Hamas

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HAMAS

Informal name of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Harakat al-Muqawima al-Islamiya), formed from its acronym in Arabic. HAMAS is an Arabic word meaning "fervor" or "zeal." HAMAS was founded in the Gaza Strip on 14 December 1987 by Shaykh Ahmad Yasin with Abdullah Darwish, Abd al-Aziz Rantisi, Salah Shahada, and Ahmad Shama, Palestinian followers of the Muslim Brotherhood. Constituted a few days after the start of the first Intifada, it proposed fighting for the liberation of Palestine and the re-Islamization of Palestinian society. According to its charter, published in 1988, HAMAS sanctioned armed struggle against Israel only in Palestinian territory and proscribed inter-Palestinian armed conflict. Its leadership was composed of a board of directors (Mudiriya), a consultative council (Majlis al-Shura), and departments (Shaaba) or bureaus (Maktab). The political bureau (al-Maktab al-siyassi) was headed by a general secretary, and the military bureau (al-Maktab al-askari) supervised the operations of the armed branch (al-Jinah al-musallah), called the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigade after a martyr of the revolt of the 1930s. HAMAS combined resistance to Israel with significant social action (such as charities) among the Palestinian population. At first Israeli authorities were not opposed to it, hoping that HAMAS would weaken the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In 1988, the western sector of al-Fatah, led by Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad), in charge of operations in the occupied territories, tried unsuccessfully to mount joint actions with HAMAS and Islamic Jihad. On 29 September 1989, the Israeli authorities declared HAMAS illegal. On 14 December 1990, the third anniversary of its creation, it claimed responsibility for its first attack, the assassination of three Israeli soldiers in Haifa. On 12 January 1991, HAMAS launched a general appeal for holy war to the population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

At the end of the 1991 Gulf War, while preparations for the Madrid Conference for peace in the Middle East were underway, the HAMAS leadership came out categorically against any negotiated settlement with Israel. In September 1992 HAMAS published a tract expressing a hardening of its position toward the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. On 13 December a commando kidnapped an Israeli border guard. When Israel refused to exchange the guard for Shaykh Ahmad Yasin, who had been sentenced to life in prison, the border guard was killed, which led to the arrest of 1,223 people by the Israeli authorities and the expulsion to Lebanon of 415 sympathizers or members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and HAMAS. During this exile, negotiations were begun for a rapprochement between the PLO and HAMAS, but they were fruitless. In November 1993, resolutely opposed to the Israeli-Palestinian accords of the previous 13 September, HAMAS joined the vanguard of
those who comprised the Palestinian opposition in Damascus, the Alliance of Palestinian Forces (APF). In April 1994, in response to the assassination of twenty-nine Palestinians by a Jewish colonist in Hebron the preceding 25 February, HAMAS undertook a series of deadly suicide attacks in Israel. In June 1994, with the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Gaza Strip, a difficult cohabitation began between the two organizations. Although rejecting the Israeli-Palestinian accord, HAMAS nevertheless recognized the PA, which among other functions had taken responsibility for suppressing anti-Israeli militancy. Because of its charity work, HAMAS enjoyed the support of a large part of the Palestinian population, even if the majority of the population opposed the terrorist tactics HAMAS was using, such as suicide bombings. Many members of the movement were arrested by the Israeli and Palestinian police forces and two leaders of the armed section were assassinated by Israeli services.

On 25 July 1995 one of the main leaders of the political section of HAMAS, Abu Musa Marzouq, was arrested in the United States. In the autumn, faced with the prospect of presidential elections in January 1996 and not wanting to accept the Oslo Accords, HAMAS refused to engage in the electoral process. Two splinter groups that favored electoral participation but represented only themselves were formed: the Islamic National Way and the Islamic Front for the Salvation of Palestine. In October 1997 Shaykh Yasin was freed from prison as part of a deal to return two Israeli agents who had been caught in Jordan trying to assassinate a HAMAS leader. Shaykh Yasin returned to Gaza, where he gave a speech advocating struggle against Israel and inviting Yasir Arafat to join "the resistance front." Between 1998 and 1999, under the pressure of Israeli authorities, who demanded that harsher measures be taken against HAMAS, the Palestinian police regularly interrogated many of its leaders and militants. In 1998 the PA arrested some HAMAS leaders over their criticism of the Wye River Accords. At the end of August 1999, when the Jordanian authorities decided to close the offices of HAMAS in Jordan and issue warrants for the arrest of its representatives, several of them went underground. On 22 September Khalid Mish?al and Ibrahim Ghusha were arrested by the Jordanian police and Abu Musa Marzouq, who had returned to Amman, was expelled to Iran. HAMAS attended a national meeting of opposition groups with the PA in October 1999 but later severely criticized it for participating in the Camp David talks of July 2000. At the same time, however, Shaykh Yasin announced that if the Israelis stopped attacking Palestinian civilians HAMAS would stop attacking Israeli civilians and that if the Israelis pulled out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip HAMAS would observe a truce. With the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Intifada in the Palestinian territories in October 2000, HAMAS and the PA reconciled. In November 2000 HAMAS joined the resistance committees through which national and Islamic forces coordinated their local actions. HAMAS intensified its campaign of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, leading to many Israeli reprisal operations. In 2002 Israel reoccupied the West Bank Palestinian "autonomous" areas. On 22 March 2004, after a failed attempt the previous September, Israel succeeded in assassinating Shaykh Yasin in a missile attack. He was succeeded by Abd al-Aziz Rantisi, who had survived an assassination attempt the previous June. Israel assassinated him on 17 April 2004. His successor's name has not been announced. In June 2004 it was reported that Ismail Hanyeh, a HAMAS leader, announced that HAMAS would stop resisting the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip if Israel withdrew from the areas it had been besieging for the previous two months.

HAMAS has offices in many countries, including Iran, Jordan, Sudan, Lebanon, and Syria. Originally financed mainly by its members and others who wished to contribute to its charitable activities, it received substantial aid from the Gulf states during and after the Gulf Crisis of 1990 and 1991, when those states withdrew their aid from the PLO. Although it is Sunni, HAMAS has been financed largely by Shi?ite Iran since 1991, when Iran sponsored an international conference, meant to contrast with the Madrid Conference, to support a Palestinian Islamic revolution.