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Six months on from the horrific terrorist attack on October 7th , we can increasingly say it marked not only the beginning of a war with Hamas but also an increasingly decisive turn towards a war with Iran.
Hamas, a Sunni jihadist terrorist organization, governs approximately 2 million people in the territory of the Gaza Strip and is best known for what the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) describes as its “commitment to armed resistance against Israel.”
How did this Sunni-based jihadist group achieve an armed invasion of Israel – killing more than1200 people and taking more than 240-people hostage?
The answer: Iran.
Iran, a Shia-led theocracy, has “funded, armed, trained, and provided intelligence to Hamas for decades,” according to Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Why would a Shia-led sovereign country support a Sunni-based jihadist group?
Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar of the Harvard Kennedy School and Texas A&M argues in Foreign Affairs that Iran pursued such a strategy to achieve five strategic objectives:
Bring the fight to Israeli soil: “Already, Hamas has succeeded in bringing the proxy war between Iran and Israel—typically fought in Lebanon and Syria—to Israeli soil.”
Deter Israel: “As Tehran sees it, the conflict could help Hamas permanently deter Israel from attacking Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by teaching Israel that the costs of invading the territory are prohibitively high.”
Unite Iran’s axis of resistance: “The conflict could further unite Tehran and its allied militias into a lethal and highly coordinated fighting machine.”
Increase Iran’s standing in the region: “It could give the Islamic Republic a new claim to moral leadership among states outside the West and restore Tehran’s credibility in the Arab world.”
Justify completing a nuclear weapon: “…should the war expand into a regional conflict, it could create a window of opportunity for Iran to finally build a nuclear weapon.”
Tabaar goes on to argue: “As Israeli forces advance through Gaza, the war could escalate to the point where Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’—Hezbollah and other Tehran-backed militias in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere—become direct combatants. Such developments could, in turn, drag the United States into the fighting.”
It appears Tabaar’s prediction in November of 2023 may be coming to fruition.
The United States and Israel are bracing for an attack by Iran against not only US forces in the region but also Israel itself – an attack that senior US officials describe as “inevitable.”
A direct attack on Israel represents a dire scenario. Even if Iran selects military targets they believe represent a re-establishment of deterrence in response to Israel’s recent strike in Damascus, Israel may not view such an attack by Iran in the same way.
There has been a fundamental shift in Israel’s perspective in the wake of the October 7th attack. Israel views October 7th as an invasion of its territory not only by Hamas but also a nation-state: Iran. Israeli leaders believe October 7th represents an on-going existential threat to Israel’s ability to continue as a sovereign state. Accordingly, Israeli leaders would likely view any direct attack by Iran as a further confirmation of an existential threat to Israel, its people, and Jews across the world. There is only one country that can step in to both deter Iran and de-escalate the situation.
The United States.
But even if the United States deters Iran from conducting such an attack and/or influences Israel’s response to an escalation by Iran, the implications of Iran’s attacks against Israel (by proxy on October 7th and perhaps directly in the coming days) have now extended beyond Gaza – and even the region – to a larger, global dimension that takes on more of the guise of great power competition than terrorism in Gaza and the region.
The on-going war in Gaza has not only catalyzed empathetic sentiment in the “global South” (a part of the world increasingly exploited by the likes of China and Russia) but also the West. As Tabaar further explains in his analysis in Foreign Affairs: “Last year, the streets of Berlin, London, Washington, and other cities across the world were filled with people protesting the
Islamic Republic’s violence against women. Now, those same streets are occupied by people protesting Israel’s attacks on Gaza.”
By both aligning itself with and directly supporting the Palestinian cause through Hamas, Iran believes it may be positioning itself as part of a larger “resistance” against what it describes as US and Western “hypocrisy” and “oppression” – notably a narrative that China and Russia also employ to attempt to expand their influence across the globe. Iran may well view the sentiment among the “global South” and parts of the West as what Tabaar describes as a “broad, once-in- a-generation shift…[in which] the United States is in decline and that new global and regional powers are upending the order that emerged after World War I and World War II.”
Indeed, October 7th unleashed forces that are less akin to what we are immediately witnessing in Gaza and increasingly more akin to great power competition – a new fight for the long-term primacy of the global order in the second half of the 21st century – and beyond.
The United States’ actions and decisions in response to this apparent and “inevitable” Iranian attack over the coming weeks may well influence this long-term future. Israel’s security is, therefore, global security.
Sources:
https://www.dni.gov/nctc/ftos/hamas_fto.html
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-hostages-israel-gaza-41432124
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/why-iran-gambling-hamas?check_logged_in=1
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/05/politics/us-israel-iran-retaliation-strike/index.html
https://apnews.com/article/syria-iran-israel-hezbollah-lebanon-consulate-amirabdollahian-
68c7a652c5434d80fbff47e0ddbdd483
Dr. Alex Gallo is the author of “Vetspective,” a RallyPoint series that discusses national security, foreign policy, politics, and society and highlights the analysis of thought-leaders, policy analysts, and scholars. Alex also serves as a fellow with George Mason University’s National Security Institute, an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, and a US Army Veteran. Follow him on Twitter at @AlexGalloUSA.
Hamas, a Sunni jihadist terrorist organization, governs approximately 2 million people in the territory of the Gaza Strip and is best known for what the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) describes as its “commitment to armed resistance against Israel.”
How did this Sunni-based jihadist group achieve an armed invasion of Israel – killing more than1200 people and taking more than 240-people hostage?
The answer: Iran.
Iran, a Shia-led theocracy, has “funded, armed, trained, and provided intelligence to Hamas for decades,” according to Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Why would a Shia-led sovereign country support a Sunni-based jihadist group?
Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar of the Harvard Kennedy School and Texas A&M argues in Foreign Affairs that Iran pursued such a strategy to achieve five strategic objectives:
Bring the fight to Israeli soil: “Already, Hamas has succeeded in bringing the proxy war between Iran and Israel—typically fought in Lebanon and Syria—to Israeli soil.”
Deter Israel: “As Tehran sees it, the conflict could help Hamas permanently deter Israel from attacking Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by teaching Israel that the costs of invading the territory are prohibitively high.”
Unite Iran’s axis of resistance: “The conflict could further unite Tehran and its allied militias into a lethal and highly coordinated fighting machine.”
Increase Iran’s standing in the region: “It could give the Islamic Republic a new claim to moral leadership among states outside the West and restore Tehran’s credibility in the Arab world.”
Justify completing a nuclear weapon: “…should the war expand into a regional conflict, it could create a window of opportunity for Iran to finally build a nuclear weapon.”
Tabaar goes on to argue: “As Israeli forces advance through Gaza, the war could escalate to the point where Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’—Hezbollah and other Tehran-backed militias in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere—become direct combatants. Such developments could, in turn, drag the United States into the fighting.”
It appears Tabaar’s prediction in November of 2023 may be coming to fruition.
The United States and Israel are bracing for an attack by Iran against not only US forces in the region but also Israel itself – an attack that senior US officials describe as “inevitable.”
A direct attack on Israel represents a dire scenario. Even if Iran selects military targets they believe represent a re-establishment of deterrence in response to Israel’s recent strike in Damascus, Israel may not view such an attack by Iran in the same way.
There has been a fundamental shift in Israel’s perspective in the wake of the October 7th attack. Israel views October 7th as an invasion of its territory not only by Hamas but also a nation-state: Iran. Israeli leaders believe October 7th represents an on-going existential threat to Israel’s ability to continue as a sovereign state. Accordingly, Israeli leaders would likely view any direct attack by Iran as a further confirmation of an existential threat to Israel, its people, and Jews across the world. There is only one country that can step in to both deter Iran and de-escalate the situation.
The United States.
But even if the United States deters Iran from conducting such an attack and/or influences Israel’s response to an escalation by Iran, the implications of Iran’s attacks against Israel (by proxy on October 7th and perhaps directly in the coming days) have now extended beyond Gaza – and even the region – to a larger, global dimension that takes on more of the guise of great power competition than terrorism in Gaza and the region.
The on-going war in Gaza has not only catalyzed empathetic sentiment in the “global South” (a part of the world increasingly exploited by the likes of China and Russia) but also the West. As Tabaar further explains in his analysis in Foreign Affairs: “Last year, the streets of Berlin, London, Washington, and other cities across the world were filled with people protesting the
Islamic Republic’s violence against women. Now, those same streets are occupied by people protesting Israel’s attacks on Gaza.”
By both aligning itself with and directly supporting the Palestinian cause through Hamas, Iran believes it may be positioning itself as part of a larger “resistance” against what it describes as US and Western “hypocrisy” and “oppression” – notably a narrative that China and Russia also employ to attempt to expand their influence across the globe. Iran may well view the sentiment among the “global South” and parts of the West as what Tabaar describes as a “broad, once-in- a-generation shift…[in which] the United States is in decline and that new global and regional powers are upending the order that emerged after World War I and World War II.”
Indeed, October 7th unleashed forces that are less akin to what we are immediately witnessing in Gaza and increasingly more akin to great power competition – a new fight for the long-term primacy of the global order in the second half of the 21st century – and beyond.
The United States’ actions and decisions in response to this apparent and “inevitable” Iranian attack over the coming weeks may well influence this long-term future. Israel’s security is, therefore, global security.
Sources:
https://www.dni.gov/nctc/ftos/hamas_fto.html
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-hostages-israel-gaza-41432124
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/why-iran-gambling-hamas?check_logged_in=1
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/05/politics/us-israel-iran-retaliation-strike/index.html
https://apnews.com/article/syria-iran-israel-hezbollah-lebanon-consulate-amirabdollahian-
68c7a652c5434d80fbff47e0ddbdd483
Dr. Alex Gallo is the author of “Vetspective,” a RallyPoint series that discusses national security, foreign policy, politics, and society and highlights the analysis of thought-leaders, policy analysts, and scholars. Alex also serves as a fellow with George Mason University’s National Security Institute, an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, and a US Army Veteran. Follow him on Twitter at @AlexGalloUSA.
Foreign Affairs
VetSpective
Middle East
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Edited 4 mo ago
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I disagree with the headline on this article. The war in that region started over 2000 years ago and never settled.
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MAJ Byron Oyler - It is in the location of the historical Israel. Jordan was there before that.
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MAJ Byron Oyler
CPT (Join to see) - You are 100% correct and if I was a Jew in 1948 I would not have moved to an area where people all around want to kill me.
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MAJ Byron Oyler 3 d
I understand the historical reason Jews settled there in 1948 but will never understand why a group of people would want to live in an area surrounded by people wanting to kill them. If I was a Jew at the end of WWII, I would have been like, "can we get some land in Montana or Idaho?" The Mormons have been pretty happy in Utah
--- Why they settled there? No one else would take them in their land. Not anyone in Europe. Not the US. And "surrounded by people who wanted to kill them?" Really? Seems like Israelis are the ones committing ethnic cleansing since 1948. " The creation of Israel was a violent process that entailed the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland to establish a Jewish-majority state, as per the aspirations of the Zionist movement.
Between 1947 and 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians from a 1.9 million population were made refugees beyond the borders of the state. Zionist forces had taken more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed about 530 villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70 massacres."
I understand the historical reason Jews settled there in 1948 but will never understand why a group of people would want to live in an area surrounded by people wanting to kill them. If I was a Jew at the end of WWII, I would have been like, "can we get some land in Montana or Idaho?" The Mormons have been pretty happy in Utah
--- Why they settled there? No one else would take them in their land. Not anyone in Europe. Not the US. And "surrounded by people who wanted to kill them?" Really? Seems like Israelis are the ones committing ethnic cleansing since 1948. " The creation of Israel was a violent process that entailed the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland to establish a Jewish-majority state, as per the aspirations of the Zionist movement.
Between 1947 and 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians from a 1.9 million population were made refugees beyond the borders of the state. Zionist forces had taken more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed about 530 villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70 massacres."
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“Liar!” Norm Finkelstein DISMANTLES Hillary Israel Spin
This is a teaser clip! Make sure to stay tuned for the entire interview this weekend. Krystal and Norm Finkelstein discuss Hillary Clinton’s take on Israel a...
Frank-stein’s Creation and Monster :
V1 : https://youtu.be/H4PckPdApIY?si=3vrhl6oBjUSgubPc
1.) How Israel went from helping 'create' Hamas to bombing it
HAMAS-ISRAEL WAR
TBS Report
14 October, 2023, 03:50 pm
Last modified: 14 October, 2023, 05:30 pm
Hamas has roots watered by Israeli funding, former military governor of Gaza admits
Hamas would not exist in its current form without Israeli involvement, highlights a recent piece published by The Intercept.
The article by Mehdi Hasan, a British-American broadcaster and Dina Sayedahmed, a multimedia journalist based in New York suggests that Hamas, an acronym for the "Islamic Resistance Movement," creation was largely influenced by resources provided by Israel.
"This isn't a conspiracy theory," the Intercept article reads.
The article refers to comments from Israeli officials, such as Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, a former military governor in Gaza.
Segev reportedly stated his part in financially aiding the Palestinian Islamist movement, viewing it as a "counterweight" to the secularist Palestine Liberation Organization and the Fatah party, led by Yasser Arafat (who himself referred to Hamas as "a creature of Israel.")
"The Israeli government gave me a budget," Segev confessed to a New York Times reporter, "and the military government gives to the mosques."
In a startling revelation, Avner Cohen, a former Israeli official who worked in religious affairs in Gaza for over twenty years, told the Wall Street Journal, "Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation."
According to The Intercept article, during the mid-1980s, Cohen even wrote an official report to his superiors warning them not to play divide-and-rule in the Occupied Territories, by backing Palestinian Islamists against Palestinian secularists.
"I … suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face," he wrote.
Over the past decade -during 2009, 2012, and 2014- Israel has engaged in military conflict with Hamas at least three times, resulting in about 2,500 Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza.
Hamas has been accused of killing more Israeli civilians than any secular Palestinian fighter group, mentions the article.
Reflecting on the chain of events, David Hacham, a former Arab affairs expert in the Israeli military based in Gaza, admitted, "When I look back, I think we made a mistake."
SOURCE : https://www.tbsnews.net/hamas-israel-war/how-israel-went-helping-create-hamas-bombing-it-718378?amp
2.) “Divide and Rule”: How Israel Helped Start Hamas to Weaken Palestinian Hopes for Statehood
STORYOCTOBER 20, 2023
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is urging Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, where the death toll from Israel’s two-week bombardment has topped 4,100. Israel says a ground invasion may be imminent.
“This isn’t an effort to try to quell, to destroy Hamas specifically,” says Tareq Baconi, Palestinian analyst and author of Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance.
“This is an effort to pursue an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Gaza Strip and beyond the Gaza Strip, as we see the violence rising in the West Bank.”
Baconi lays out Israel’s history of enabling Hamas while designating them as terrorists in order to maintain tight control over Gaza. After the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,400, Baconi says, “that equilibrium has now shattered.”
SOURCE : https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/20/divide_and_rule_how_israel_helped
3.) HISTORY
* MADE BY HISTORY
What the World Can Learn From the History of Hamas
The massacre by Hamas, which killed more than 1,000 men, women, and children, was an example of how that can happen. The terrorist group’s roots and strength date back to a Palestinian uprising that began in 1987—known as the first Intifada—when Israel turned a blind eye to the rise of Hamas so it could focus on what Israeli leaders saw as an even greater threat at the time: secular Palestinian groups, such as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) led by Yasser Arafat.
This move proved to be a disastrous miscalculation. The Israeli campaign against the PLO in the 1980s ended up enabling the rise of both Hamas and the Lebanese Hizballah (Party of God), two non-state actors that currently threaten Israeli security. Israel’s military campaign might weaken Hamas. Yet, Israel is unlikely to destroy the terrorist group—just as it never destroyed the PLO—and may instead encourage the rise of a group far more threatening than Hamas.
Beginning with the foundation of Israel in 1948, the PLO provided the de-facto leadership for Palestinians, many of whom had been displaced by the Arab-Israeli wars first in 1948, and then again in 1967. Palestinians turned to the group once they realized they could no longer rely on nearby Arab states like Egypt and Syria to liberate what they saw as their land.
First from Jordan and then from Lebanon—after the PLO was expelled from Jordan in 1970—the group conducted military strikes against Israeli targets. In 1982 and 1983, an Israeli military operation chased the PLO from Lebanon to Tunis—far from Israel’s borders. Israel’s military campaign, however, spawned the creation of a Shi’a resistance group in Lebanon called Hizballah, which later inspired the creation of Hamas.
In 1987, the first Intifada erupted as a spontaneous, homegrown protest movement. Some of the Intifada’s leaders, disillusioned with the secular PLO, formed Hamas (“Courage”)—a more hardline, religiously-motivated group.
Israel imprisoned Hamas’ leader, Ahmad Yassin, in 1989, but otherwise turned a blind eye to the group’s spread because it was a relatively minor threat to Israeli security, and Israeli leaders were focused on Arafat and the threat posed by the PLO.
In 1993, the first Intifada finally ended in a historic peace agreement signed by Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Known as the Oslo Accords, the agreement that President Bill Clinton helped broker promised to eventually lead to Palestinian statehood.
Yet, almost immediately, this “two-state solution” began unraveling.
In 1994, an American-Jewish settler living in the West Bank walked into a Hebron mosque and killed 29 Muslim worshipers, inflaming tensions. Then in 1995, another Jewish settler opposed to the Oslo Accords assassinated Rabin, just after he had addressed a peace rally. The loss of the prime minister removed a champion of peace from the top of Israeli politics. Finally, in 1996, an Israeli tunnel built under what Muslims know as the Noble Sanctuary or Haram al-Sharif, and Jews know as the Temple Mount, sparked Palestinian protests.
These events prompted a dramatic change in strategy for Hamas. The group became the first Muslim organization to embrace the use of suicide bombers. Its leaders had tired of waiting for a Palestinian state and understood that Israel had a superior military. They also recognized that the shock of the tactic would guarantee media coverage, sow fear, and push Israel to lash out.
Hamas’ decision ignited a spiraling cycle that destroyed the peace process and thwarted any attempt to create a two-state solution.
Israeli voters reacted to Hamas’ first two suicide attacks by replacing the incumbent, pro-peace Labor government with a more hawkish, Likud-led government helmed by Benjamin Netanyahu.
Initially, although Likud distrusted the deal with the PLO, Netanyahu promised to fulfill Israel’s commitments. The prime minister even agreed to withdraw Israeli troops from most of Hebron in January 1997.
SOURCE : https://time.com/6324221/hamas-origins-history/
——
* BONUS READ :
The Origins of Hamas: Militant Legacy or Israeli Tool?
Jean-Pierre Filiu
Journal of Palestine Studies
Vol. 41, No. 3 (Spring 2012), pp. 54-70 (17 pages)
Published By: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
SOURCE : https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jps.2012.xli.3.54
V2 : https://youtu.be/BoIgloYGSTs?si=fDIpj15Yh51PGgmg
V1 : https://youtu.be/H4PckPdApIY?si=3vrhl6oBjUSgubPc
1.) How Israel went from helping 'create' Hamas to bombing it
HAMAS-ISRAEL WAR
TBS Report
14 October, 2023, 03:50 pm
Last modified: 14 October, 2023, 05:30 pm
Hamas has roots watered by Israeli funding, former military governor of Gaza admits
Hamas would not exist in its current form without Israeli involvement, highlights a recent piece published by The Intercept.
The article by Mehdi Hasan, a British-American broadcaster and Dina Sayedahmed, a multimedia journalist based in New York suggests that Hamas, an acronym for the "Islamic Resistance Movement," creation was largely influenced by resources provided by Israel.
"This isn't a conspiracy theory," the Intercept article reads.
The article refers to comments from Israeli officials, such as Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, a former military governor in Gaza.
Segev reportedly stated his part in financially aiding the Palestinian Islamist movement, viewing it as a "counterweight" to the secularist Palestine Liberation Organization and the Fatah party, led by Yasser Arafat (who himself referred to Hamas as "a creature of Israel.")
"The Israeli government gave me a budget," Segev confessed to a New York Times reporter, "and the military government gives to the mosques."
In a startling revelation, Avner Cohen, a former Israeli official who worked in religious affairs in Gaza for over twenty years, told the Wall Street Journal, "Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation."
According to The Intercept article, during the mid-1980s, Cohen even wrote an official report to his superiors warning them not to play divide-and-rule in the Occupied Territories, by backing Palestinian Islamists against Palestinian secularists.
"I … suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face," he wrote.
Over the past decade -during 2009, 2012, and 2014- Israel has engaged in military conflict with Hamas at least three times, resulting in about 2,500 Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza.
Hamas has been accused of killing more Israeli civilians than any secular Palestinian fighter group, mentions the article.
Reflecting on the chain of events, David Hacham, a former Arab affairs expert in the Israeli military based in Gaza, admitted, "When I look back, I think we made a mistake."
SOURCE : https://www.tbsnews.net/hamas-israel-war/how-israel-went-helping-create-hamas-bombing-it-718378?amp
2.) “Divide and Rule”: How Israel Helped Start Hamas to Weaken Palestinian Hopes for Statehood
STORYOCTOBER 20, 2023
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is urging Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, where the death toll from Israel’s two-week bombardment has topped 4,100. Israel says a ground invasion may be imminent.
“This isn’t an effort to try to quell, to destroy Hamas specifically,” says Tareq Baconi, Palestinian analyst and author of Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance.
“This is an effort to pursue an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Gaza Strip and beyond the Gaza Strip, as we see the violence rising in the West Bank.”
Baconi lays out Israel’s history of enabling Hamas while designating them as terrorists in order to maintain tight control over Gaza. After the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,400, Baconi says, “that equilibrium has now shattered.”
SOURCE : https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/20/divide_and_rule_how_israel_helped
3.) HISTORY
* MADE BY HISTORY
What the World Can Learn From the History of Hamas
The massacre by Hamas, which killed more than 1,000 men, women, and children, was an example of how that can happen. The terrorist group’s roots and strength date back to a Palestinian uprising that began in 1987—known as the first Intifada—when Israel turned a blind eye to the rise of Hamas so it could focus on what Israeli leaders saw as an even greater threat at the time: secular Palestinian groups, such as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) led by Yasser Arafat.
This move proved to be a disastrous miscalculation. The Israeli campaign against the PLO in the 1980s ended up enabling the rise of both Hamas and the Lebanese Hizballah (Party of God), two non-state actors that currently threaten Israeli security. Israel’s military campaign might weaken Hamas. Yet, Israel is unlikely to destroy the terrorist group—just as it never destroyed the PLO—and may instead encourage the rise of a group far more threatening than Hamas.
Beginning with the foundation of Israel in 1948, the PLO provided the de-facto leadership for Palestinians, many of whom had been displaced by the Arab-Israeli wars first in 1948, and then again in 1967. Palestinians turned to the group once they realized they could no longer rely on nearby Arab states like Egypt and Syria to liberate what they saw as their land.
First from Jordan and then from Lebanon—after the PLO was expelled from Jordan in 1970—the group conducted military strikes against Israeli targets. In 1982 and 1983, an Israeli military operation chased the PLO from Lebanon to Tunis—far from Israel’s borders. Israel’s military campaign, however, spawned the creation of a Shi’a resistance group in Lebanon called Hizballah, which later inspired the creation of Hamas.
In 1987, the first Intifada erupted as a spontaneous, homegrown protest movement. Some of the Intifada’s leaders, disillusioned with the secular PLO, formed Hamas (“Courage”)—a more hardline, religiously-motivated group.
Israel imprisoned Hamas’ leader, Ahmad Yassin, in 1989, but otherwise turned a blind eye to the group’s spread because it was a relatively minor threat to Israeli security, and Israeli leaders were focused on Arafat and the threat posed by the PLO.
In 1993, the first Intifada finally ended in a historic peace agreement signed by Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Known as the Oslo Accords, the agreement that President Bill Clinton helped broker promised to eventually lead to Palestinian statehood.
Yet, almost immediately, this “two-state solution” began unraveling.
In 1994, an American-Jewish settler living in the West Bank walked into a Hebron mosque and killed 29 Muslim worshipers, inflaming tensions. Then in 1995, another Jewish settler opposed to the Oslo Accords assassinated Rabin, just after he had addressed a peace rally. The loss of the prime minister removed a champion of peace from the top of Israeli politics. Finally, in 1996, an Israeli tunnel built under what Muslims know as the Noble Sanctuary or Haram al-Sharif, and Jews know as the Temple Mount, sparked Palestinian protests.
These events prompted a dramatic change in strategy for Hamas. The group became the first Muslim organization to embrace the use of suicide bombers. Its leaders had tired of waiting for a Palestinian state and understood that Israel had a superior military. They also recognized that the shock of the tactic would guarantee media coverage, sow fear, and push Israel to lash out.
Hamas’ decision ignited a spiraling cycle that destroyed the peace process and thwarted any attempt to create a two-state solution.
Israeli voters reacted to Hamas’ first two suicide attacks by replacing the incumbent, pro-peace Labor government with a more hawkish, Likud-led government helmed by Benjamin Netanyahu.
Initially, although Likud distrusted the deal with the PLO, Netanyahu promised to fulfill Israel’s commitments. The prime minister even agreed to withdraw Israeli troops from most of Hebron in January 1997.
SOURCE : https://time.com/6324221/hamas-origins-history/
——
* BONUS READ :
The Origins of Hamas: Militant Legacy or Israeli Tool?
Jean-Pierre Filiu
Journal of Palestine Studies
Vol. 41, No. 3 (Spring 2012), pp. 54-70 (17 pages)
Published By: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
SOURCE : https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jps.2012.xli.3.54
V2 : https://youtu.be/BoIgloYGSTs?si=fDIpj15Yh51PGgmg
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