the region. It has become much more complex since 2006: two territories that
are split into two different political authorities and we have always put all our cards on Abbas and I
believe Abbas is not someone who enjoys popular support. Hes supported by the international

3
Authors interview with Dr Ahmed Youssef, Political Adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, Office of the Prime Minister,
Gaza, 11 September 2007.
4

community because he is seen as a potential partner for Israel in peace talks. But you cannot have
peace talks with a head who is not representative of the majority of the people. I think this is a
problem with Abbas this is my own personal view because I know that here in this building the
prevailing view may be the opposite and they continue to support Abbas .
4

Thus, Hamas has been left with a key struggle for retaining the popular legitimacy it had built up to
the 2006 elections.
Capitalising on field research carried out by this author, this paper thus analyses several elements
that exist in the relation between the EU and one of its liminars: the Hamas movement in
Palestine. In recent years, EU actors have been frantically involved in workshops, seminars,
conferences on how to engage with Islamist movements, particularly Hamas in Palestine. This soul-
searching exercise has arisen from the huge dilemma the EU has been faced with since the
Palestinian elections of January 2006 and the coming to power of the Hamas movement. Hamas is
on the EUs list of terrorist groups and individuals, which was last updated on 15 July 2008, and
which inhibits any sort of formal political contacts.
5
This does not and has not however hindered
direct contacts between EU government officials and Hamas officials by way of passive informal
contacts.
6
(Indirect contacts, via intermediaries such as academics are another way out of this
quagmire but do not allow the advantage of first-hand, face-to-face, insights and diplomatic
negotiations that can ensue through direct contacts).
7
When one considers the much mentioned
security interests of the EU in a stable and peaceful Middle East neighbourhood, this should come as
no surprise to any analyst, in terms of foreign policy calculations: it is values such as realism and
pragmatism that are given prominence in such contexts (Ross 2007: 125), although such interests
stop short of standing up to the Israeli governments stranglehold on Gaza and its related
humanitarian implications. The majority of European Union officials, across EU institutions,
interviewed by this author, argue that the listing of Hamas on the terrorist list was a mistake as first,
it is easier to put a group on the list but very difficult to remove it once on the list (notwithstanding
the democratic legitimacy of elected Hamas deputies which should provide foreign governments and
actors with a convenient channel for engagement and which should give legitimate justification for
contacts, at least with the movements political wing),
8
and secondly, that the EU was hard
pressured by the US and Israel to take this move. This hasty decision has cost the EU in terms of

4
Authors interview with a high official from the Council of the European Union, 23 March 2009, Brussels.
5
Available at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2008:188:0071:0076:EN:PDF. Last
accessed on 10 December 2009. Entitled, Acts Adopted under Title V of the EU Treaty. COUNCIL COMMON
POSITION 2008/586/CFSP updating Common Position 2001/931/CFSP on the application of specific measures
to combat terrorism and repealing Common Position 2007/871/CFSP.
6
Authors interviews with both EU member states officials in Brussels (March and April 2009) and Hamas
officials in Gaza and Nablus (September 2007 and November 2009).
7
During my fieldwork in Brussels, March April 2009, I was very surprised to find most of my interviewee
subjects asking me questions about Hamass positions on many issues of concern to the EU, as I had been to
Gaza to interview Hamas officials from the political movement in September 2007.
8
Negotiations with the IRA for instance were preceded by an exploratory dialogue while the IRA was still
blacklisted by the UK. See Grandjean 2009.
5

bringing the whole EU system to a halt and preventing it from functioning effectively in its role as an
arbitrator in the Palestinian-Israeli context. The EU, which usually adapts quite flexibly to new
situations, failed to move away from its rigid and technocratic stance in this instance which led to it
being labelled as a hesitant spectator in Middle Eastern affairs and as a discredited actor in the
region.
9

Analyzing official discourses in Brussels

and Gaza, I demonstrate

how, by situating Hamas in different
and also liminal/precarious positions with respect to Western notions of political parties,

the
democracy-building discourse of the EU reinforces the Hamas-Fatah and Gaza-West Bank splits in
Palestine. I thus propose a provocative view on the encounter between EU officials and Hamas
representatives in Palestine (from the movements political wing), by focusing on the disorientation
and dissolution of their hard identities, and the liminalisation of their rapport.
EU-Hamas encounters
Following the January 2006 elections in Palestine, the EU found itself experiencing an event that
placed the whole organisation in unfamiliar surrounds, confronted with a new situation: suddenly
the election of Hamas was a reality that the EU had to confront and the EUs bureaucratic machinery
was pushed to rethink its whole arsenal of democracy discourse which led them to a very unusual
and politically dangerous decision of boycotting a democratically elected government. Hamas does
not feature as a normal political party on the EUs radar: Although the peoples choice has to be
respected, there is a danger with that political power which seems to offer an alternative but which
does not enter how can I put this Hamas does not, cannot take full charge, a leading position in
the politics, they cannot assume full responsibility on their shoulders they have their ideology,
they have their policies, and they spread it around and people of course take that message at the
same time this party does not have the responsibilities that political parties would normally have
10

while Fatah, its main rival, does. So, the liberal was given precedence in the EUs discursive
framework over the democratic in this case: Moreover, the party which lost the elections is the
one that the EU continues to support because it is deemed to behave according to liberal criteria.
The EU made no noise when Hamas decided to participate in the 2006 elections. Thus, it has since
been very challenging for the EU to retain any coherence in its democracy discourse as it has been
exposed to an inherent contradiction in its logic of thinking on democracy in the case of Palestine.
There was much hope and expectation for the EU to acknowledge and address such incoherence in
its democracy promotion strategy since the Swedish Presidency which commenced on July 2009: In
the most recent document published by the European Council, as the direct quote below shows,
there is some movement in an alternative direction, but the EU has not gone far enough:
The Council, , affirms that there is room for improvement in how existing EU policies are
implemented, and that they should be applied more consistently and effectively in order to work

9
Interviews carried out by the author in Cairo, March 2007 and October 2009 and in Palestine September 2007
and November 2009.
10
Authors interview with a Commission official, European Commission, RELEX, 30 March 2009, Brussels.
6

better together as mutually enhancing parts of a coherent whole (Council of the European Union
2009).
11


Rhetorically, the EU has even moved closer to a position that Hamas officials can equally subscribe
to, in its thinking on how democracy can be defined:

Though democratic systems may vary in forms and shape, democracy has evolved into a universal
value. Democracy ensures that rulers can be held accountable for their actions. Governments with
democratic legitimacy must deliver on the basic rights and needs of people or they risk losing
legitimacy and public support (Ibid, my own emphasis. See earlier quote from Dr Youssef and
Hamass focus on basic needs).

This direct quote from the Councils recent document can be compared to the discourse emanating
from Hamas and its emphasis on basic rights and needs:

We believe in welfare democracy: I mean good governing means for me justice for all people living
on this land, regardless of gender, religion, their political opinion, etc. But in the case of Palestine we
are talking about governing in a very special case: under occupation. Therefore, it is very difficult to
practice good governing. But still for us citizenship rights, basic needs and rights of our people
should be the basis of the relationship between the citizens and their representatives.
12
A view
similarly echoed by Dr Youssef:

As a government we need to tackle peoples basic needs, particularly in our context.
13


Thus, some Middle Eastern actors and even if we refer to the basics of those advocating social,
welfare democracy would not necessarily prioritise elections as a core pillar of democracy, in the
same sense as a liberal model might. Elections form a key to a very particular model of democracy
(liberal democratic) but this particular model need not hold the key to conceptions of democracy
held by other actors in other contexts (although they might of course have views on elections too, as
clearly Hamas has).
14


There is another important issue at stake here. Hamas officials seem to imply that their fight against
the oppressor (Israeli occupation) gets priority vis--vis over any other fight, including the one for
democracy in Palestine. From a Western centric viewpoint one could argue that this argument may
be part of the problem in Palestine too (where occupation may be used as an excuse for furthering
political reforms as with authoritarianism in other Arab countries). Furthermore, it could be argued
that the fight for democracy and the fight to end the occupation may not necessarily be seen as
separate issues but as two issues running in parallel. EU officials also seem to find themselves in this
quagmire between promoting peace between the conflictual parties in Israel and Palestine and

11
Available at: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/111250.pdf Last accessed on 10
December 2009.
12
Authors interview with Dr Basem N Naim, Minister of Youth, Sport and Health, PNA, Gaza, 11 September
2007.
13
Authors interview with Dr Ahmed Youssef, Political Adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, Office of the Prime Minister,
Gaza, 11 September 2007.
14
I thank Milja Kurki for our exchange of views on this point.
7

supporting democratic reforms in Palestine. This puzzle may require more open and holistic views of
democracy, including grassroots/non- or anti-liberal forms of democratic politics which may hold
some promise for the peace process in the Middle East too. Furthermore, one could ask whether
democracy is necessarily incompatible with conditions of occupation: Surely some forms of
democratic politics may be practicable even under occupation?

So, what we have here are a set of possible interactive discourses where the EUs more recent
discourse meets Hamass discourse on democracy. In the EUs own words, EU democracy support
should include a special focus on the role of elected representatives and political parties and
institutions, independent media and civil society. Furthermore, EU support should take into account
the full electoral cycle and not focus on ad hoc electoral support only (Council of the European
Union 2009):

We should have engaged Hamas elected PLC members and encouraged them to see democracy in
practice after the 2006 elections. These officials have been choked in Gaza due to the Israeli siege
we should have encouraged an exchange of our Members of the European Parliament with Hamas
PLC members, we should have offered training sessions to these officials, we should have invited
them to see the European Parliament in session, to visit the French, British parliaments in session
and see for themselves how these different models work These would have been all good efforts
in sharing good governance in practice, how it can be improved. It is good practice
15

We tend not to consider other factors: if a country has elections than it is a democracy! You might
have elections but there are other conditions within a society that demonstrate that we are not yet
experiencing a fully democratic country. When one looks at the different indicators of democracy,
one notes the active participation of a truly fledging civil society, the inclusion of all political actors
involved, a system with a certain level of fundamental freedoms,
cultural/social/economic/environmental/civic and political rights of all
16

I think democracy is certainly more than just elections. The most important aspect of democracy is
solid institutions which are in a position to provide public services at a fairly efficient in a fairly
efficient manner. Education is another fundamental aspect of democracy to build a strong society ...
Now, in hindsight, we have the growing realization here that Hamas is a political and social
movement which commands enormous popularity in the territories. Our policies of the past have
not been successful in the sense that we have never had a real strategy for Gaza. Putting conditions
was the easiest thing to do: but we left us with absolutely no room for manoeuvre and it has left
them with no room for manoeuvre so we are all stuck.
17

This cognitive mapping shows how the EUs sense of identity, to an extent, has been dissolving,
bringing about a sense of disorientation across and within EU institutions. In order to address this
uncertainty, EU officials have been frantically participating at workshops, conferences and

15
Authors interview with a Council official from the Council General Secretariat, 2 April 2009, Brussels.
16
Authors interview with Commission official, EuropeAid, EIDHR unit (instruments and implementation), 31
March 2009, Brussels.
17
Authors interview with an official from the Council General Secretariat, 23 March 2009, Brussels.
Comment [E1]: [These are specific and
particular issues that Id very much like
feedback on from the discussant and
participants at BISA].
8

discussions on Islamist movements, Hamas in particular. For instance, in mid-September 2009,
officials from the Council of the European Union and the Commission joined a discussion on
Lessons from (not) dealing with Hamas and Hezbollah, led by a former staff member of the
International Crisis Group. The core focus of the discussions was the actual substance and meaning
of what it entails to engage Islamist parties. As one official puts it:
We cannot afford to take too hasty a decision on what we should think, on how we should deal
with an entity which we actually do not know anything about (Hamas). We must be able to have a
discussion also within the EU that will take into account the situation as it actually is on the ground
and also as a result of our own reactions in 2006. It would be good if we could learn from our own
mistakes.
18

However, apart from the fact that such discussions on engagement have been contaminated by the
EUs listing of Hamas on its terrorist list, engaging with Hamas is mostly understood in Brussels in the
sense of improving Europes image, rather than say boosting democratisation. The EU is fully aware
that it has lost all the credit it had carefully built up in Palestine through its response to the results of
the elections there in 2006, and thus also its legitimacy as an external actor.
As I have argued elsewhere, there is no clear definition in its documents of what the EU actually
means by Democracy in its so-called democracy promotion efforts (Pace 2009a). While this absence
may be read as a demonstration of the primacy of the EUs security concerns over the ones on
democracy promotion, others argue that the absence of such a clear definition is an example of a
constitutive undecidability that arrests European views on democracy promotion in particular
contexts and when the EU is faced with specific circumstances: such ambiguity is thus about the EUs
identity and how it aims to project its image outside its own borders (Ahmed and Norval 2010).
Improving their image is also the argument frequently mentioned by Hamas leaders in favour of
engagement with European actors (see also Kausch 2009: 4). In fact, Hamas officials from the
political wing of the movement in Gaza insist that what they expect from the EU is not some kind of
special treatment for Hamas as an Islamist movement but of the EU including the elected political
members just like any other representative, societal group.
19
Dr Basem N Naim (2007), for instance,
argues:
From our point of view, it is not easy to take a model of American democracy or European
democracy and simply practice it here in the Gaza Strip. We are committed to democratic
procedures as a resistance movement with an Islamic background and we had hoped that others
would respect the results of the Palestinian elections and to give us the chance to implement our
development plans here. We need to practice democracy now. You cannot imagine an ideological
movement like Hamas would from one day to the next simply become a political movement where
all members of this movement believe in democratic ideals as they are understood in Europe. This is
an ideological movement with its main cornerstone being its resistance of Israeli occupation: a

18
Authors interview with an official from one of the EU member states Permanent Representative Offices in
Brussels, 31 March 2009.
19
Authors interviews with Hamas officials in Gaza and Nablus, September 2007 and November 2009.
9

militant organisation with a political wing. This development needs time At the end, the
Americans, the Europeans, the international community has to give us a chance to develop our own
experience and to be in discussion with us along the way.
20

This expectation is in line with the work of Foucault (1998) and Norval (2007), to mention some
examples, who point us towards the direction of the will to truth, that is, a concern for the
integrity of subjective expression. By probing subjectivity such authors reflections become
increasingly moral and political, focusing on the social order. But as Chomsky (2009) argues, states
are not moral agents and although the EU is not a state-like actor, we cannot expect the
organisation to function in moral ways. However, Chomsky continues people are, and can impose
moral standards on powerful institutions.
Ahmed Youssef (2007) agrees:
I wouldnt say that countries like Egypt, Morocco or Tunisia are democratic: they oppress their
people and are dictatorial systems. But personally I believe democracy is a good option for the
people in the Middle East and Islam urges people to choose who their leaders will be, to choose the
best, and to also enjoy the freedom to speak out, to have competing political parties this is all very
healthy in a normal situation. Here in Gaza, we believe that if we have the masses behind us, we can
govern through our political programme (Change and Reform) and the people will support us.
21
But
if we do not deliver, the people will distance themselves from us the problem here is that the
people are suffering from the occupation and the siege so their priority is to feed their children
their basic needs.
22

Hamas in fact draws from two key sources of legitimacy: the international community and
Palestinian Resistance (the nation). The nation is the nodal point of nationalist discourses while
the international community or democracy is the nodal point of political discourses. Thus, Hamass
foreign policy discourse
23
is woven in between these two nodal points: at the same time these serve
as the two poles of Hamass foreign policy debate: the nation/people on the one hand and the
international community on the other. Thus, the foreign policy relations of Hamas exhibit some of
the characteristics of the EUs rational policy model: pragmatism and adaptation to particular
circumstances. It follows that, although it may often seem that ideology takes primacy, in certain
circumstances Hamas has been forced to make a value-maximizing framework its guiding force of
action. Therefore, the foreign policy of Hamas toward regional and international actors like the EU
has not always been shaped by ideological considerations (Muslih 1999). One may at this point

20
Authors interview with Dr Basem N Naim, Minister of Youth, Sport and Health, PNA, Gaza, 11 September
2007.
21
The Hamas Change and Reform Platform is one element of Hamass more recent domestic, regional and
international politics. An English version is available here:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid=1137605923080&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FSho
wFull
22
Authors interview with Dr Ahmed Youssef, Political Adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, Office of the Prime Minister,
Gaza, 11 September 2007.
23
On Hamass foreign policy see Muslih 1999 and also Boubekeur and Ouaissa 2009.
10

rightly question the relationship between Islamism, pragmatism and democracy in this context: does
Hamas aim to be primarily an Islamist, democratic or pragmatist movement? In the current climate
of international sanctions imposed on Hamas, it seems that perhaps it is democratic only secondarily
(in so far as this suits its political aims - which are pragmatic but guided by Islamist principles in the
words of its representatives from the political wing in Gaza).
24
Perhaps, this is why its views on
democracy (as I argue elsewhere)
25
are somewhat vague - because it is only 'pragmatically'
interested in it. This may not be the case but Hamas was not given the opportunity to prove its
democratic credentials since it was elected in January 2006. As one Commission official admits:
They have not been tested in terms of whether what they say is what they will actually do. They
were never given a chance to. They were never given a chance to either succeed or fail. So, people
could not test them out. And that remains a question mark.
26


Resistance of the Israeli occupation is a continuous struggle for Hamas for the creation of a
Palestinian state as an act of survival, both territorially and as Palestinians. However, Hamass
legitimacy in the eyes of its followers is under constant attack. So, looking at the two dimensions of
sovereignty (internal dimension and external dimension), although Hamas may appear to hold
internal legitimacy despite the tight sanctions imposed by Israel on Gaza, it is the PA which declared
Hamas illegal in Nablus.
27
Its external legitimacy is also questionable, given that it is not
acknowledged as a relevant political actor, let alone a state. These identity narratives in terms of
what Palestinian nationalists regard as ethno- or cultural features of the Palestinian nation
underscore what the nation stands for and in terms of what the nation should and could be in order
to constitute a modern state which mobilizes domestic loyalties and which obtains Western, that is,
external, recognition. Thus, for instance, through their English media source, the Palestinian
Information Center (http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/) Hamas presents, to an English speaking
audience, different images, metaphors and cultural cues which Hamas officials/political elites use in

24
Authors interviews with Hamas officials in Gaza, September 2007. On pragmatism, of course this is a very
loaded term. Pragmatism here implies a degree of reasonableness and therefore carries positive connotations.
But pragmatism depends on the position of those who observe it: so for example, Hamass positions are not
perceived as pragmatic, at least at the official level, from the Israeli point of view (although at time of writing,
Israel is indirectly negotiating with Hamas on a prisoner-swap. This exchange of prisoners deal has led Hamas
to relinquish the use of violence since the Gaza incursion of December 2008/January 2009. However, Hamas
successes are not sufficient to reverse altogether the negative public response to their approach (use of
violence) or activities. Public opinion polls have shown a huge drop in Hamas' popularity since its electoral
victory in 2006. While the prisoner exchange will undoubtedly boost their ratings, it is highly unlikely to bring
them back to 2006 levels. See Kuttab 2009. For both the EU and Hamas therefore, the use of pragmatic tactics
needs to be treated with caution, both in terms of how pragmatic both parties might be able to be in their
relations and on the criteria by which we measure pragmatism.
25
See Pace 2009b.
26
Authors interview with a Commission official, European Commission, RELEX, 30 March 2009, Brussels.
27
Authors interviews in Nablus, November 2009. Since the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June 2007, the
movement's followers have faced a crackdown from their Fatah rivals in the West Bank. See Amnesty
International report 2008 on Hamas members or sympathisers arrested by the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Available at: http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/palestinian-authority/report-2008. Last accessed on 10
December 2009.

11

their representations of liminal processes in their dialogue with European interlocutors. Such texts
are important to understand the interplay with Hamass subject positions and the interpellation that
predicates their efforts to negotiate the movements identities in relation to Europe. It follows that,
as a movement Hamas can transform its participants identities. For members of Hamas, the
movement represents a liminal phenomena characterized by varying degrees of freedom,
egalitarianism, communion and creativity: Hamass transformative power in the context of Israeli
occupation thereby depends on its degree of liminality (Yang 2000: 379).

Hamas officials in Gaza emphasise that the Quartets/EUs conditions on Hamas were not discussed
with the movement but imposed. There was therefore no room allowed for discussion of the
conditions set nor any space for negotiating the terms of the conditions. Privately, EU officials
agree:
On the three now infamous criteria of the Quartet: the way of behaviour for the EU was to follow
the Americans within the Quartet. The Russians have their own way to go, the UN is just a figure and
the US is doing what Israel tells them to do within the Quartet. The three criteria were formulated in
Israel not in Washington. The EU had no independent reflection on these three criteria. It was a big
mistake not to have a thorough assessment of these criteria. For instance, the third criteria of
recognising Israel: we should have worked on: there is a real problem for Hamas to recognise Israel
they directly asked which Israel are we supposed to recognise? The post-1967 borders or what? So
there would have been room to argue and build bridges but the EU has not seized this opportunity.
Hamas is not completely incoherent. How can we be coherent when we ask the movement to
recognise the occupying state? And legally speaking Hamas is not a legal body. Strictly speaking they
are not subject to international law. This tells us something about the limits of politics. Maybe
sometimes it is deliberate: its easier to polarize the Palestinians
28

Conclusion
The focus on the case of EU-Hamas relations in this paper has shed light on the role of para-states,
as a category of agents between states and non-state actors, in international relations. This case
therefore highlights the importance of moving away from dichotomies (as states and non-state
actors) and of giving closer attention to our subjects of analysis and how they play out on the
international scene. Both Hamas and the EU, display traits of sovereignty yet, at the same time,
they do not have sovereignty. The EU, for instance, has Commission Representative offices across
the globe and Hamas officials are received by countries like Norway and Russia as normal
international actors. However, both groups have exhibited high levels of political entrepreneurial-
ship: on the one hand, Hamas has shown its ability to mobilize a majority of Palestinians both inside
as well as outside Palestine. The EU, on its part, is also admired by many across the world for its
successful integration process which others wish to emulate. The question we need to ask ourselves
at this stage is whether International Relations as a discipline deals adequately enough, if at all, with
such liminal cases of in-between-ness, that is, with new categories. Hamas is no longer a social
movement or simply a transnational movement (the group now takes the role of an almost

28
Authors interview with an official from the European Parliaments DG for External Policies, 26 March 2009,
Brussels.
12

sovereign entity in Gaza at least) and we therefore need conceptual tools to understand the
development of Hamas beyond what the social movement literature can offer. The EU, on the other
hand, with the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty, may also be developing into something new.
Thus, we need to re-examine the nature of actors in international relations today. For instance, we
may consider a continuum ranging between non-state to para-state to state for our understanding
of developments in the case of Hamas. Similarly we may be in need to new conceptual lenses to
understand developments in the EU.
In terms of the democratisation literature, the case study of Hamas in Palestine implies something
specific about the kind of democratisation that is needed in the Middle East region which does not
follow the guidelines we find within the liberal democracy debates. The role of specific kinds of
actors, such as the para-state actor Hamas need to be better understood especially in terms of how
such actors impact on internal (Palestinian) politics and the struggle for national liberation.

In this paper, the issue has also been raised: what should the EU actively do about Hamas? Should it
discuss with it the EUs own vision of democracy and Hamas's vision and encourage debate on
democracy this way? EU officials acknowledge that the organisations reactions to the 2006 elections
have caused further splits within the Palestinian political landscape and reconciliation between the
two main parties is now of utmost importance. Can the EU reverse the damage it has done in this
case? As Grandjean (2009: 56-57) claims, an increasing number of prominent international figures
(are now) calling for a new strategy and adopting a more pragmatic approach towards Hamas by
engaging it in a diplomatic process, with the recognition of Israel as outcome rather than
precondition. Current Western-led politics of isolation of conflict parties like Hamas seem to be a
dead end. Developing and adopting an approach focusing on what actions and positions, if
undertaken by these movements, would be acceptable and constructive, rather than standing only
by what is unacceptable, seems reasonable. Drawing lessons from not dealing with Hamas and
Hezbollah seems as important and relevant as looking at lessons and implications from dealing with
them.

If this paper is to serve any intellectual purpose, it is hoped that it raises further questions on what,
in the current quagmire the EU finds itself in within the Palestinian case, it might now mean
to think about sovereignties, subjectivities, boundaries, borders and limits without automatically
reproducing forms of inclusion and exclusion, or universality and particularity, expressed in the
converging but ultimately contradictory relationship between international relations and world
politics (Walker 2009). Inspired by critical writings on subjectivity this paper has aimed at
highlighting how liminality from a non-Euro centric perspective, can refer to periods of transition,
where on the EUs side, what has been so far considered as normal and which has limited the
possibility of reflexive thought, self-understanding and behaviour can be relaxed in a situation of
encounter with Hamas officials from the political wing to lead to new perspectives.

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