Hamas Terrorist Organization Essay

Introduction

Hamas involves a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist group founded in 1987 at the onset of the First Intifada to resist Israeli invasion of Gaza and West Bank regions. It emerged from Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood as its Gaza branch, though non-confrontational to Israeli. Hamas refrained from direct resistance despite its hostility towards Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) (Hilal, 2013). The enactment of Hamas Charter in 1988 would affirm its purpose being liberating Palestine from Israeli occupation. The charter outlined Hamas quest to establish Islamic State rule in West Bank and Gaza Strip. According to Hilal (2013) Hamas expressed the possibility of accepting the ten-year truce on condition Israel withdrew to borders drafted in 1967. Its military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades objected to offering to Dawah - the social wing of Hamas. Attacks on civilians, weaponry development, extrajudicial killings of rivals, and Sinai insurgency warrants international designations of Hamas as a terrorist group.

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Leadership Structure

Hamas covenant emphasizes bravery and strength to accomplish its aim of liberating Palestine region from Israeli occupation. As such, it contributes towards liberation efforts and restoration of Palestinian people's rights stipulated in the Holy Quran as sacred Islamic teachings derived from Prophet Muhammad Sunnah (Davis, 2016). It operates through a tripartite leadership structure comprising social services, military operations and religious training placed under the Shura Council. The group runs four distinct functions where dawah handles social welfare and charity tasks while al-Muhajahideen al Filastinun procures weapons and undertakes operations. Jehaz Aman handles security services while A'alam services as the media division (Thackeray & Findling, 2012). It operates in Gaza Strip and West Bank through internal leadership supported by external leaders in Egypt, Kuwait, and Damascus. The 2004 assassination of Hamas leader Abdel Azziz al-Rantisi settled on Khaled Mashal till 2017 when Ismail Haniya replaced him (Saleh, et al., 2017).

Hamas runs through consultative councils, Majis al-Shura derived from Qur'anic dialogue assembly. The councils allow democracy within the Islamic framework later renamed General Consultative Council to broaden decisions. It comprises members drawn from local council groups who then elect fifteen representatives to the Politburo. Being the apex body, al-Maktab al-Siyasi, it makes the supreme decisions (Saleh, et al., 2017). It draws representatives from West Bank, Israeli prisons, exile members, and Gaza. The break out of war challenging Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria led Politburo to relocate its base from Damascus to Qatar in 2012.

Hamas social services handled by Dawah replicate the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood model to promote the community welfare under the Islamic tradition. It engages in charitable works through waqf endowment resources and donations to schools, orphanages, library services, sporting facilities, and preaching. The social services seek to fill the vacuum left by PLO to support Gaza strip residents with housing, food, financial aid, and water (Brenner, 2017). Besides medical and educational development assistance, Hamas allocates funds to military and charitable causes flexibly. The 2007 crackdown by PLO in West Bank forced Hamas to restrict its social services activities to the Gaza Strip. Again, the deposition of Mohamed Morsi in 2013 by the Egyptian army threw Hamas to financial strain (Saleh, et al., 2017). It compelled transferring the burden to meet public works infrastructure to the Palestinian National Authority.

Military Operations and Weaponry

Hamas military operations are addressed by Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades since formed by Yahya Ayyash as its field commander in 1991. Before his assassination in 1996 by the Israeli-led operation, he grew its units from militants drawn from Islamic resistance cells established in 1986 by Salah Shehade. The military wing derives its name from Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam alternatively considered as Yahya Ayyash Units (Engeland & Rudolph, 2016). The unit found it challenging to access weapons, thereby restricting its operations to kidnapping soldiers for arms and ammunition. The approach expanded to target Israeli forces 1990 following the killing of twenty Palestinians at Al-Aqsa Mosque. Buoyed by the Ayyash electrical engineering skills, Hamas developed IEDs with improved strike capacity. Hamas developed Qassam 1 rocketry from its laboratories using chemical fertilizers (Petrelli, 2017). Gradually, the group improved to a three-kilogram warhead striking eight kilometers. Hilal (2013) acknowledges the group realized the incremental rise in the strike range with hundreds of Qassam 2 fired towards Israeli settlements located in the Gaza Strip by 2005.

The aggravation of hostility in the Gaza Strip has motivated Hamas efforts to improve its strike capacity and range. In 2005, the group engineered Qassam 3 carrying a fifteen-kilogram warhead to a fourteen kilometer. The group deployed the sophisticated thirty-kilogram warhead on Grad rocketry towards Israeli forces in 2008 and 2009 reaching a maximum range of forty kilometers (Hasian, 2016). Its success to manufacture Kornet antitank missiles and the Fajr-5 rockets with a strike range to Haifa and Tel Aviv convinced Hamas to scale down martyrdom operations. Its membership remains a mystery known only to its inner circle leadership though, from Israel estimates, it places hundreds of members under military-style training in a two-year period. Israel approximates the military wing comprising 10,000 to 17,000 operatives activated as backup forces to reinforce the Brigade (Engeland & Rudolph, 2016).

Hamas official stipulations indicate the restriction of military operations to counter Israeli soldiers and exercise self-defense against attacks from armed settlers. It condemns targeting civilians and expresses respect for humanity by refraining from excessive killing, mutilation and targeting Westerners within the occupied zones and beyond. However, Hamas altered such restraints to target Israeli civilians using sporadic suicide attacks citing reciprocity for lives lost through Israeli soldiers' attacks (Milton-Edwards & Farrell, 2010). By 2007, the group lost key members among its eight hundred operatives killed during the conflict. What culminated with the assassination of Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi in April 2004 and Ahmed Yassin a month earlier weakened its operations with Ibrahim al-Majadmeh and Ismail Abu Shanab felled in 2003. The loss and rampant arrests of its members by Israeli soldiers compelled Hamas to regionalize the command system through a diffused structure to minimize detection. The Brigades groups comprising five-man cells integrated into battalions (Gleis & Berti, 2012). Unlike its political unit, the Brigades operate under the direction of the local Palestinian leadership.

Finances and Funding

Hamas operates on a budget with a huge portion sourced from foreign aid. By 2011, Hamas operated US$70 million obtained from donor bodies from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Additional donor support is evident in France, Jordan, Britain, UAE, US and Italy. The bulk of the financial assistance constitutes direct assistance to the charitable work towards Palestinians (Davis, 2016). In addition, Persian Gulf States and Saudi Arabia offer financial support to its ideological pursuit. Again, the organization taps money from financial networks and institutions supporting terror supplemented internally with proceeds derived from drug and cigarette smuggling, credit card fraud. Efforts to cripple its foreign funding have seen the European Union, Israel, and the US shut down charities channeling money to the group. The primary casualty being the Holy Land Foundation for Relief for giving over $13 million it collected. The shutdown allowed Hamas to source more funding from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other Persian Gulf donors (Gleis & Berti, 2012). The bolstering of ties between Saudi Arabia and the US led to pressure to cut funding channeled to Hamas.

The drying funds from Saudi Arabia prompted Iran to step up its funding to meet the shortfall. Iran provided monetary aid through Hezbollah to Hamas directly aiding operating groups. Such reveals when the US sanctioned Saderat, an Iranian Bank, for funneling hundreds of millions to the terrorist group. Furthermore, the United States has expressed concerns over sympathizers in Palestine and Lebanon residing in Foz do Iguacu within Latin America. The residents of Arab descent engaged in arms trading, money laundering, currency fraud and counterfeiting products and proceeds funneled to Hamas (Petrelli, 2017). Sanctions imposed to Iran in 2009 made sourcing funds difficult for Hamas compelling reliance on religious donations from sympathizers from West Bank, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Today, Hamas receives tens of millions dollars raised within the Gulf States and later repatriated using the Rafah Border Crossing. However, continued criticism of Iran input to fuel Yemen Civil War has seen a further drop in funding since 2015. Hasian (2016) found the US reported several organizations including American Muslims for Palestine alongside Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions of supporting Hamas with financial resources in 2016.

Violence and Terrorism

Hamas anti-Semitism ideology and anti-Zionism rhetoric degenerates to violent attacks it rationalizes as reciprocity and self-defense against attacks by Israeli soldiers. Hamas has maintained alienation by Westerners even when Israeli soldiers attack its base at will. The conflict that sparked the 2008-2009 Gaza War appears fresh. Although it would distance itself from direct attacks on Israel attacks, Hamas disagreed with Syrian regime forcing it to relocate from Damascus to Doha, Qatar (Petrelli, 2017). The group sided with the Free Syrian Army fighting Assad regime by providing military training to the rebels. However, Saleh, et al., (2017) reports rekindled Israel-Gaza conflict in 2014 led to over two thousand deaths with efforts to restore peace turning futile.

Reconciliation attempts to convince demilitarization of Hamas group fail of multiple cracks in such agreements. The 2016 security coordination between Hamas and Egypt to eliminate Islamic terrorist organization from Sinai indicate of reformed group. However, such efforts remain tied to economic aid. The unveiling of Hamas new charter in 2017 served efforts by Hamas leadership to moderate its image (Hasian, 2016). The charter underscores efforts to liberate Palestine though no longer uses direct calls against the destruction of Israel. The partial agreement has stopped attacks within Gaza Strip with the Palestine Liberation Organization devoted to overseeing demilitarization of Hamas. Triumph by Hamas in gaining political leadership through elective posts convince the group of its ability to emulate the Turkish Islamic government model under Tayyip Erdogan (Brenner, 2017). Saleh, et al., (2017) acknowledges the west and local Palestinian government remain the skeptic of Hamas course to establish an open society that strives for human rights and democracy.

Conclusion

In conclusion, opposition to Hamas assertions equates its efforts to Taliban and al-Qaed...