Hamas

Hamas is a Palestinian resistance, Islamic, popular and national movement. The word Hamas is an acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, which is part of the Islamic Renaissance Movement. It believes that this renaissance is the main entrance to its goal, which is the liberation of all of Palestine from the river to the sea. It is the largest Palestinian faction according to the latest elections, with Islamic roots; Its founders are ideologically linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. It works to provide the appropriate conditions to achieve the liberation of the Palestinian people and their land from the Israeli occupation, and to confront the Zionist project supported by the forces of modern colonialism. The land of Palestine is considered an Islamic endowment and a historical homeland for the Palestinians, with Jerusalem as its capital. It adopts the institutional organizational system, and it relies on the Shura in decision-making.

Foundation

The movement’s origins go back to the beginning of the twentieth century, as it is an extension of the Islamic Renaissance and the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Before the movement was announced, other names were used to express their political positions towards the Palestinian cause, including “Al-Mourabitoun on the Land of the Night Journey” and “The Islamic Struggle Movement” and others.

Salah Shehadeh, one of the leaders and founders of the movement’s military wing (Al-Qassam Brigades)
Its founding was announced by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin after the Zionist truck accident on December 6, 1987, when seven cadres and senior Islamic preachers, most of whom were preachers working in the Palestinian arena, met: Ahmed Yassin, Mahmoud Al-Zahar, Ibrahim Al-Yazuri, and Muhammad Shamaa (representatives of Gaza City). and Abdel Fattah Dukhan (representative of the central region), Abdel Aziz Al Rantisi (representing Khan Yunis), Issa Al Nashar (representing the city of Rafah), Salah Shehadeh (representative of the North region), and Muhammad Al Deif. This meeting marked the launch of the Hamas movement and the beginning of the first spark for the Islamic mass action against the occupation, which took advanced stages later.

The movement distributed its founding statement on December 15, 1987, during the first intifada that erupted from 1987 to 1994, then the movement’s charter was issued in August 1988, but the presence of the Islamic movement in Palestine has other names dating back to before 1948, where Hamas considers itself an extension of a group The Muslim Brotherhood, which was founded in Egypt in 1928. Before the actual announcement of the movement in 1987, the movement was operating in Palestine under the name: “Al-Mourabitoun on the Land of the Night Journey” and the name: “The Islamic Struggle Movement”.

Ideology

Hamas does not believe in any right for the Jews who declared their state in 1948 in Palestine, but it does not mind accepting temporarily and as a matter of armistice the 1967 borders, but without recognizing any right for the arriving Jews in historic Palestine.

It considers its conflict with the Israeli occupation “a conflict of existence, not a conflict of borders.” And it views Israel as part of a “Western Zionist colonial project” that aims to tear the Islamic world apart, displace the Palestinians from their homes, and tear apart the unity of the Arab world. It believes that jihad, in all its forms and types, is the way to liberate Palestinian soil, and it has been reported that peace negotiations with the Israelis are a waste of time and a means of compromising rights.

Hamas believes that the process of settlement between the Arabs and Israel, which was officially launched at the Madrid Conference in 1991, was established on wrong grounds. The State of Israel neglects the right of Arabs and Muslims in the historical land of Palestine.

Hamas considers that Israel is obligated first to recognize the right of the Palestinians to their land and the right of return. Hamas is active in religious and political awareness and the provision of health and social services, and its political leaders are distributed between Palestine and abroad.