Hamastan

Hamastan (Hebrew: חמאסטן) is a pejorative neologism, blending Hamas, a Palestinian political party with a military wing, and -stan, a suffix of Persian origin meaning "home of/place of".^[1][2][3][4] The term Hamastan generally relates to the Hamas administration of Gaza.

The term emerged during the days of Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, and is suggestive of either Bantustans (the nominally self-governing black homelands created in apartheid-era South Africa; see Palestinian enclaves),^[5][6] or Hamas' religious policies (rhetorically likened to the Taliban's rule of Afghanistan) or, alternatively, political ties with Iran.

Linguistic history

Since 2007, the term has been used to refer to Hamas's victory over Fatah in the Fatah–Hamas conflict.^[7]

After Hamas's victory in the 2006 Palestinian legislative election further heightened the Western world's fears of an emerging Islamic fundamentalist state in the Palestinian Territories, and various Israeli politicians, including Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu (on January 26, 2006, during a live IBA broadcast) increasingly employed 'Hamastan' disparagingly in the run-up to the Israeli elections to berate Ehud Olmert.^[8]

The term was also mentioned in an interview with Mahmoud al-Zahar, one of Hamas's leaders, in an interview with Newsweek shortly after the implementation of the planned Israeli disengagement from Gaza. In a conversation with al-Zahar in September 2005, Kevin Peraino, a reporter for the magazine, noted that Israeli officials were warning that after their withdrawal, Gaza would essentially become 'Hamastan'. Al-Zahar responded, "It should be 'Hamastan'. Why not? We are not corrupt. We serve the lower classes. We protect our land. It should be Hamastan!'"^[9]

With the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, the creation of an Islamic mini-state in Gaza has been described by many commentators as "Hamastan" or "Hamas-stan".^[10]

The suffix -stan (land) is from the Persian language, not Arabic; in general, it is not used in the names of Arab countries. The Arabic-alphabet spelling حماستان is used, though 'Hamastan' was not derived according to usual patterns of Arabic-language word formation and is, therefore, not really Arabic.

In this context, the Fatah-controlled West Bank has sometimes analogously been called 'Fatahland',^{[11][12][13][14]} a revival of a term originally used in the 1970s to refer to Southern Lebanon.

See also

• Palestinian insurgency in South Lebanon
• Gaza Strip
• Media coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict
• Islamism in the Gaza Strip
• Hamas Covenant – the founding principles of Hamas