What Is Hamas?
What is Hamas? Hamas is an acronym for Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamat al-Islāmiyyah, meaning "Islamic Resistance Movement." The word “hamas” in Arabic means “zeal” or “fanaticism” and in Hebrew, it means “violence.” Hamas clearly lives up to all its definitions.
Hamas is a Sunni Muslim fundamentalist group which rejects peace with Israel and wants to create an Islamic state to replace Israel. Formed in 1987, Hamas is the largest and most powerful of the Palestinian militant groups.
It remains popular with the Palestinians because of the social services it provides, such as building and running schools, mosques, hospitals, soup kitchens, orphanages, and sports leagues. Around 90% of its activity is in welfare, social, and education areas. It fills the void left by the Palestinian Authority, which fails to provide properly for the Palestinian people.
Hamas originated with the Muslim Brotherhood, a group which formed in Egypt, and has cells all over the Arab world. The founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin worked and preached in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1960s, which were occupied by Israel. In 1973, he formed the Islamic Center to oversee the Muslim Brotherhood’s activities in Gaza.
Yassin created Hamas in December of 1987 after the first uprising by Palestine against Israel over control of Gaza and the West Bank. The reason Hamas could not be a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood was because of the Brotherhood’s nonviolence policy.
Much of Hamas’s terrorist activity is carried out with mortars and short-range rockets. Hamas is known for being the first group to use suicide bombing. The first occurred in April of 1993. Later that year, a pact between Yasir Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister of Israel was signed. It was short lived and later, Rabin was assassinated in 1995 and Arafat died in 2004.
The Goals of Hamas
The goal of Hamas is the total destruction of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state in its place. This state would be an Islamic theocracy.
Hamas is opposed to the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) and will use both violence and political means to achieve its goals. In the past, it received money from Saddam Hussein and currently gets funding from Iran. Hamas believes that the only solution to the Palestinian problem is through Jihad, which is a holy war against infidels.
The slogan for Hamas, from its charter, says, “Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model, the Qur'an its Constitution, Jihad its path, and death for the case of Allah its most sublime belief."
Chronology
The founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, was killed on March 22, 2004. Abdel Aziz al Rantisi took his place and threatened to retaliate against the United States and Israel but later decided to only target Israel. He was killed in an Israeli attack on his car on April 17, 2004.
Arafat announced that he was prepared to have a partnership between all political movements to share in the decision making process, which would include Hamas. However, that was not possible.
In 2005, Hamas announced that it would continue to attack Israel, even though Israel started to leave the Gaza Strip. They viewed the withdrawal as a retreat and a sign that their efforts were working. A member of Hamas in Gaza, Mahmoud al Zahar, said, “We do not and will not recognize a state called Israel. Israel has no right to any inch of Palestinian land.”
In 2006, Hamas won the Palestinian Authority's (PA) general elections, and the power struggle began. Hamas is continuing business as usual, with physical attacks and economic sanctions. Attempts at peace were made in 2007 but were not successful. A cease fire ended when Hamas attacked Jewish towns near the Gaza Strip on Israel’s Independence Day festivities. Peace attempts were again proposed in 2009, only to fail because of Hamas’s refusal to recognize the state of Israel.