Hamas, or “Islamic Resistance Movement”, is a Palestinian political-national organization with a military wing of a conservative Islamic nature and orientation. Its purpose is to resist the Israeli occupation, maintain resistance, and fight for the creation of an independent Palestinian state. It was officially established on December 10, 1987, with the Gaza City at the Gaza Strip headquarters.

What is Gaza? Gaza can define either a strip of Palestinian-controlled land sandwiched between Israel and Egypt or can be used to designate a city of the same name within the so-called “strip”. Gaza City is the largest in the disputed Palestinian Territories. It lies along the Mediterranean Sea coast in the Gaza Strip. The Arabic word hamas means “bravery”, “zeal”, or /and “strength”.

The political ideology of the organization is multifaceted: Islamism, anti-Zionism, Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic nationalism, but above all Palestinian nationalism. It is important to stress that Hamas’s religion (as of all Muslim Palestinians) is Sunni Islam, not Shi?i Islam, and, therefore, the organization does not enjoy direct support from Shi?i Iran (as does Shi?i Hezbollah in South Lebanon).

Although Hamas was founded in Egypt, the organization is focused on Palestinian nationalism and resistance to Israel as an occupying force and the creation of an independent Palestinian national state. However, the stated purpose of Hamas is not just to free Palestine but to destroy the Zionist state of Israel and replace it with an independent Islamic state. Together with this political task, Hamas maintains an important network of different and useful social services for Palestinians living within the Occupied Territories, and in this way supports the Palestinian people while undermining the Israeli government.

Nevertheless, Hamas’s military wing often deals in violent activities like rocket attacks or suicide bombings to realize its political goals. The organization has two wings –a military faction, the Izz ad-Dim al-Qassam Brigades, while the civil faction deals with humanitarian-social services.    

Hamas was originally affiliated with the non-violent Muslim Brotherhood, but in 1988, it broke ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and chose armed resistance in the quest for independence and the State of Palestine. Hamas attracted regional and international attention after its victory in the 2006 general elections in the autonomous Palestinian National Authority. The electoral triumph (which gave Hamas a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council) fostered a new wave of Islamophobic politics in Zionist Israel.

The Zionist demonization of all Palestinians as detested Arabs was now fostered with a new negative term – “fanatical Muslims”. From that time onward, the Israeli government combined anti-Palestinian hate speech with aggressive policies against the Palestinians. Consequently, the political situation in the Occupied Territories became aggravated, accompanied by an already depressing and horrible situation in which the Palestinians lived.

The direct ideological, racial, political, and human demonization of the Arab Palestinians by the Zionist Israeli authorities immediately after the Declaration of Israeli Independence on May 14, 1948 lasted till 1982 when Palestinians were described as the local anti-Semitic Nazis, regardless of the fact that the new Israeli government adopted anti-Semitic policy against the Semitic Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed and physically exterminated by the Zionists to create a greater pure Zionist-Jewish national state “from the river to the river” (Euphrates to Nile). The appropriation of Arabic place names in Palestine is part of a Zionist strategy to erase all traces of non-Jewish history of the region (ex.: Palestinian Fuleh /Jewish Afula; Palestinian Arab Masha and Sajara /Israeli Kfar Tavor and Ilaniya, etc.).

In the history of Zionist-Palestinian relations, there were more expressions of Islamophobia. In the late 1980s, when some 40 Arab Palestinian workers (out of a community of 150,000) murdered their Jewish employers and bystanders, the reaction of some academics, politicians, and journalists was to connect the case with Islamic culture and religion, without any reference to the military occupation of the slavish labour market developed on the ground by the Zionist masters.

The next outburst of Zionist Islamophobia was during the Second Palestinian Intifada in October 2000, when it was much easier for the Israeli political establishment and media to demonize Islam and Muslim Palestinians, as the Second Intifada was a militarized uprising by some Islamic groups, including suicide bombers.

Then, when Hamas won the 2006 general elections for the Palestinian Authority, a similar pattern of anti-Islamism and anti-Palestinian attitude was used. However, after October 7, 2003, when the Israeli-Hamas War started, the Zionist rhetoric on Islam and Palestinians mooted that absolutely everything Muslim or /and Palestinian is directly associated with terrorism, violence, anti-Semitism, and inhumanity.

The previous rhetoric of Nazification of everything Palestinian and Islamic returned. In general, the demonization of Islam and Palestinians is a practice in Israel as long as Hamas and its clone organization, Islamic Jihad, are engaged in military guerrilla activities (terrorism). Such harsh rhetoric aims to erase the rich history of Palestinians and the historical inheritance of Islamic culture in Palestine under the political umbrella of fighting Hamas as a “terrorist” organization.

Hamas, like other regional organizations and movements within political Islam, reflects the reaction of local Arab Palestinians to the cruel realities of occupation by the Zionist state (with direct and open assistance by the USA and silent approval by the EU), and a response to the inefficient solutions by the secular segment of the Palestinian national body (Fatah /PLO). It was strange that the Israeli-US-EU authorities were not prepared for Hamas’ electoral victory in 2006. Another surprise was the democratic feature of the victory as all Zionist sources were spreading propaganda that radical-fanatical Islamists cannot be either democratic or popular, which meant they were not be able to win the elections by democratic means.

That was a result of misunderstandings and false predictions by Israeli experts of the Palestinian issue, especially concerning the influence of political Islam, even before the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. The Israeli government allowed in 1976 municipal elections in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as it believed that the old politicians of pro-Jordanian viewpoint would be elected in the West Bank and pro-Egyptian politicians in the Gaza Strip; but the people gave a clear majority to the PLO. That was not surprising as the rise in PLO popularity was parallel to Israeli efforts to eliminate the secular Palestinian movements in both refugee camps and the Occupied Territories.

Hamas became a serious political force due to the Israeli policy to support the Islamic educational system in the Gaza Strip to counterbalance the influence of secular Fatah movement on Gazan Palestinians. Yasser Arafat and four more founding members established Fatah (Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine) in the 1960s, but unofficially, Fatah existed in Kuwait since 1957 as a consequence of crises caused by Palestinian refugees.

The Palestinian refugee question has its historical roots in 1948 when Zionist Israel, under the umbrella of the War of Independence, committed ethnic cleansing of ethnic Semitic Arab Palestinians. The division of Palestine in 1947 into Zionist Jewish and Arab Palestinian states displaced local inhabitants and caused bitterness for up to 800,000 Palestinians. Currently, the number of Palestinian refugees is estimated to be around 4 million.

The refugee crises continued during the wars of 1967 and 1973 and continues today by displacement of Palestinians by Zionist Israeli settlements in the West Bank and, since October 2023, by the barbaric destruction of the Gaza Strip by the IDF when 60% of housing was destroyed. Not all of the displaced Palestinians reside in refugee camps; a little over a million reside in UNO-run camps in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. The Kingdom of Jordan is the only country to have allowed Palestinian refugees to settle permanently within the country.

According to UNRWA, Palestinian refugees are officially understood as:

“…persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood in the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict”.      

Zionist-Israeli policy of settler-colonialism is at the heart of the conflict in Palestine since the late 19th century onwards, as settler-colonialism is a political projection, not an individual episode. Zionist settler-colonialism is rooted in the long-time policy of West European colonialism around the world. Zionists ignored the rights of indigenous inhabitants of Palestine. They wrongly understood a large part of the area as “nobody land” and, therefore, sovereignty over such land could be acquired through occupation and settler-colonialism. Consequently, all Palestinian national organizations and movements, from Fatah and the PLO to Hamas, included the struggle against Zionist settler-colonialism as part of their political programs.     

Fatah was founded as a secular organization for Palestinian resistance and the formation of an independent national state of the Palestinian people. Fatah did not have an armed organization until 1964 when it started attacking Israel, assuming the leadership of (as well as secular) the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1968 (after the 1967 Seven-Day War). The PLO was formed in 1964 by the Palestinian National Congress in Jerusalem by the Egyptian, Ahmed Shukairy.

In fact, the PLO was the brainchild of the Arab League, which met in January 1964 to discuss ways to help the Palestinians without hurting the member states of the League. The focal political aim was to establish an independent secular national state of the Palestinians with the claim not to allow Palestinian refugees to be expelled forever from their homes and land. Often using violent actions against Israel, the Fatah /PLO extended its activities to Palestine refugee camps in neighboring states like Lebanon, which were used as training camps for attacks launched on Israel.

Fatah suffered a major setback in 1970-1971 when it was expelled from Jordan. However, Fatah retained political leadership of the PLO under Yasser Arafat. In the 1980s, the ideology was softened as Israel was to be respected and allow the independence of secular Arab Palestine. The Palestinian Authority governs greater parts of the Palestinian Territory. The Authority was dominated till 2006 by members of the PLO. After the death of Arafat in 2004, what remained of the PLO was incorporated into other Palestinian organizations, with the bulk of power being absorbed by anti-secular Islamist Hamas.     

Many experts on the Palestinian Question and some Israeli officials believe that Hamas was an Israeli creation, directly or indirectly. More precisely, the Israeli authorities assisted the charity organization called the Islamic Society, founded by Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 1979, to become an influential political movement, out of which Hamas was created in 1987.

Ahmed Yassin remained Hamas’ spiritual leader till his assassination in 2004. Israeli officials believed that via his charity and educational activity, Ahmed Yassin would help to counterbalance the power of the secular Fatah movement in the Gaza Strip and among non-Gazan Palestinians. Israel viewed secular movements of Palestinians and Arabs as the dead enemy of Israeli security. Ahmed Yassin’s society, under a deal with Israeli authorities, opened an Islamic university in 1979, followed by an independent (from Israel) school, club, and mosque network for Palestinians.

The PLO, following the Oslo Accords (Sept 13, 1993) won the majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in 1996, taking a leading role in making a deal with Israel but also playing a crucial role in the 2000 (Second) Intifada. Hamas, as offspring of the Islamic Society, became in 1993 the focal social critic and political enemy to the Oslo Accords.

As the Israeli government wanted to alter the majority of the accords followed by a brutal Israeli settlement policy on the West Bank, Palestinian support for Hamas rose. By the mid-1990s, Hamas was seen as the only genuine political organization to protect Palestinian rights and national interests. Another reason for the popularity of Hamas among Palestinians living within the Occupied Territories was the failure of other Palestinian organizations in solving the Palestinian Question regarding the political status, statehood, employment, welfare, and economic security. The majority of Palestinians turned their hopes to solve these problems into religion, which offered politics of support, charity, and (Islamic) solidarity. Thus, Hamas defeated secular Fatah for control of the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006, and a brief civil war saw Fatah lose control of the Gaza Strip while retaining its leading position in the West Bank.

The political vacuum created by the death of PLO leader Yasser Arafat in 2004, was filled by Hamas as Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, was not as charismatic as Arafat and did not enjoy enough respect and full legitimacy. However, Yasser Arafat was delegitimized by the Israeli and American authorities, while they accepted M. Abbas as legal president of all Palestinians. That was the time of the Second Intifada (2000-2005) when Israel erected the wall and used roadblocks followed by assassinations of Palestinian politicians and national workers. This diminished support for the Palestinian National Authority, especially in rural areas and refugee camps, and increased the prestige of Hamas as the only political organization ready to struggle for Palestinian freedom. Essentially, Palestinians were left with no option for voting and trust except Hamas.

Since 2006 up to today, Palestinians hope the different Islamic organizations will drive Israelis out of the Gaza Strip. Regardless of the final results of the current Israeli-Hamas War (started on October 7, 2023), Hamas is deeply embedded in Palestinian society, mostly thanks to its attempts to assuage the miserable conditions of ordinary people by providing medical assistance, education, welfare, and fighting for the rights of Palestinian refugees (since 1948) to return home (unlike the Palestinian National Authority).   

What is Palestine? Palestine (Arabic: Al-Filastiniyya) is a self-proclaimed independent and self-governed nation between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The self-proclaimed borders of Palestine as a state formally include parts of Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinian Territories. The Palestinian ethnic name is derived from an ancient term for the land and people who settled on it – Philistines, 3000 years ago. Many nations officially recognized Palestine. But the majority of Western states did not for political reasons, especially the USA.

Constant animosity and strife between Palestine and Israel since 1948 have contributed to Palestinian instability and efforts for peace between the Palestinian self-administrative authorities and the occupying forces of the Zionist Israel, overwhelmingly supported by the US government. With more than 4 million people and a republican form of government, Palestine is today mainly an occupied territory, with large strips of lands under Israeli military occupation and Zionist illegal settlements. Palestine has a president, a prime minister, and a legislative council with formal capital in Ramallah, but the majority of its administrative offices work out of Gaza City because the nation is divided by Israeli occupation forces into two parts: the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The Palestinian territories (after the Ottoman occupation) were split up by the British mandate after World War I. Historical Palestine was again divided in 1947 by the creation of a Palestinian state, a Jewish (Zionist) state of Israel, and a separate entity for the shared holy city of Jerusalem. This plan was controversial and became the foundation of the current struggle for the land between Israel and the Palestine Territories.

The First Israeli-Arab War broke out in 1948 when a Jewish section of the British Mandate over Palestine declared its independence on May 14. Nakba Day or Palestinian Catastrophe is May 15, 1948, when the war started with ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, depriving the Palestinian section of the mandate of even more territory. Sections of the Palestinian Territory were being controlled by Israel and others by Egypt. During the new war between Israel and Arab countries in 1967, Israel inter alia occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Palestine economically depends on Israel. The territory has natural gas reserves and agricultural production but lacks large industries. The economic prosperity of Palestine directly depends on political relations between Israel and the Palestinian authorities. Israeli embargoes are more or less constant and limit the available natural resources and economic potentials to be properly used, causing starvation and dehumanization of the Palestinians.     

The views expressed by the author are personal.