Encyclopedia of Islam

Hamas

  

285  J

---

versial and pervasive force among Palestinians in 

the late 20th century.

The Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood had a 

history of opposition to the secular p

alestine

l

iberation

 o

rganization

 (PLO) in the years pre-

ceding the intifada of 1987. Active in the Occu-

pied Territories as well as e

gypt

 and J

ordan

, the 

Muslim Brotherhood encouraged a rejection of 

secularity among Palestinians, in opposition to 

the nonreligious nationalism of the PLO. In the 

early 1980s, spiritual leaders in the brotherhood, 

such as Shaykh Ahmad Yassin (d. 2004), created 

a financial and military infrastructure that could 

challenge the PLO for leadership of the Palestin-

ians. This framework became the basis of Hamas, 

an organization that was initially supported by the 

Israeli government, which hoped to undermine 

the PLO.

In 1987, however, Hamas unleashed itself 

onto the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and 

Gaza Strip, becoming one of the most important 

forces of leadership in the intifada. Indeed, Hamas 

claimed that it had initiated the intifada, although 

that is still a point of debate among histori-

ans. Hamas developed a political and theological 

understanding of the occupation that appealed to 

many Palestinians while at the same time organiz-

ing charitable, educational, medical, and housing 

outreach programs to Palestinians living in the 

dire conditions of refugee camps and under Israeli 

occupation. Unlike the PLO, which viewed the 

Palestinian condition in secular nationalist terms, 

Hamas expressed itself in Islamic terms. Theolo-

gians such as Yassin argued that the occupation of 

Palestine was an affront to all Muslims and that 

the presence of the Zionist Israeli state needed 

to come to an end for religious as well as politi-

cal reasons. Hamas proposed the destruction of 

i

srael

 and the institution of a Muslim government 

in  p

alestine

 that ruled according to the 

sharia

.

This was a message that inspired many Muslim 

Palestinians but also alienated moderate Muslims 

as well as Christian and secular Palestinians and 

those who preferred the leadership of the PLO.

As the PLO entered into negotiations with 

Israel during the era of the peace initiatives of 

the 1990s, Hamas continued to gain in popular-

ity among Palestinians who felt less connected to 

the PLO as it grew closer to Israel. The Palestin-

ian Authority assured Israel that it would restrict 

the activities of Hamas’s militant factions, but the 

emergence of a new intifada in 2000 demonstrated 

that Hamas was still very popular among many 

living under Israeli occupation. At the beginning 

of the 21st century, Hamas continued to be one 

of the most active, militant participants in the 

intifada against Israeli occupation and, in the eyes 

of many, too important a player to be excluded 

from negotiations. Like their counterparts in the 

ultra–right wing Israeli camp, Hamas became a 

powerful social and political force, largely exist-

ing outside the channels of public diplomacy, 

yet striking at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli 

conflict. An indication of the movement’s grow-

ing influence among Palestinians is that it won 

a majority of seats in the Palestinian legislative 

election of January 2006, a development that 

complicated relations with the PLO and ended 

any chance for reaching a negotiated peace agree-

ment with Israel.

See also a

rab

-i

sraeli

 

conFlicts

; i

slamism

; 

poli

-

tics

 

and

 i

slam

; 

terrorism

.

Nancy L. Stockdale