Profile of Hamas free essay sample

This document is a Microsoft Word template designed to help you complete your assignment. Please use it alongside the full assignment guidelines which can be accessed from the Module and Assignment Information section on the module homepage on the LMS. You must type and submit your assignment on this template. Remember, you need to save this template to your computer before you start typing your assignment. If you don’t save it to your computer you will lose your work. You should then submit your assignment by email to: [emailprotected] ac. uk |Date |16 may 2013 | |Name |Dennis Donald Ribeiro-Addy | |Email address |[emailprotected] co. k | |Student ID Number |Dr1285 | |Topic |PROFILE OF HAMAS | |Total Number of Words |2655 | Please ensure that your completed assignment contains proper references (check your Welcome Pack or the Essay Writing Introduction on the LMS, for guidance) and a Bibliography. Be careful not to use privileged information when writing your assignment, but only information from open sources. We will write a custom essay sample on Profile of Hamas or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Assignment Topic The table below displays the assignment topic in brief. |Assignment |Description |Assignment Outcome | |Write a Profile of a Terrorist Group |You will write a profile of any one of the terrorist |This assignment will help you to | | |groups provided as options. understand what factual details to | |Options | |study, to analyse the data and be able| |(select any one) |The assignment will necessarily focus on two aspects –|to judge the lethality, impact and | | |Facts and Analysis. |strategic tendencies of a terrorist | |IRA * | |group. | |LTTE |1. Analysis | | |give a brief background to the origins |You will also provide a brief assessment of the | | |of the IRA, before covering the more |group’s impact and write a comment on the future of | | |recent history including the Troubles, |the group. | | |the ideological ifferences leading to | | | |the splits between OIRA, PIRA and RIRA | | | |(and CIRA), up to the present day, | | | |taking careful account of the | | | |assignment tasking. | | Facts HAMAS: A PROFILE Hamas is one of the several organisations designated as a terrorist group by the United States Government and the Government of Israel. Its name stands for the Al-Harakat Al-Muqawwama Al-Islamiyya in Arabic or simply, the Islamic Resistance Movement as explained by Robert Satloff. HAMAS as an Arabic word connotes zeal or enthusiasm which is a perfect driving force behind its violent activities both in the the Gaza strip and the occupied territories of Israel. HAMAS is domiciled in the Gaza City, where it wields so much political power after its electoral success in the January 2006 elections. Hamas therefore governs the Palestinian territories except the West Bank which is controlled by its sister rival Fatah. It is therefore not just a terrorist organisation seeking to destabilise Israel but a political force seeking to establish its legitimacy and relevance from the mandate of the people of Palestine. Hamas has refused up to date to recognise the right of Israel to exist and has particularly sought to undermine the Oslo Peace Accord. Origins of HAMAS Hamas was founded in 1987 in response to the Palestinian uprising or ‘intifada’. It is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood which was founded in Egypt as a religious and political organisation in the early 1920s with the aim of pushing for the realisation of Islamic ideals across the globe, particularly within the Middle East and North Africa. This is in conformity to several other international Islamic terrorist organizations that claim to have direct and indirect links to the Muslim Brotherhood. HAMAS has Sheikh Ahmed Yassin of Egypt as its founding father who early on founded the predecessor to HAMAS-the Mujama-as a charity organisation. Out of his charitable vision, HAMAS has flourished from being a merely charitable organisation into a well organised international terrorist organisation that receives commendation and condemnation from allies and foes across the globe respectively. As Siddharth Ramana puts it succinctly, â€Å"HAMAS is a unique actor in the Middle Eastern politics Hamas was an outcome of the Muslim brotherhood, an international Sunni Movement, of which Hamas is the Palestinian chapter†(www. WorldAnalysis. net, 2013) Aims and Ideology of HAMAS As an organisation, HAMAS is driven by a primary mission. As such, HAMAS has captured all its intentions and mission in its Charter of 1998 which was adopted to serve as a guide to how it operates. This mission is in two folds- first, to realise the annihilation of the State of Israel and second, to establish an Islamic rule within the Gaza strip and West Bank. As captured by Dr. Amy Zalman in her analysis of HAMAS as a terrorist organisation, she states that HAMAS â€Å"combines Islamic objectives with Palestinian nationalism†, (Zalman, 2013). HAMAS therefore considers the destruction of the state of Israel as its utmost goal since its continued existence poses a threat to their aim of spreading Islamic rule within the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, aside retrieving the land they think rightfully belongs to the Palestinians. Therefore, over the 25 years of its existence, all activities of HAMAS have therefore been geared towards inflicting pain and havoc on the Israelis through bombings, abductions and killings in various forms (Zalman, 2013). The ideology of HAMAS is shared by several Islamic leaders across the Middle East and North Africa, the most prominent among them being the current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who echoed the HAMAS goal that the State of Israel ought to be â€Å"annihilated† at all cost. Leadership of HAMAS The leadership of HAMAS has always been dominated by radical Islamic scholars and well educated professionals. According to Robert Satloff in his article A primer on Hamas: Origins, Tactics, Strategy and Response, there are three circles of leadership for Hamas. These are the local leaders within the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, which include current leaders such as Ismail Haniyeh and Mahmoud Al-Zahar, then the external â€Å"political bureau’’ made up of Khalel Mashal and Musa Abu Marzouk and members of the international Muslim Brotherhood comprising leaders such as Muhammad Akef-head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Eqypt and Yusuf Al-Qaradawi of Qatar. It shows how globally widespread the leadership of Hamas is. Generally, the leadership of HAMAS is not clearly and accurately defined since it is most likely part of their strategy to remain elusive to Israeli and US government targets. As stated by GlobalSecurity in its report- Hamas Leadership, ‘‘Hamas decided to try to avoid creating targets for Israel. Since that decision, Hamas has not had a clear single leader†, (www. GlobalSecurity. com, 2013). Particularly, HAMAS has kept information on most of its very important leaders in the dark after the Israeli government killed two of its most prominent leaders, Sheik Ahmed Yassin on 22 March 2004 and Abdel Aziz Rantisi on 17 April 2004. Originally founded by Sheik Ahmed Yassin of the Gaza Strip, HAMAS has been very economical with information on the location of its leadership team members. However, as is the case with many organisations, the vision of the founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin in many ways still directs the way HAMAS is run. A key legacy of Sheik Ahmed Yassin is the 1988 Charter which largely captures his vision of HAMAS in great detail and provides a comprehensive framework for its realisation and implementation up to today. In essence, his vision of HAMAS lives on although he has passed on 9 years ago. However, Thomas Joscelyn posists that the external leadership of HAMAS wielded much more radical influence on the group than its internal leadership in the Gaza Strip (Thomas, 2006). Currently, Hamas is headed by Khaled Meshaal who was re-lected in April 2013 by the powerful Shura Council of Hamas. He was born in the West Bank but lived most of his life in exile, in Syria and Egypt. He has also survived several assassination attempts in the past. Other notable leaders of Hamas are the US educated industrial engineer Musa Abu-Marquz , Cairo educated doctor Mahmoud al-Zahar, the US educated Aziz Dweik, Sheik Hassan Yousef, Sheik Muhammed Abu Tayr and Mohammed Deif ( www. GlobalSecurity. org, 2013). It is also worthy of mention that most of the Hamas leadership are highly educated with most of them being educated in the United States of America or Egypt. Structure of HAMAS Hamas seems not to have any well-established organisational structure for governance although it has both military and political ambitions. At best, it is structured in a way that cannot be easily deciphered by any observer since the roles of its leaders seem overlapping and its political and military arms closely interconnected making it difficult to make any distinctions between the two. For instance, Sheik Ahmed Yassin played the dual role of both a political leader and a military mastermind for the organisation from the several interviews he granted when he was alive (ibid). Nevertheless, it is admissible that Hamas has grown in both scope and scale over time, derived from the pursuit of its original objectives of providing charitable services to the people of Palestine and Egypt while fighting what it terms the â€Å"Israeli occupation† so as to establish an Islamic government in the region. HAMAS has both political and military departments through which it pursues its activities. Through its government in the Palestinian held territories, Hamas enforces security and order and collects taxes from the people to run its government. The Izz Al Din Military wing created by Hamas is very much responsible for the prosecution of its military objectives and the meting out of violence on people it considers the enemies of Islam, especially Jews. Strategies and Attack Record of HAMAS HAMAS is a highly sophisticated organisation that receives support from its sympathisers from within Gaza Strip and abroad. As chronicled by Dr. Amy Zalman and Robert Satloff, the strategy of HAMAS has largely been to wreck havoc on the State of Israel and its citizens through its use of violent force such as suicide bombings, grenade attacks, kidnappings, abductions, short-range rocket attacks and murder using knives. Also, HAMAS over the years has consistently kept the practice of issuing fierce rhetoric against the State of Israel through the media. . Interestingly, HAMAS was originally founded as a non-violent movement to pursue charitable deeds among the Muslims populations of Egypt and Palestine. Over the years HAMAS has carried out various notable but deadly attacks on the State of Israel in keeping faith with its avowed aim of exterminating Jews. These attacks have led to the colossal lost of human lives and property: First, the killing of two Israeli soldiers and the kidnapping of young Gilad Shalit, an Israeli corporal on June 25th, 2006 was a major achievement for the HAMAS group. It offered the captured corporal Gilad Shalit as a bargaining chip for the release of Palestinian prisoners who were languishing in Israeli jails. This strategy eventually yielded fruits for HAMAS when Gilad Shalit was exchanged for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli-Palestinian Prisoners Of War (POW) swap in 2011 (www. CNN. com, 2011) Second, an attack by a HAMAS suicide bomber on the Jerusalem bus station on 6th February, 1996 led to the death of 9 Israeli soldiers and 17 civilians, with several others wounded. Third, an attack on a bus terminal at Tel Aviv which resulted in the death of 21 Israelis and a Dutch tourist was another fatal blow inflicted by HAMAS on the Israelis. Further, HAMAS has claimed responsibility for several hundred grenade and suicide attacks on Israel for most parts of its existence as an organisation (www. GlobalSecurity. com, 2013) Evidently, although the cardinal goal of HAMAS has been to inflict pain and injury on the State of Israel with its citizens and interests home and abroad, it has in many cases attacked and killed people from many other countries too. Hamas has equally aligned itself to the Muslim Brotherhood globally in promoting its own agenda and shares sympathy with other pro-Jihadist organisations. It receives funding from the Islamic Republic of Iran in particular and many private donors, particularly of the Muslim Brotherhood fraternity as well as other Arabian Gulf-countries. According to Dr Amy Zalman, most of these funds are channelled through Islamic Charity organizations which have been clamped down due to the international fight against terrorism. These alliances provide a critical financial basis for it its capacity to thrive in the face of all the threats it is faced with itself as an organization. Analysis HAMAS: IT’S IMPACT Hamas has demonstrated throughout its existence so far that is committed to the destruction of Israel through its acts of terrorism irrespective of the consequences. It thus operates a highly sophisticated network of donors, sympathisers and leaders as well as adherents who all see the mission of HAMAS as a means to a â€Å"justified and justifiable† end. The impact of HAMAS has been both internal, within the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and external, within the Arabian Middle East countries, particularly in Iran, Syria, Jordan and Egypt in North Africa where it has kept close cultural and religious ties to the people and the leadership regimes. Within the West Bank, HAMAS has managed to make itself a very relevant political force that cannot be ignored by the United States Government or the Israeli government in their discussions related to the peaceful resolution of the â€Å"occupation† crisis as seen from the eyes of HAMAS. It is one of the constants in the Palestinian power equation where it continues to shape the balance of power with Fatah and the PLO. The Palestinian Liberation Authority (PLO) which for many years was led by its revered figure Yassar Arafat, arguably has been made less powerful by the emergence of HAMAS as a government within the Gaze Strip. Through its charitable acts and the provision of essential services such as schools, security, clinics and health centres, HAMAS has endeared itself to the people of their controlled territories. The confidence reposed in HAMAS by the people as against FATAH , the rival , faction is the testament to their relevance in the power relations within Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It also stands to reason therefore that their goal of the Islamisation of the West Bank and its Gaza territories have not been a mere rhetoric but a goal it has achieved so far. HAMAS is also the catalyst for the radicalisation of Palestinians without which it cannot prosecute its political and violent acts. Further, HAMAS has through its alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, kept the Arabian region of the Middle East alive with radical jihadist ideologies making the region a very volatile one. Several narratives on the Middle East crises point to the fact that Hamas is a unique schemer in the politics of the area. It is to all intents and purposes an Islamic ovement with a purely domestic agenda and activities restricted to the Gaza strip for now yet it also has capacity to be a transnational player influencing regional issues. Also from several accounts on Middle East conflict the chief feature of popularity of Hamas has been its active use of political Islam to solicit support for development activities in Gaza and destructive action against Israel. Consequently the impact of its ideology and tactics has received regional attention. In an article publishe d by Siddhartha Ranana in World Analysis he stated that for the Arab states Hamas proves to be a double edged sword. This is because on one hand it would like to express support for a group which actively opposes Israel while on the other hand threatens regimes in the region with the tactics it adopts and that essentially Hamas most visual and well publicized tactic is terrorism. The Future of HAMAS The future of HAMAS remains uncertain and unpredictable looking at the mission it has set for itself because the US and Israeli governments will never back down in labelling them as a terrorist organisation so far as their goal-the destruction of the state of Israel -remains unchanged. The US government policy regarding non-negotiation with terrorist organisations is to a large extent non-negotiable so there is much predictable difficulty in how the opposing parties can end many years of violent confrontation without sitting at the negotiating table. Also, the legitimacy HAMAS derives from the people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is another essential factor in the determination of its future. HAMAS is faced with the challenge of remaining relevant with its local populations by delivering services to the people while at the same time propagating its message of violence against Israel, home and abroad. It is this dilemma that HAMAS has to contend with for a long time to come. There is less possibility that a HAMAS led Palestinian Authority will receive favourable support from the international political circles should it continued to win elections legitimately since no country will want to associate with a terrorist organization be it a group, institution or overnment. The fate of HAMAS therefore fairly lies in the hands of its people who make those critical choices as to who leads them during elections. For HAMAS to continue to survive and operate, it will need the critical support of its international donors who are mostly from Iran, Syria and Egypt because without its financial muscle, it will become too weak to organise and operate within the region. These Islamic allia nces provide both material and ideological support for its continued survival. However, with the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hold on power coming to a close with over 686 candidates vying to replace him for the Iranian Presidency, coupled with the uprising across the middle East and Northern Africa resulting in socio-economic instabilities in some instances, there remains bigger clouds of uncertainty over the future role key state actors like Iran will continue to play in support of HAMAS. In the final analysis , the future of Hamas will depend on the leadership, sponsorship from allies, ideological support from the Muslim Brotherhood and the outcome of the Arab spring.