HAMAS: Israel’s Taliban

If you ever get a chance to start discussions on Middle East politics, there is a high chance that you will discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict. The conflict has been going on since 1947 and ends nowhere. On one side, Palestinians think Israel is continuously encroaching on their land, and on the other side, Israelis believe that this was their land even before the Christian era, so they have inherited the land and have full rights to live there. Both side claim this area of culturally rich and religiously importance as theirs.

Talking about geography, Palestine consists of two parts- the first is the Gaza Strip, and the second is the West Bank. The PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) is in charge of the West Bank, while Hamas controls Gaza.

Currently, Israel and Hamas are in the headlines. The reason being the escalated conflict between them. Well, there have been several past conflicts between Hamas, but the current escalation started with the coordinated attack on Israeli civilians on October 7th, 2023, by Hamas, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 civilians and the taking of 240 people as hostages. The attack started from the Gaza Strip, with a whopping number of around 3,000 rockets fired by Hamas. Although most of the missiles were destroyed by Israel’s state-of-the-art air defense system, Iron Dome. Meanwhile, Hamas breached the border killing innocent Israeli civilians, and making residents as hostages.

So we have a basic understanding of the current escalation; let’s understand why the title has been so.

Hamas has a history that has never been widely discussed. So, let’s dig deeper into Hamas, their formation, the subsequent PLO’s ambitions, and the PLO charter.
During the 1967s, Palestine was under the leadership of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, PLO in short (PLO was like an umbrella organization for the liberation of Palestine). Since PLO’s formation, they’ve used guerrilla warfare and other techniques against Israel. And their charter completely advocated for the destruction of Israel by any means. At that time, Yasser Arafat was the leader of the PLO.

In the 1967s, Israel found a person who was earlier associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the wheelchair-bound Islamist Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, as someone who could counterbalance the influence of Yasser Arafat in Palestine, as Sheikh Yassin himself hated Arafat due to ideological differences (Yassin was a hardcore Islamist while Arafat was not) (Arafat wanted Palestine to become a secular state).

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin founded the organization “Mujama al-Islamiya,” recognized by Israel as a charitable organization. They have founded blood banks, hospitals, and the famous Islamic University of Gaza, which is now regarded as a hotbed of radicalization. In fact back in 2008, the university was bombed by Israeli defense forces. Israel was extensively helping Yassin spread his wings in Gaza. However, in 1984, a turning point occurred when Israel found out that Yassin possessed illegal weapons and explosives intended to attack Israel. He was jailed for 13 years. In 1985, the Jibril Agreement took place and allowed the Israeli government and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which was nothing but a prisoner exchange deal. Three Israelis were exchanged for about 1,100–1,200 Palestinian prisoners. Yassin also got freed as part of the deal. In 1987, he formed Hamas, and during the first intifada, when the anti-Israel sentiments were at their peak, he got the perfect environment to make it a big fish in Gaza.
Israel’s air force assassinated Yassin in 2004, but it was too late; Hamas had grown in power, and by 2007, Hamas had complete control of the Gaza Strip.
Eventually, Hamas became a Taliban moment for Israel!