The Hamas

  The Hamas was founded by Sheik Ahmed Yassine with the help of Iran in so far as the armed arms of the “Muslim Brotherhood” in Palestine and the launching of the jihad in 1987.

            Numerous experts think that the history of the Hamas only began in the 1980s when its political influence began to assert itself.

            The abbreviation Hamas appeared nevertheless for the first time in 1987 in a document accusing the Israeli secret services (the Mossad) “of perverting the morals of the Palestinian youth in recruiting them as collaborators.”

            The Hamas was formed at the end of 1987, and therefore the movement is close to the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.  According to its charter, “the Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine.”

            The Hamas developed differently in the West Bank, not participating in, notably, the creation or the control of public institutions.  The Muslim Brotherhood in the West Bank therefore form an important part of Jordan's Islamic Movement which was for several years an ally of the regime of Hachemi.

            The Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood evolved under the influence of Sheik Ahmed Yassine.  This last preached armed action against “the occupying Hebrew.” He was imprisoned by the Israel State in 1989 and later released over the course of a prisoner exchange.

            The first armed actions of the Hamas commenced with the beginning of the first Intifada.  These actions were for the majority aimed against the Palestinians, and secondly against the Israeli military itself.  Following this were attacks aimed against Israeli civilians.

            The Hamas evolved in the direction of a radical political movement and organized violent armed actions.  The role of the Hamas was eclipsed in 1989, notably when its founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassine was imprisoned in Israel.

From 1994 to 2004

            The Hamas rejected the Oslo Treaty of November 1993, signed by Israel and the Palestinian Authority.  However, at the same time, Ahmed Yassine proposed a hudna (sentence—in reference to the Islamic law which allows a conditional limited verdict up to 10 years maximum with non-Muslims) if Israel agreed to retire its troops from occupied territories.  Mohamed Nazzal, representative of Hamas in Jordan, emphasized that the sentence with the enemy is a “principle sanctioned by Islamic law which depends on the circumstances and the unanimous agreement of the management.” This, he continued, implies neither acceptance of peace nor recognition of Jewish rights in Palestine.

            April 16, 1993, the Hamas ordered the first kamikaze attack that it had organized.  It was perpetrated against a bus in Mehola Junction in the Valley of Jordan.

            Before the Second Intifada, the Hamas inaugurated the utilization of suicide attacks against Israeli civilians (in Hadera in April, 1994) as well as against soldiers, and extended violence through the years of the Palestinian uprising, particularly during the Second Intifada.

            April 6, 1994, the Hamas demanded the first kamikaze attack perpetrated on Israeli ground in Afoula, affirming the desire to “avenge for the martyrs” of the Cave of Patriarchs of Hebron and its pyrotechnist Yahya Ayyash.

            The Hamas also called for 20 other operations between 1994 and 2000.  They also demanded that the majority of these suicide attacks be operated in Israel during the Second Intifada.

            The Hamas receives numerous donations and consequently make payments to the families of those who carry out suicide attacks.

            According to several observers, the rise of the Hamas was favored in the 1990s through the leaders of the Likoud (Benyamin Netanyahu, in power from 1996-1999, and Ariel Shannon,) notably not through hindering its financing by Saudi capital.

            Two researched objectives by Israeli civil rights will thus be reached:  the sabotage of the Oslo Treaty with the augmentation of terrorist attacks, and the weakening of the Fatah of Yasser Arafat, principle Palestinian interlocutor.

            The historical leader of the movement, Sheik Ahmed Yassine, was assassinated at the time of an attack targeted at the Israeli army on March 22, 2004, upon Ariel Shannon's orders, his successor.  Abdel-Azziz Al-rantissi was also assassinated some days after his designation.

            With Iran's help, the success of the municipals, again thanks to financing from Iran, therefore makes Islamists out to be an important political opposition facing off against the Fatah one year before the legislatives scheduled for January, 2006.

            At the same time, the Hamas observes a Tahdiya (a sort of judgment, lull in the literal sense) in the attacks since the attack in the city of Beer Sheva in August, 2004 (15 deaths and 125 wounded,) but nevertheless launched an attack at the same bus stop in August, 2005 (7 wounded.)

            It also ordered the shooting of rockets executed from the Gaza Strip.  According to the Israelis, 2,990 terrorist attacks have been brought against Israel in 2005.

Legislative Elections of 2006

            January 26, 2006, the Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections.  The President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, invited the Hamas to form the new government.

            During the Palestinian legislative elections of January, 2006, the Hamas obtained 42.9% of the votes, which gives them a Parliamentary majority of 74 seats out of 132.

            This result has been perceived as a step backwards by the foreign governments which played the role of mediator during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  However, the Israeli President Moshe Katsav and the former Prime Minister Shimon Peres have both declared that if the Hamas recognizes the existence of Israel and abandon their terrorist ways, Israel would negotiate with the movement.

            According to certain sources, during the duration of the Palestinian legislative campaign, the objective of the destruction of Israel was not mentioned, but several commentators and media men specify nevertheless that its leaders are not specifically renouncing this objective.

            Over the course of this campaign, the Hamas has also supported the legitimacy of its past actions, notably the attacks brought against Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, which according to them permitted the evacuation of the Gaza Strip.  Thus, he placed on his list people such as Mariam Farahat, mother of kamikaze and who participated in the actions of the Hamas.

            In February of 2006, Khaled Mechaal, head of the Political Bureau of the Hamas, reiterated that proposition of the Hudna and the putting a stop to the armed struggle if Israel retired from all the occupied territories and recognized the rights of the Palestinian people.

            The Prime Minister through interim, Ehud Olmert, excludes on his behalf any negotiation with the Hamas:  “We do not negotiate and we will not deal with a Palestinian Authority which is totally or partially dominated by a terrorist organization.”

            The objective of the Hamas is the establishment of an Islamic State on the territory currently made up of Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank (according to borders drawn before 1967.)

            In the accomplishing of this goal, the Hamas supports its right to armed fighting.  According to certain medium, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, one of the co-founders of the Hamas, assassinated by Israel as its predecessor, affirmed that the goal of the organization was to “erase Israel from the map” as Iranian President Ahmadinejad said.

            The Hamas delighted in the majority of the Fatah during the Palestinian legislative elections of January, 2006.  In so far as Islamic Party, it is opposed to the existence of Israel and denounced the Oslo Treaty, seen as treason of the divine will, the opening of a “peace process” being thwarted.  However, in 2004, the Hamas claimed the possibility of a Hudna after the reestablishment of the borders of 1967 and the return of Palestinian refugees.

Exercise of Power

            Ismaïl Haniyeh has been appointed by the Hamas to form a new cabinet of the Palestinian Authority.

Legislative Presidential Elections of 2006 to 2007

            Since the election which brought the Hamas to power, there has been crisis in Palestine:  the end of international subsidies, numerous attacks on behalf of Israel, and bilateral attacks between the two principle Palestinian fractions, those of the Fatah of the President Mahmoud Abbas and the Hamas of the Prime Minister Ismaïl Haniyeh.

            Stating the failure of negotiations between the Fatah and the Hamas, President Abbas is threatening to, in mid-December, to disengage the legislative elections.  The Hamas reject the decision to call for new legislative elections (something which is not indeed among the prerogatives of the head of the Palestinian Authority.)  Whatever the case may be, Abbas has not yet disengaged the elections and negotiations between the Hamas and the Fatah have not yet succeeded.

Principle Objectives

            Its objective, as is defined in the Charter of the Hamas, reedited in 1988, is the establishment of a state applying the charia (the code of Muslim religious jurisdiction) on the ensemble of Palestine (Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.)

            According to Khaled Machaal, the leader of the Hamas, “the Charter does not at all call for the destruction of Israel.  In Arab it is written:  ‘To put an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.'  We do not want get rid of one another, we only wish to obtain our rights.”

            January 10, 2007, the Reuters Agency reported the Khaled Machaal's remarks:  “It is true that, in reality, there will be an entity or a State called Israel upon the rest of Palestinian land,” he declared, adding nevertheless, “It's the truth but I do not want so much as to formally recognize or admit it.”  These remarks were interpreted as an indirect recognition of the State of Israel.

            But since the following day, January 11, 2007, the President of the Hamas group in the Palestinian Parliament, Salah Bardawil, declared to the daily Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the remarks of Machaal “seemed to have been warped.”

            Bardawil specified:  “He did not speak of any recognition of Israel, only a cease-fire with Israel.”

            The same day, the Chinese press agency cited the reaction of Ismaïl Radwan, spokesman of the Hamas in Gaza:  “No change has been brought upon the position of the movement concerning the recognition of Israel.”

            According to Radwan, Machaal's remarks “were misunderstood.”

The Desire to Create a Religious State

            “Regarding its objectives:  Fight against Lies, undo them, and destroy them so that Truth may reign, so that homelands may be restored, and so that the call to prayer announcing the establishment of the State of Islam be launched from on high from their mosques (Article 9.)”

            “God is its goal, the Apostle its model, and the Koran its constitution (Article 9.)”

            There is no direct mentioning in the Charter of an Islamic Republic, as in Iran.  The word “Republic” does not appear elsewhere.  Certain declarations of leaders work in the sense of an Islamic Republic, but not all of them.

Hostility towards Jews

            Beyond the hostility in Israel, the Charter expresses a strong hostility towards Jews in general.

            “The Nazism of the Jews also aims at women and children; they terrorize the ensemble of the population, attacks the livelihood of the people, pillage their goods, and threaten their honor (Article 20.)”

            “Israel, through its Judaism and its Jewish people, constitutes a challenge to Islam and the Muslim community (Article 28.)”

            “Thanks to money, they reign over the world's media, the information agencies, the press, the publishing houses, the radio stations, etc.  Thanks to money, they have made revolutions erupt in different regions of the world in order to attain their interests and to make them bear fruit.  They were the same people behind the French Revolution, the Communist Revolution…They obtained the Balfour Declaration and have since thrown out the bases of the Society of Nations in order to govern the world through this organization.  They were behind the Second World War, which allowed them to gather together enormous profits thanks to the commerce of war materials.  They have prepared the ground for the establishment of their State and it is their instigations which have created the United Nations and the Security Council to replace the Society of Nations in order to govern the world through them (Article 22.)”

            “The Zionist plan has no limits; after Palestine, they seek to extend their reaches from the Nile to the Euphrates.  When they have perfected the assimilation of the regions which they will have reached, they will seek to extend further still at once.  Their plan is found in the “Protocols of the Sages of Zion” (Article 32.)”

            Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, one of the representatives and co-founder of the Hamas, (assassinated in 2004 by the Israeli army,) declared in 2003 that the Holocaust never took place and that the Zionists were behind the doings of the Nazis and that they also financed the Nazis.

Armed Action

            The Hamas is currently undergoing armed struggle against Israel principally under the form of suicide attacks and the firing of hand-crafted rockets against Israeli agglomerations.  The brigades of Izz al-Din al-Qassam, armed branch of the Hamas, are particularly responsible for numerous attacks, attacks, of which several are kamikaze, against civilians.  They are also launched against Palestinians supposed of having collaborated with Israel.

            The groups Commission of Human Rights of the United Nations, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have indicated violations against human rights by the armed branch of the movement.

The Charitable Movement

            The Hamas, thanks to Iran and Saudi Arabia, finances numerous aid and vocational training programs, as well as a certain number of local economic activities (the creation of orphanages, community clinics, rearing centers, the production of clothing in order to employ women, the establishment of school networks, etc.)

            The Hamas is therefore also a charitable network and enjoys popularity in the poorest social classes.  It utilizes a network of fund-collecting associations implanted in numerous European countries, such as the CWBSP (the Committee of Well Being and Solidarity with Palestinians) in France.

Localization

            The Hamas is principally present in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank as well as in the Palestinian refugee camps in the bordering Arab countries and Iran.

            Certain leaders such as the head politician of the Hamas, Khaled Machaal, for example, are refugees in Damas.

            The Hamas also has at its disposal training camps in Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and finally Sudan.

Financing

            According to certain analysts, the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood was financed in the 1970s and 1980s directly and indirectly by different States such as Saudi Arabia and Syria.

            The principle donor since 1987, the year of its creation, is still Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Western Designations

            The American Minister of Foreign Affairs classifies the Hamas as a terrorist organization.  September 6, 2003, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the European Union denounced that the practices of the Hamas and its sub-organizations.  Regarding France, it is for the moment opposed to the addition of the Hamas to the list of the European Union until, questioned by the daily Israeli newspaper Haaretz on July 19, 2005, Jacques Chirac declared:  “The Hamas is a terrorist organization which cannot be an interlocutor of the international community as it does not renounce violence and does not recognize the right to the existence of Israel.  It is the position of the European Union; it is without ambiguity and will not change.”