In the Spotlight: Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement)

A long history of suicide bombings and other attacks on Israeli civilian and military targets has earned Hamas a well-deserved reputation as a murderous terrorist organization.  The organization shares many of al Qaeda’s attributes.  It is vehemently anti-Western, believing the Israeli state to be a creation of the West imposed upon the Arab world.  Hamas is, therefore, dedicated to the eradication of Israel and willing to use violence and terror to achieve its goals.  Hamas is a well-positioned obstacle to the peace process in Palestine, and by extension, a danger to American interests in the region and beyond.  Given the level of support the organization enjoys and its quasi-political status in the occupied territories, it is unlikely that Hamas could ever be completely rolled up.  Hamas will, therefore, remain a threat to American interests and an opponent of peace in the Middle East for the foreseeable future. 

Hamas is an Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement.  Though the group’s roots stretch back decades through the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine, Hamas took shape during the early years of the Intifada.  The genesis of Hamas represented not only resistance to the Israeli state, but also rejection of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) primacy in the Palestinian national movement.  By the end of the 1980s, the PLO’s role as the vanguard of Palestinian nationalism had been called into question by the organization’s expulsion from Lebanon, and later, its acceptance of a two state solution in Palestine.  Hamas expanded into the void left by the PLO’s rejection of violence, participation in the peace process, and recognition of the Israeli state’s right to exist. 

The distinct Islamic character of Hamas also set the group apart from the more secular PLO.  While Hamas shared the Palestinian national aspirations identified with the PLO, it placed nationalism squarely within an Islamic context.  This distinction manifests itself in two important ways.  First, it provided Hamas with an organic connection to Palestinian society that was not available to the PLO.  Like other Islamic movements, Hamas assumed an array of social functions such as healthcare, education and grass roots political representation.  Thus the group mixed militancy with a strong social agenda.  Second, it conferred upon the struggle against Israel the qualities of jihad (holy war).  Thus Hamas seeks the expulsion of Jews and the Israeli state from Palestine. 

Hamas became the most militant participant in the Intifada.  Initially, the group kept its activities within carefully controlled parameters, seeking to avoid direct confrontations with Israeli security forces.  This was a reflection of the group’s limited membership and support.  But the scope of Hamas operations grew as the group competed with other rejectionist movements for influence and prestige.  Hamas emerged from the Intifada with a tightly compartmentalized origination that effectively separated its rank and file civilian membership from its covert cells, and a well-developed operational infrastructure. 

If Hamas was born of the Intifada, then it came of age with the conclusion of the Oslo agreement and the mutual recognition of the PLO and Israel in 1993.  The creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip presented Hamas with a potential crisis of legitimacy.  Though Hamas sought to provide a political alternative to the PLO, it also sought to avoid violent confrontation with fellow Palestinians.  The PLO’s acceptance of a political track and a two state solution now raised the possibility of conflict between the two organizations.  The Israelis expected the PA to police Hamas and other violent rejectionist groups.  Moreover, Hamas could not ignore the fact that the PLO had won a measure of independence for the West Bank and Gaza.  The majority of Palestinians responded to the prospect of limited self-governance favorably.

Nevertheless, Hamas rejected a political solution that fell short of recouping all of Palestine.  Hamas embarked upon a dual strategy that sought at once to strike at Israeli interests and avoid confrontation with the PA.  It was a strategy that satisfied both tactical and strategic aims.  By targeting Israel, Hamas could inhibit and hopefully retard the peace process.  This would, in turn, foster an environment in which Hamas’ brand of Islamic militancy could thrive and gain support.   Hamas thus sought to coexist with the PA while making every attempt to expose the Oslo agreement as a betrayal of Palestinian aspirations and bring about its abolition.  This remains the modus operandi of the organization.

Over the last decade, Hamas’ tactics have grown more violent.  Operatives in the Izz el-Din al Qassam Brigades, clandestine military cells, have demonstrated increasing levels of sophistication.  In 1992, Israel deported hundreds of Islamic activists to Lebanon, an act with profound consequences.  The Lebanese Shiah terrorist organization Hezbollah had a decade of experience fighting Israeli occupation forces.  Hezbollah shared its knowledge about the construction of car bombs and the conduct of suicide attacks.  Both became hallmarks of Hamas operations following the return of these activists to the occupied territories.

Today, Hamas can boast supporters numbering in the tens of thousands.  The size of its clandestine militant cells is unknown.  Its power base remains in the Gaza Strip, though the group has had success in expanding to areas in the West Bank.  The Palestinian Authority has tried to control Hamas violence.  But the PA found, like the Israelis, that the group’s military wing is organizationally resilient.  Hamas gains support at the expense of the Palestinian Authority.  Should Yasir Arafat’s Fatah faction prove ineffective at delivering concrete Israeli concessions to the populations of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, support for Hamas will expand further.  Nevertheless, the degree to which most Palestinians share Hamas’ vision of an Islamic state remains an open question.

The Hamas campaign of assassination, car bombings, and suicide attack will continue as the group seeks to subvert a political solution in Palestine that includes Israel.  Nevertheless, the group has demonstrated surprising flexibility and an ability to supplant ideology with pragmatism.  That Hamas might one day choose to focus on its overt political activities in order to share in the governance of a future Palestinian state is not entirely out of the question.  In the long run, a successful campaign to end Hamas terror may depend less on the ability of Israeli and PA security services, and more on the ability of the peace process to deliver on the promise of an improved life for the majority of Palestinians.

Sources: 

Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence, and Coexistence (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000).
Michael Field, Inside The Arab World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994).
United States Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism, 2000, April, 2001.

 

By Dr. Michael Donovan CDI Research Analyst mdonovan@cdi.org

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