However, because the gov-ernment failed to provide much-needed housing and economic reforms and refused to open up the system to meaningful democratic participation, the Muslim Brotherho
Trang 1They anticipated that Sadat’s death would lead to
a massive popular uprising to overthrow the regime
Although some riots broke out in upper Egypt,
espe-cially in the town of Asyut, a center of opposition,
the regime under Hosni Mubarak maintained
con-trol, and the Islamist organizations were brutally
repressed A long period of low-level warfare between
government forces and Islamist rebels ensued After
Islamist rebels killed a number of tourists at Deir
el-Bahari in upper Egypt in 1997, many Egyptians who
were heavily dependent on tourist revenues spoke
out against the radicals However, because the
gov-ernment failed to provide much-needed housing and
economic reforms and refused to open up the system
to meaningful democratic participation, the Muslim
Brotherhood and other Islamist movements remained
major political forces
In Egypt the so-called new Islamists eschewed
vio-lence and argued that to combat extremism, social
justice and educational reform were vital for the
regeneration of Egyptian society The new Islamists
demonstrated remarkable political and social
flex-ibility and supported reforms in education,
graduism, and peaceful dialogue They included Yusuf
al-Qaradawy; Kamal Abul Magd, a lawyer and former
government official; and others New Islamists
want-ed Islamic states baswant-ed on wassatteyya, or moderate
Islamic tradition, without violence or terrorism
SUDAN
In the Sudan Hasan al-Turabi led the Islamist movement
and was a major political force until he was removed from
office by the military in the 1990s In Tunisia the Islamic
Tendency Movement (ITM), led by Rashid
al-Ghannou-chi, who had been educated at the Sorbonne, actively
opposed the well-entrenched regime of Habib
Bourgui-ba in the 1980s In 1987 a number of ITM members were
arrested and tried, but after Bourguiba was removed from
office in a bloodless military coup led by General Zine al
Abidine ben Ali, many of them were released or allowed
to go into exile Although ben Ali’s regime was able to
provide some economic stability, it too became
increas-ingly authoritarian, and ben Ali tightened control over
the Islamist parties in the 1990s Ghannouchi went into
exile to Europe and renounced violence
ALGERIA AND LEBANON
In Algeria the major Islamist party, the Islamic
Salva-tion Front (FIS), was led by Abbas Madani, a
pro-fessor of psychology; Sheikh Ben Azzouz; and Ali
Belhadj, a charismatic and popular preacher When
the FIS won the first round of free and democratic elections in 1991, the military regime of the National Liberation Front (FLN) cancelled the elections, pre-cipitating a civil war that resulted in tens of thousands
of deaths Many FIS leaders were jailed until 2003 Madani then seemed to drop out of politics, but Bel-hadj remained unrepentant As long as the Algerian government failed to solve the basic problems of jobs, housing, and education, Algerian youth—who made
up a large percentage of the population—continued to
be attracted to Islamist parties
During the 1980s Hizbollah (Party of God), led
by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, a leading Shi’i cleric, emerged as a major force among Shi’i Lebanese, the largest but most disaffected Lebanese sect Hizbollah actively fought against the continued Israeli occupa-tion of southern Lebanon, and when Israel finally withdrew from most of southern Lebanon in 2000, Hizbollah gained most of the credit
Hizbollah then transformed itself into a major political force, and its members were elected to a number of seats in Parliament It also continued to attack Israeli forces in the disputed Lebanese terri-tory of Shaaba Farms, which Israel argued was Syrian territory Hizbollah sometimes attacked within
Israe-li borders as well and was viewed by Israel and the United States as a terrorist organization
In retaliation Israeli launched a major air, sea, and ground offensive into Lebanon in 2006 As in the 1982 Israeli war against the Palestine Liberation Orga-nization (PLO) in Lebanon, the 2006 attack not only inflicted heavy losses on Hizbollah but it also devastated the Lebanese infrastructure and caused many civilian deaths Many Lebanese and even secular Arabs were impressed by Hizbollah’s determined military defense against the Israeli attack, and the war actually led to an increase of support and recruits among many Lebanese and Muslims
PALESTINE
Similarly Hamas, the major Palestinian Islamist orga-nization, began in the late 1980s in the Gaza Strip as a reaction to the long Israeli occupation Hamas was led
by Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, who was blind and confined
to a wheelchair, and Dr Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, both
of whom were killed by Israel Many Palestinians, who were overwhelmingly supportive of the secular PLO, hoped that the 1993 Oslo Accords would lead
to a truly independent Palestinian state
However, when the PLO-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) came to be perceived as increasingly