I.

Introduction

Hamas, Palestinian group seeking to create a single, Islamic state in historic Palestine, which is now largely divided between Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Hamas, meaning “zeal” or “fervor” in Arabic, is an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya, or Islamic Resistance Movement. Hamas’s charter calls for Israel’s destruction, and Hamas has engaged in terrorist activities. It entered the political arena for the first time in 2005 by participating in municipal elections in Gaza and the West Bank. In the 2006 legislative elections for the Palestinian National Authority, Hamas found significant support among Palestinian Arabs residing in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.

Hamas’s leadership grew up in the late 1940s, mostly as impoverished offspring of Palestinian refugees. Many of Hamas’s leaders were educated in Cairo during the rule of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Present members include religious leaders, sheikhs (Arab chiefs), intellectuals, technocrats, businessmen, young activists, and paramilitary fighters.

To cultivate support, Hamas has provided social services to the needy in the 11 refugee camps in Gaza. Providing social welfare and education through clinics, kindergartens, summer camps, medical services, sports programs, and job programs tied the Hamas leadership to its supporters. Mosques and Islamic religious organizations have been Hamas’s most important vehicles for spreading its message and providing its services. Partly funded by its members, most funds come from sympathizers abroad. Because the European Union (EU) and the United States have labeled Hamas a terrorist organization, funds raised for Hamas in Europe and the United States have been seized, and the organization’s fundraising ability has been curtailed.

II.

History

The group was founded in 1988 as a militant segment of the Palestinian Arab national movement and was connected ideologically to the Muslim Brotherhood, which was founded in Egypt 60 years earlier. The Muslim Brotherhood rejected the influence of Western culture and called for the increased role of Islam in government and society. Hamas was created after the 1987 outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It emphasized the destruction of Israel, the gradual return to Islamic values, and the rejection of secularization. Hamas firmly opposed the 1993 Oslo Accords, in which the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel engaged in mutual recognition for the purpose of Israel’s gradual transfer of power, land, and limited self-rule to the PLO.

Led by Ahmed Yassin, a charismatic Gaza leader, who was a religious leader by study but not formal theological training, Hamas catalyzed physical confrontation against Israelis and Israeli institutions. It sought to change the secular nature of the PLO. Meanwhile, leadership of the PLO viewed Hamas, as well as the much more militant Islamic Jihad organization, as significant threats to the PLO’s dominance and position as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

During the first intifada Hamas urged Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to confront Israeli authorities. It coordinated labor strikes against Israel and conducted a campaign to try to make Muslims adhere to a strict Islamic code. In 1989 Hamas members kidnapped and murdered two Israeli soldiers in a direct attack on Israel. In response, Israel declared Hamas an illegal organization, and arrested Yassin. Yassin was later exiled to Jordan but returned to the Gaza Strip in the late 1990s. After several more terrorist attacks, in December 1992 Israel expelled more than 400 Hamas members and supporters to a remote area inside the Lebanese border, where they were left for a year.

After denouncing the September 1993 Oslo Accords, Hamas increased its strikes against Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as in Israel proper. It boycotted the January 1996 Palestinian presidential and legislative council elections. The elections were won by Fatah, headed by PLO leader Yasir Arafat. The boycott was in part because Hamas knew its showing would not be impressive, but also Hamas wanted to avoid giving legitimacy to the PLO’s recognition of Israel and to the secular nationalist camp that the PLO represented. Under the accord, Israel, the United States, and Western European nations asked the newly created Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to suppress Hamas’s attacks. Arafat periodically restrained Hamas terrorist actions against Israel but he did not suppress them altogether.

Hamas activists were pleased when the PLO and the PNA vaguely agreed to end armed struggle in its confrontation with Israel. For those Palestinians who did not want a political solution to their differences with Israel and only wanted to use violence against the Jewish state, Hamas was a political umbrella under which these Palestinians could continue their armed struggle against Israel. Hamas was also pleased that the U.S.-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian summit in the summer of 2000 failed. It welcomed and participated in the outbreak of the second intifada against Israel in September 2000.

The renewed uprising led to a significant increase in support for Hamas’s views among the region’s Muslim Arab population. For Hamas, the second intifada reaffirmed Palestinians’ steadfastness against Israel, the failure of diplomatic negotiations, and its policy of studied patience in seeking to broaden the group’s appeal in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. During the intifada, Hamas sponsored and organized actions that were responsible for the killing of more than 350 Israeli men, women, and children, and the wounding of many others. From 2000 to 2004, Israel responded by building a fence around Gaza and attacking perpetrators and planners of the suicide attacks.

In March 2004 Israel Defense Forces assassinated the Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin in a helicopter gunship attack as Yassin left a mosque in the Gaza Strip. The next month Israel assassinated his successor Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, a cofounder of Hamas. In both cases Israel claimed that these two men had collective responsibility for killing Israeli civilians. Israel announced a willingness to continue such targeted assassinations as part of its war on terrorism. The assassinations occurred as Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon said he was ready to unilaterally evacuate some 9,500 Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

Succession in Hamas devolved to Mahmoud Zahar, another founder of the organization, and Ismail Haniyeh, who resided in the Gaza Strip. Hamas organized itself under a disciplined collective leadership, which also included Khaled Mashaal, who headed its political wing in Damascus, the capital of Syria. In March 2005 Hamas announced its readiness to participate in the upcoming July elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), a reversal of its stance in 1996. When the July elections were postponed to January 2006, Hamas opposed the delay, but gained extra time to secure its popularity. Meanwhile, Hamas successfully contested municipal elections held in 2005 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In virtually every city, Fatah and Hamas shared local control of politics, with Hamas taking credit for streamlining budgets and eliminating corruption. Political observers viewed Hamas’s successes at the local town and village levels not as an endorsement of Hamas’s political or ideological views but as revenge against the laxity and corruption of the Fatah movement in the PNA.

Also in March 2005 Hamas agreed to a cease-fire with Israel. Known as the Cairo Declaration because it was mediated by the Egyptians, Hamas and 12 other Palestinian factions agreed to a stipulated “calm” or cease-fire. It was an informal response to Israel’s withdrawal from the cities of Jericho and Tulkarm in the West Bank. Hamas leaders made clear that their indirect cease-fire or “hudna” with Israel was tactical; the organization’s primary goal remained the liberation of all of Palestine and the imposition of stricter Islamic rule. As Hamas leader Zahar declared in March 2005, “Hamas is ready to accept a long-term truce, keep the conflict open … if our generation cannot act, it must not make concessions … we can establish a state on any inch without ceding the other inches.” With periodic flare-ups as exceptions, the “calm” held through the 2006 PLC elections. Noticeably there were no attacks against Israel prior to or immediately after Israel’s August 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. At the local political level, Palestinian municipalities quietly made arrangements with Israeli officials where electricity and other services were dependent upon Israeli supply.

In the January 2006 parliamentary elections for the PLC, Hamas won 76 of the 132 seats, emerging as the dominant political force among Palestinians. Fatah won 43 seats. Under Palestinian law, Hamas obtained the right to name the prime minister and Cabinet and run the daily affairs of the PNA. It soon named Haniyeh as the prime minister. The presidency, however, remained in the hands of Mahmoud Abbas, leader of Fatah. Seven out of ten eligible Palestinian voters in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem cast ballots, a comparatively high turnout for any democratically held election.

Hamas’s overwhelming victory was attributed to dismay with the cronyism, corruption, and mismanagement of the ruling Fatah party. Hamas’s polling strength was also aided by political fragmentation in Fatah, which was divided between the “old guard leadership” that had surrounded Arafat and Abbas and younger party stalwarts. Unlike the last parliamentary elections held in 1996, Hamas engaged in disciplined electoral politics this time because it had a chance to control the politics and administration of the Gaza Strip, evacuated by Israel in 2005. With Arafat gone, Gaza as a prize for rule, and international financial assistance waiting to pour into the PNA, Hamas had every incentive to participate in these elections.

With its unexpected success, Hamas was faced with reconciling rhetoric with reality. Its rhetoric still called for Israel’s elimination. But realistically its objective was to govern and to control education, social welfare, health care, and religious affairs. To receive the external funds the majority of Palestinians so desperately needed, Hamas sought to find a formula that did not drop its political objectives, but was sufficiently moderate in tone and actions to open the cash flow.

United States and European Union (EU) officials, however, would not accept a Hamas-led government unless Hamas recognized Israel’s right to exist and renounced violence. They cut off aid to the Hamas-led government soon after the election. Israel’s newly installed government of Ehud Olmert also decided to withhold tax and customs revenues owed to the PNA. As part of the Oslo Accords, Israel retained the authority to collect tax and customs receipts in Gaza and the West Bank. Unwilling to meet the demands of Israel, the EU, and the United States, Hamas sought funding from Iran, which it was successful in securing but unsuccessful at delivering. When PNA prime minister Haniyeh returned to Gaza in December 2006 from a trip to Iran, the Israeli authorities denied him entry. He was eventually allowed in but without the millions in aid that he had obtained from Iran. Meanwhile serious outbreaks of armed conflict erupted between Hamas and Fatah security forces, including reported assassination attempts on both Haniyeh and Abbas.

In February 2007 Saudi Arabia sought to mediate the conflict between Hamas and Fatah. At a meeting in Mecca the two sides agreed to form a unity government. Hamas made a concession by saying it would “respect” past agreements reached between the PLO and the PNA with Israel, agreements that explicitly recognized Israel’s right to exist and that called for a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Saudi Arabia also sought to revive its 2002 peace proposal, which called for Arab countries to pledge peaceful and normal relations with Israel in exchange for an end to the occupation. The Saudis also tried to involve the United States in a renewed peace process. In March the unity government was formally created. Key positions in the Cabinet were given to Fatah supporters so that no representatives of Israel, the EU, or the United States would have to meet with members of Hamas. International attention to the situation in Palestine, however, was largely overshadowed by the continuing U.S. occupation of Iraq, which threatened to spill over into conflict with Iran. U.S.-Iraq War.

The unity government failed to take hold, however, as Israel and the United States continued to withhold aid from the PNA. In early June 2007 renewed conflict between Hamas and Fatah led to Fatah’s ouster from Gaza in heavy street fighting. In retaliation Abbas in mid-June swore in an emergency, caretaker government in the West Bank, where Fatah has a stronger base of popular support. Abbas appointed the Palestinian economist Salam Fayyad, who is well regarded in Western countries, as prime minister, foreign minister, and finance minister of the PNA. Abbas suspended a provision in the Palestinian Basic Law, which functions as the PNA’s constitution, that required parliamentary approval of Fayyad and Abbas’s other Cabinet appointments. The leadership of Hamas denounced the suspension and called the new government illegitimate.

Almost immediately after the appointment of the emergency government, the EU, Israel, and the United States signaled that aid and tax revenue would resume to the PNA. In the meantime, however, the cease-fire that had been observed between Hamas and Israel broke down. Hamas guerrillas resumed firing rockets into Israel, especially toward the Israeli border town of Sederot. Israel responded with air strikes and military incursions. Human rights groups accused Israel of a disproportionate response, while also condemning Hamas’s rocket attacks. Israel also tightened control of its borders with the Gaza Strip and used its supervision of Gaza’s electricity and food deliveries to cut off both in retaliation for the attacks, a practice that human rights organizations condemned as collective punishment of the entire Gaza population.

Meanwhile, in April 2008, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter held talks with Hamas’s leader, Khaled Meshaal, who is based in Damascus, Syria. Carter said the Hamas leader was willing to accept a two-state solution based on the borders that existed prior to the Six-Day War in June 1967, known as the “green line,” provided that Palestinians approved a two-state solution in a referendum. However, a Gaza-based Hamas leader implied that Hamas viewed a two-state solution only as a “transitional” stage. Carter said that excluding Hamas from peace negotiations with Israel “was not working.” Acceptance of a Palestinian state within the 1967 boundaries was repeated by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in November 2008 in a meeting with 11 parliamentarians from Europe. Haniyeh said Hamas was willing to grant Israel a long-term hudna (truce) if it recognized Palestinian national rights.

In June 2008 talks brokered by Egyptian officials resulted in another informal cease-fire. Israel warned Hamas that it would be held responsible for any violations of the cease-fire, including attacks by the militant groups Islamic Jihad or the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade, an offshoot of Fatah.

For the most part Hamas upheld its end of the cease-fire agreement, imposing tighter security and jailing some of the rocket launchers. Although figures from the United Nations (UN) and Israel differed somewhat, the number of rocket attacks from Gaza declined from 500 in May to 10 to 20 in July, 10 to 30 in August, and 5 to 10 in September. However, Hamas accused Israel of failing to meet its obligations under the agreement, which Hamas said called for a renewal of deliveries of food and other goods from Israel to the levels that existed prior to the legislative elections in January 2006. According to independent sources, truck deliveries from Israel increased only modestly during the cease-fire period, and human rights organizations charged that malnutrition and the lack of adequate medical supplies were becoming serious problems in Gaza.

Faced with a worsening economic situation in which official unemployment reached 49 percent in November, Hamas also began to see its popularity decline in polls of Palestinian opinion. Its poll ratings declined further in November when 35 percent of respondents blamed Hamas for the failure to achieve a national unity government, compared with 18 percent who blamed Fatah. Hamas boycotted talks that Egypt tried to mediate between Hamas and Fatah in Cairo. Hamas said it was due to Fatah’s failure to release Hamas prisoners held in the West Bank, despite Hamas’s release of Fatah prisoners who had been held in Gaza. But some political observers said the boycott stemmed from Hamas’s reluctance to confront demands by Fatah for early presidential and legislative elections.

When the cease-fire expired on December 19, Hamas announced that it would not seek to renew it. Rocket attacks on southern Israel had already increased after Israel launched an air strike in early November on a tunnel near the Israeli border, killing six Hamas militants. Israel said the tunnel was to be used to capture Israeli soldiers. Hamas already held captive one Israeli soldier. Speculation immediately surrounded Hamas’s decision to withdraw from the cease-fire, which seemed likely to invite Israeli retaliation. Some political observers believed that Hamas sought to provoke an Israeli attack, hoping that it would rally Palestinians around it, reversing its declining popularity and further isolating Abbas and Fatah. Hamas would be seen as the only Palestinian resistance group at a time when Abbas and Fatah had nothing to show for their commitment to a nonexistent peace process and Israeli settlements in the West Bank continued to grow. Others believed that Hamas simply sought to achieve better terms under a renewed cease-fire.

In any event Israel did retaliate with massive air strikes beginning on December 27 and a land invasion that began on January 3, 2009. A number of Hamas leaders were killed in the early attacks, including Nizar Rayan, who died with his entire family when his house was hit by a bunker-busting bomb. Hamas leader Mashaal called for a third intifada, but Fatah tried to suppress demonstrations of solidarity with Hamas in the West Bank. Both Egypt and Fatah blamed Hamas for the breakdown in the cease-fire. Hamas vowed to resist the Israeli incursion, which together with air strikes had led to more than 600 Palestinian deaths by early January.