Since Hamas was established in December 1987, it has opposed any political compromise with Israel and has continued to attack Israel with suicide bombings and rockets. In fact, there has not been a year since its founding that Hamas has been at peace with Israel, or even contemplated peace. Hamas typically attacks Israel through its military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassem Brigades. Their attacks against Israelis in Gaza continued steadily until 2005. That is when Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip as part of an effort to create a “two-state” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the absence of a permanent peace agreement.1
In fact, there has not been a year since its founding that Hamas has been at peace with Israel, or even contemplated peace.
After Hamas took over Gaza in 2006, the Brigades “transformed from an underground guerrilla organization into a uniformed military force designed to protect Gaza from outside attack.”2 In 2009, the International Crisis Group3 estimated the Brigades had between 7,000 and 10,000 full-time members, with more than 20,000 members in reserve.4 However, rather than protect Gaza from outside attack, Hamas’s main military tactic since taking over Gaza “has been an increased firing of rockets and mortars from the territory” into Israel.5 These rocket attacks have frequently landed in Israel’s border towns, resulting in occasional deaths and less serious injuries. In reality, if Hamas were not attacking Israel, Gaza would not be suffering from “outside attack.” Israel only strikes Gaza in self-defense, when rockets are fired, and has often expressed that it has no territorial designs on Gaza. In fact, Israel has said it would actively work to build Gaza’s infrastructure and economy if Hamas would repudiate violence.
Israel has said it would actively work to build Gaza’s infrastructure and economy if Hamas would repudiate violence.
Hamas refuses.
It is estimated that Hamas killed more than four hundred Israelis between 1993 and 2010.6 Although such attacks have been separated by periods of temporary calm, Palestinian terrorist groups have persisted in launching rockets into Israel, often in spite of cease-fire agreements.7 Israel has recognized that groups other than Hamas have participated in the attacks, but Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that, because Hamas exercises full control of Gaza, “Israel holds Hamas responsible for all the attacks launched on [Israel].”8 The worst of Hamas’s attacks include the following:9
• Rocket barrages: The IDF claims that terrorists in the Gaza Strip (including, but not limited to, Hamas) have fired more than “8,000 rockets into Israel, killing 44 Israelis and injuring more than 1,600” from 2005 to 2011.”10
• Suicide bombings: During a nine-day span in February and March 1996, Hamas carried out four separate suicide bombings that killed 61 Israeli citizens and injured 234 others.11
• Mass-casualty suicide attacks: One of the deadliest attacks was on March 27, 2002, when a suicide bomber entered the dining room of the Park Hotel in Natanya, Israel, and detonated his explosives amid 227 guests who were eating their Seder meal. The Passover attack killed 30 Israelis and left 143 wounded.12
• Coordinated suicide attacks: In 2003, Hamas suicide bombers attacked three separate buses, killing 56 and wounding more than 240, many of them students and children.13
Yet despite its unquestioned terrorist identity, Hamas seeks and often obtains recognition and funding from the Western powers.
No reasonable person can conclude that Hamas is anything but a vicious terrorist organization, restrained from mass murder only by the power of the Israel Defense Forces. Yet despite its unquestioned terrorist identity, Hamas seeks and often obtains recognition and funding from the Western powers.