GAZA CITY — The young women of the rebellion like to get together for coffee at a small outdoor café not far from this city’s dingy beaches.
Sitting among a hip crowd of sports fans and local rap stars, the women and their friends gather to make plans, and to steel themselves against the trouble they are sure to face as their popular youth movement — inspired, they say, by the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt — gains momentum.
“I used to think that I was alone,” said Asma al-Ghoul, a well-regarded local feminist and journalist, as she lit a cigarette. “It felt like all the people were against me. But now I am very happy because I see that I am not alone. March 15 — it’s blocked the fear inside the people.”
If all goes well, the movement, known as March 15 after the date of its first major event, will force the militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, to seek a peaceful reconciliation with Fatah, its political rival in the West Bank.
It will also show that even the seemingly intractable Israel-Palestine conflict is not immune to the wave of youth empowerment currently sweeping the Middle East.
“It is like this movement brought us back from death,” says Ebaa Rezeq, a 21-year-old blogger and activist from Gaza City, as she drank coffee and updated her Twitter feed.
The March 15 movement is not a perfect analogue to the ones in Egypt or Tunisia. For one thing, Hamas is not, unlike Mubarak’s regime in Egypt, the sole antagonist.
Indeed, everyone — Hamas included — agrees on what the ultimate goal is: ending the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
But Hamas still relies heavily on armed resistance — a two-year truce with Israel recently came to a halt as Hamas militants and the Israeli army resumed firing missiles at one another — and remains wary of the intentions of its West Bank counterpart, Fatah.
The educated, Facebook-savvy youth of Gaza City see reconciling the Palestinian factions as a crucial first step.
“If you look at most Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” said a March 15 leader who goes by the nickname Abu Yazan, “most of them, and I really mean it, are looking for a peaceful way to end the occupation. We don’t agree with the missiles.”
The young activists were gathered in Gaza City’s Al Katiba Square on March 15 when Hamas police viciously turned against the protesters. For days, Hamas had struggled with how to react to the young activists’ demands — after all, to the extent that the youth said they just wanted reconciliation, Hamas could claim that was their own goal, too.
Youth leaders met with party officials, who seemed to promise that they would permit them to protest freely, but in the days leading up to the crackdown, the government sent conflicting messages.
The youth were undeterred, and on March 15, they arrived at their chosen protest space. Within minutes, Hamas youth arranged a counter-protest, with their own flags and slogans, and when the original protesters set off for elsewhere, Hamas policemen on motorbikes attacked.
Asma al-Ghoul, who says she supports the movement but does not consider herself formally part of it, was one of several journalists who were attacked and arrested that night. Her friend and fellow journalist, Samah Ahmed, was stabbed in the back by a uniformed officer as she fled the square.
Abu Yazan says that in the confusion of early March, and in the government’s brutal response to the protest, Hamas has showed signs of weakness.
“We have felt the panic between them,” he says. “Some Hamas leaders know that once we end the division, they will lose their seats of power and be back on the streets, and they don’t want this.”
In meetings in Gaza City last week, two Hamas officials voiced deeply varying views of the movement.
Hamas spokesman Salah al-Bardawil told The Daily that he recently met with some of the youth activists to help them better organize. “I told them: ‘Your movement is welcome, I agree with the idea to end the divide between the factions.’”
But another official, Taher al-Nunu, said, “Beyond March 15, we reject anymore demonstrations in Gaza.”
Some even speculated that the recent burst of violence from the Strip was a byproduct of this anxiety.
“Hamas finds itself very pressurized in Gaza, and when Hamas feels pressurized they go to Israel and shoot some rockets,” said one activist, himself a lifelong Hamas supporter. “Then they say, ‘Who is going into the streets against us, is against our fight with Israel.’”
But ask the young women at the cafe in Gaza City, and they will say they have no plans to back down.
“We have started something and we are not finished,” Ebaa Rezeq said. “We are fighting for a cause, not for a movement.”
Sitting among a hip crowd of sports fans and local rap stars, the women and their friends gather to make plans, and to steel themselves against the trouble they are sure to face as their popular youth movement — inspired, they say, by the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt — gains momentum.
“I used to think that I was alone,” said Asma al-Ghoul, a well-regarded local feminist and journalist, as she lit a cigarette. “It felt like all the people were against me. But now I am very happy because I see that I am not alone. March 15 — it’s blocked the fear inside the people.”
If all goes well, the movement, known as March 15 after the date of its first major event, will force the militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, to seek a peaceful reconciliation with Fatah, its political rival in the West Bank.
It will also show that even the seemingly intractable Israel-Palestine conflict is not immune to the wave of youth empowerment currently sweeping the Middle East.
“It is like this movement brought us back from death,” says Ebaa Rezeq, a 21-year-old blogger and activist from Gaza City, as she drank coffee and updated her Twitter feed.
The March 15 movement is not a perfect analogue to the ones in Egypt or Tunisia. For one thing, Hamas is not, unlike Mubarak’s regime in Egypt, the sole antagonist.
Indeed, everyone — Hamas included — agrees on what the ultimate goal is: ending the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
But Hamas still relies heavily on armed resistance — a two-year truce with Israel recently came to a halt as Hamas militants and the Israeli army resumed firing missiles at one another — and remains wary of the intentions of its West Bank counterpart, Fatah.
The educated, Facebook-savvy youth of Gaza City see reconciling the Palestinian factions as a crucial first step.
“If you look at most Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” said a March 15 leader who goes by the nickname Abu Yazan, “most of them, and I really mean it, are looking for a peaceful way to end the occupation. We don’t agree with the missiles.”
The young activists were gathered in Gaza City’s Al Katiba Square on March 15 when Hamas police viciously turned against the protesters. For days, Hamas had struggled with how to react to the young activists’ demands — after all, to the extent that the youth said they just wanted reconciliation, Hamas could claim that was their own goal, too.
Youth leaders met with party officials, who seemed to promise that they would permit them to protest freely, but in the days leading up to the crackdown, the government sent conflicting messages.
The youth were undeterred, and on March 15, they arrived at their chosen protest space. Within minutes, Hamas youth arranged a counter-protest, with their own flags and slogans, and when the original protesters set off for elsewhere, Hamas policemen on motorbikes attacked.
Asma al-Ghoul, who says she supports the movement but does not consider herself formally part of it, was one of several journalists who were attacked and arrested that night. Her friend and fellow journalist, Samah Ahmed, was stabbed in the back by a uniformed officer as she fled the square.
Abu Yazan says that in the confusion of early March, and in the government’s brutal response to the protest, Hamas has showed signs of weakness.
“We have felt the panic between them,” he says. “Some Hamas leaders know that once we end the division, they will lose their seats of power and be back on the streets, and they don’t want this.”
In meetings in Gaza City last week, two Hamas officials voiced deeply varying views of the movement.
Hamas spokesman Salah al-Bardawil told The Daily that he recently met with some of the youth activists to help them better organize. “I told them: ‘Your movement is welcome, I agree with the idea to end the divide between the factions.’”
But another official, Taher al-Nunu, said, “Beyond March 15, we reject anymore demonstrations in Gaza.”
Some even speculated that the recent burst of violence from the Strip was a byproduct of this anxiety.
“Hamas finds itself very pressurized in Gaza, and when Hamas feels pressurized they go to Israel and shoot some rockets,” said one activist, himself a lifelong Hamas supporter. “Then they say, ‘Who is going into the streets against us, is against our fight with Israel.’”
But ask the young women at the cafe in Gaza City, and they will say they have no plans to back down.
“We have started something and we are not finished,” Ebaa Rezeq said. “We are fighting for a cause, not for a movement.”
