Preface
The news of ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine these days (starting from Oct, 2023) have taken the world by storm. The pictures of destruction, hostages, and dead bodies are being aired on every major television network of the world. While the world is split on the narratives that are being floated by both sides one name that is making echoes is Hamas. The name sounds like that of a living man but it actually belongs to an organization. In the lines below we’ll explore what is Hamas and how is it connected to this ongoing conflict.
Historical background of the Palestinian conflict
Before going into the details of the Palestinian conflict, we’d like to inform our readers that although we have tried to put forward a neutral view on the matter you may still disagree with our views since politics is a subjective matter.
The roots of the recent Palestinian conflict are as old as a formal declaration of the establishment of the state of Israel. Palestinians always objected to the establishment of the state of Israel whereas the state kept expanding itself both by fair means as well as those which some groups or nations would call objectionable. This led the regional peace to deteriorate and two wars happened between Israel and Arabs in 1967 and 1973 respectively. Not to mention that Israel dominated these wars single-handedly and the expansion of Israeli state got more aggressive than ever.
Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)
Back at that time, there used to be one organization to represent different groups of Palestinian nations. That organization was called the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). This organization was founded in Cairo Egypt. The purpose behind its establishment was to explore all kinds of resolutions for this conflict including any viable and amicable political solution, struggle through freedom fighters as well as a diplomatic solution involving different nations around the globe as guarantors.
The failure of PLO as representative of Palestinians
Hamas had many challenges since its creation. For example, although its narrative of armed struggle was popular amongst the Arab nations at that time, the same could not gain much support outside Arab region. The organization also carried out some activities which it termed as acts of freedom fighting but the world labelled them as terrorism. It was not only criticized for such activities but the mission of the organization also saw a heavy setback.
Besides, as it happens with most political organizations internal rifts within the organization lead to an environment of discord, the same happened with Hamas. Several fractions started to surface within PLO. One of them was known as Al-Fatah, for example. There was another fraction namely Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). This discord weakened the unity of the Palestinian nation and caused damage to the freedom cause.
PLO tried to engage Israeli officials on different occasions but any conclusive success could not be attained and this led the Palestinian nation to lose their faith in the organization.
Formation of Hamas
Due to all the mentioned reasons, a vacuum was created on the Palestinian national front. Hamas came forward to fill in this gap after its formation in December 1987. Their beginning was quite different from that of PLO. As already discussed above, PLO opted for a multi-dimensional approach for the resolution of the conflict in the region. Whereas Hamas from the very beginning focused on the armed struggle. It is hard to say with certainty what caused this but not difficult at all to guess that the Palestinian nation was fed up with the failures that Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) met.
Charter and First Uprising
Hamas might have encashed that quite well. As soon as it was founded, Hamas launched a resistance against Israelis. This was named Intifada, meaning the uprising. This movement gained some popularity amongst the Palestinian public, the youth in particular. This lasted for 06 years i.e. till 1993. It was amidst this movement that Hamas published its charter. The pivotal idea of the charter was to keep up the resistance against Israel without any compromise, till the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.
Political evolution
Since the first uprising, Hamas has not only paused its armed struggle for some time durations (for the purpose of engaging in peace talks) but also evolved as the largest political force for the Palestinians. Today, Hamas stands as the biggest stakeholder of the above mentioned conflict on behalf of the Palestinians.
