“Today with music, tomorrow with guns,” jokes bartender Bassem Khoury as he mixes a cocktail at a bar in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
The evening throng of well-dressed men and women enjoying food, drinks and loud music is typical of bars and clubs across this city — the Palestinian political center and one of the most liberal cities in the Middle East.
Alcohol is widely available and women wearing jeans and high-heels are almost as commonplace around town as those dressed in traditional full-length hijab.
As the evening wears on, chatter focuses on the burning topic — whether the shock victory of Hamas Islamic militants in Palestinian elections will draw a veil over this free-wheeling lifestyle?
“If they announce an Islamic state like Iran I expect that alcohol would be prohibited and these places will become extinct,” says bartender Khoury.
Will the music end?
The worry is that even the music will be cut off if Hamas decides to enforce a conservative brand of Islam while some fear violence between Hamas militants and gunmen from the long-dominant Fatah movement.
“Some people have fears. Others don’t. We don’t know what will happen but I feel that things will be alright with Hamas,” says Wissam, a shopkeeper whose store does a brisk trade in wine, spirits and beer.
Hamas, which has seemed as surprised as anybody by its landslide election victory, has not yet said how it will blend its Islamic ideology with its new-found political power.
Some say the mere fact that Hamas has taken the reins will have an effect on the liberal attitudes of Ramallah’s Palestinians.
“With Hamas’ victory, women will be more conservative in what they wear, even if they don’t enforce any law,” said Diala Saqfalheit, a Ramallah resident.
West Bank Palestinians only need look at their compatriots in Gaza to realize a conservative Islamic moral code can be adopted almost overnight.
At the beginning of the latest bloody Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in 2000, young Islamic radicals torched bars and hotels serving alcohol in Gaza.
They smashed bottles of whisky and wine on the streets.
The last watering hole in Gaza, the United Nations club, which was open only to outsiders, was bombed on New Year’s Day this year and has not reopened since.
International calls for Hamas to moderate its stand on coexistence with Israel and its armed struggle are echoed by those Palestinians who are concerned about Hamas’ support for strict Islamic law.
“Either Hamas becomes more strict about what we are doing or they will become more moderate in terms of building the state of Palestine,” says Nadim Khoury, owner of the Taybeh Brewery.
He is already considering whether to start a line of non-alcoholic beer.
