When computer science student Mohammed Aruri was in jail, standing on his tiptoes with his hands tied behind his back and a sack on his head, he found comfort thinking of the future.
“I always believed this terrible situation I’m in is something I will be repaid for by God,” says Mr. Aruri, who spent more than a year in both Israeli and PA prisons.
As a Hamas supporter in the West Bank, he faces two powerful foes: Israel and the PA, which is dominated by Hamas’s secular rival, Fatah, and keeps a lid on Hamas activism in the territory. Aruri’s uncle, Hamas militant leader Saleh Aruri, spent 15 years in prison before being exiled to Turkey; even his grandmother was arrested.
But this spring, Aruri had something to celebrate: he and his Hamas-affiliated party pulled off a stunning upset in the Birzeit University student elections, defeating Fatah for the first time since 2007.
Israel and the US consider Hamas a terrorist organization, and it has a strong armed wing that has engaged in three wars with Israel in the past six years. Last summer, its rockets sent more than half Israel’s population running for bomb shelters.
But there is another side to Hamas that is less publicized. Hamas supporters’ homes tend to be immaculate. Their manners and dress impeccable. And their work ethic impressive. Long before they entered politics, they built popular support by providing services to their communities, as did their parent organization, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.
Indeed, Aruri chalks up their election victory to their diligent work at Birzeit to provide practical opportunities for students, such as sports matches, financial help with tuition, and free medical exams.
With a quiet confidence that belies his youth and personal struggles, he vows that Palestinian nationalism will prevail despite Israel’s superior resources and the PA’s current suppression of armed resistance against the Israeli occupation.
“It’s not the money, it’s the will of the people. Look at Gaza – it’s besieged and it was able to make drones,” he says. “People who … want their homeland back are the resilient people, they are the stronger people.”
His conviction rests on the Islamic teaching that Jews will rule only twice in this world, and the state of Israel is seen as the second iteration, whose time is coming to an end. When asked if he would be satisfied with Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem – the typical two-state solution formula – he responds, “No.”
“We have 6 or 7 million waiting to come back to their land,” he says, referring to the Palestinian diaspora, millions of whom are living as refugees in neighboring Arab countries. “[The Jews] have evicted a lot of people and it’s time they left.”
