--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If Hamas wanted to get the world's attention with their attacks on Israel, they've been wildly successful. They got a war. The Israeli military is amassing troops and equipment along the border for a ground invasion that everyone knows is coming, but few know when it will start. They triggered an international diplomatic crisis.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met the Egyptian president after visits to Israel, Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. They poured gasoline on the already eternal fire burning over this Israel and Palestine issue. Police in Paris fired water cannons and tear gas into a crowd of pro-Palestinian rally here. The protests have been banned by the interior minister who feared such gatherings would cause public disturbances.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Practically everyone has an opinion. On Today Explained, we're going to do some facts. The history of Hamas coming up on the show.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The United States and Israel and many of their allies officially designate Hamas as a terrorist organization. And as you may have heard in the past few days, not everyone agrees. In light of this new war, we wanted to find out how Palestinians see Hamas.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So we reached out to Khaled al-Hroub. I am a professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Northwestern University in Qatar, author of a couple of books on the Palestinian issue, the Arab-Israeli conflicts, and Hamas.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: As we so often do, we started at the start. Hamas is, you can think of it as the product of a mother organization called the Muslim Brotherhood, which is again very famous. You can see them in Egypt and Jordan and in Pakistan and Malaysia, maybe everywhere. So this is kind of the mother organization of Hamas.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: They have a Palestinian branch. It was called the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood. And this was since mid-1940s. So they would focus on mosques, religious affairs, building social networks, charities, and the rest of it. The business of resistance was left to other ideologies, Marxists, nationalists, and others.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: So Hamas was a charity organization. Well, the mother organization of Hamas was a charity organization, ironically speaking. until 1987. In 1987, something big happened. Widespread protests against the Israeli occupation. The first intifada marked the first time Palestinians from all parts of society began such an intense resistance.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: The protests evolved from boys throwing rocks and people marching to fighters attacking Israeli soldiers and military targets. And that was kind of a very challenging moment for the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood. Until that moment, we didn't have something called Hamas.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: So they faced this choice. Either they refrain from participating in the uprising, and in this case they are going to lose their membership, they are going to lose their faith and their status within the Palestinian community, or they change their strategy and they gear up from charity into something meaningful in the eyes of the Palestinians.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: That is resistance. So they reorganize themselves, reshape themselves under the name of Hamas. By resistance, do you mean violent? Do you mean terrorism? Do you mean politics? What do you mean?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The very generic term resistance within the Palestinian, let's say, context and language, it means using all means against the occupation. These could be violent means, these could be non-violent means.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: For the Palestinians, they say all these means are justified under the international law and UN kind of resolutions. They would allow and justify using force and military force against any occupier in any part of the world.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Okay, so Hamas becomes a sort of formal resistance movement in 1987. What do they say their mission is?
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: In 1988, they published the so-called charter. In this charter, they tried to kind of outline the strategy, the main goals, aims, perception of enemies and friends, and the rest of it. This charter was still kind of full of religious connotations, language loaded with Quranic verses and they have been criticized at that because of that language and even there are some kind of anti-Semitic tones in it and statements.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: The Hamas charter is filled with anti references to Jews being behind communism being behind World War I World War II it endorses the famous anti conspiracy the Protocols of the Elders of Zion a global Jewish conspiracy
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Later on, two, three years after that, Hamas became kind of more mature, let's say, in practice and more politics. So they started kind of to distance themselves from their own charter gradually.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: When we are talking about the Jews, we are not against their religion. So we are against the one who is occupying our lands. We are against the one who is occupying our cities, villages.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Who is this organization attracting? Are they men? Are they young? Are they old? Are they students? Are they academics? Who are they?
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: All of these, all of the above. I think it attracts two groups of people. One, the people who are nationalists, of course. They want to liberate Palestine. They want to participate in the resistance. And the other group is the people who are religious. And the mixture of these two produces a new form of individuals.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: These are people who are religious, ready to sacrifice themselves for the sake of Palestine. Because it's a nationalist slash religious idea.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So one arm of this organization that we haven't really touched upon yet is, of course, the one that the world is now probably most recognizing, which is terrorism. When does Hamas first get to be known as an organization that practices terrorism?
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: Of course, to start with, this is highly contential terminology, Sean. So people, the Palestinians would frown upon you when you use this term. I know this is kind of the terminology used in the US, in Europe, and elsewhere.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But for the Palestinians, Hamas and other Palestinian groups are freedom fighters. Not necessarily everybody agrees on every single act that Hamas does, but by and large, it is considered as a nationalist, liberationist kind of group.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: But anyway, for the outside, for Israel to start with, Hamas was designated as a terrorist organization as all other Palestinian factions, and Hamas continued to be seen as so until this very moment.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There is a big difference, however, that took place, and this takes us in our discussion to another kind of maybe milestone, that took place in 1993.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: The children of Abraham, the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael, have embarked together on a bold journey. Together, today, with all our hearts and all our souls, we bid them shalom, salam, peace.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The official spokesperson of the Palestinians, the Palestine Liberation Organization, signed Oslo Accords with Israel. We who have fought against you, the Palestinians, we say to you today, In a loud and clear voice, enough of blood and tears.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: The PLO is the umbrella of all Palestinian factions, excluding Hamas. So the PLO agreed on Oslo Accords, saying our aspirations as a Palestinian people could be achieved through peace talks. We recognize Israel. Yes, we make a huge compromise. that is 78% of the historic land of Palestine from a Palestinian perspective, and we accept only 22% of the land to have a Palestinian state on it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That was the promise and the premise of Oslo. You're talking about the two-state solution. Yes. The two men making these promises on behalf of their peoples were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: Arafat was hailed as a hero in Gaza after 27 years in exile, at least by a part of the Palestinians. Hamas says, no, the entire land is for us, from the Mediterranean Sea to Jordan River.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How does Hamas proceed at this point? You've got the Oslo Accords, you've got this two-state solution, they're not happy with the agreement. How do they go forward?
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: Hamas, for a while, for a few years, in fact, after signing the Oslo Agreement, became somehow confused. Slightly disorientated. and the popularity that Oslo Accords and Yasser Arafat gained because of the high hopes within the Palestinians at that time.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So you have Hamas somehow marginalized. Now, this kind of lasted maybe until 1995, 1996. Before that, we have a very infamous incident.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: On the 25th of February, 1994, an American-Israeli far-right settler, Baruch Goldstein, entered the mosque during prayers and started shooting. He killed 29 worshippers and wounded nearly 200.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then Hamas vowed to retaliate. And they did retaliate using a new strategy, new tactics. That is the suicide bombers.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: The Islamic group Hamas took responsibility for the attack and said the intention was to kill Israeli Air Force personnel aboard the bus.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Hamas is conducting terrorist attacks, but they're not in power. They're political outsiders. Yeah, this is how it was seen in the eyes of Israel and the U.S.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: However, by 1999, the Palestinians should have a Palestinian state, according to Oslo Accords. And of course, it didn't happen. And Hamas becomes stronger and stronger, saying, we told you that peace talks are leading to nowhere.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And since then, the Palestinian Authority and the idea of Oslo became undermined. And here comes kind of a very interesting story. 2003, George W. Bush led the so-called war on terror against countries and organizations designated as terrorists.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: And that list included Hamas. Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda. But it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found stopped and defeated
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hamas was of course you know extremely angry We are not. We are a liberation movement.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: Leading to that year, 2006, to circumvent that campaign, they decided to participate in the Palestinian elections. The Islamic Hamas Party winning a majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, winning the elections was not kind of the goal. So that was an ironic case of a political party running for elections, hoping not to win them. However, they won the elections.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: And the Palestinians said, OK, you have been criticizing the Palestinian Authority for many years. Now, here you go. Do much better than them if you can. You are on the show.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hamas plus political power when we're back on Today Explained.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today Explained, when we were last with you, Hamas had just kind of unexpectedly won an election. Israel, of course, was not happy. This organization that had been terrorizing them was now in charge of Gaza.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Israel blockades Gaza. Tonight, special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports from the Gaza Strip, a region the United Nations predicts will be uninhabitable by next year.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: The United Nations says just 10 percent of Gaza's two million people have access to safe drinking water. Along the beach each day, young men drag in a meager catch. Food is scarce, they said.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Palestinians and aid workers say that the lack of food, medicine, fuel and basic supplies has made the situation in the Gaza Strip, quote, catastrophic.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: We asked Professor Khaled al-Haroub how Hamas responded. A number of things. Militarily speaking, they relied on smuggling weapons in terms of the basics for living for the Gazans in the region.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: Life was designed to be, as it was put by one Israeli leader, I think. we are going to starve them, but not letting them die. So we keep them kind of struggling. We keep them all the time trying to keep their survival.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That was the situation of Gaza Strip since 2007. When Hamas gains political power, do the suicide bombings stop? Do these sort of terrorist-style tactics against Israel stop?
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: Yes. In 2005, Hamas, that is one year before the elections, Hamas decided to stop all these kind of tactics, especially the suicide attacks.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And they decided to do their utmost effort to join the PLO. And a third main decision was to take part in the elections.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: When they became in power, all these kind of measures became behind their back. It's kind of rehabilitating themselves to the new phase, if you like, to the political phase of Hamas, that we are kind of ready to be part of the parliament, to be part of the political process, and so on and so forth.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How long does that last? Two years only, 2005, 2006, into 2007, when the split took place between Fatah and Hamas in 2007.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: And then Israel started kind of applying more pressure on Hamas and the Gaza Strip. And a year after that, 2008, the first war on Gaza under the rule of Hamas was launched.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Israel continues to bomb the territory for a third consecutive day, hitting targets across the area overnight and into Monday. And how does that war resolve?
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: Hamas fared not kind of impressively great in the eyes of the Palestinians, but they started the business of rockets, launching rockets. Later on in the years, they started manufacturing them and building more expertise and skills in making these rockets more kind of effective.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: On the Palestinian civilian side, however, the cost was very, very high. And then the blockade started to tighten, not only on Hamas, but also on the entire area.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: As a death toll crosses a grim mark, more than 1,000 Palestinians killed in less than three weeks of Israeli attack. Two, three years after that, 2012, there was another war, and then 2014, another war.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: More than 1,000 Palestinians and more than 40 Israelis have been killed since the conflict began three weeks ago. So we get into a cycle where Israel and Hamas are just going to war every few years.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: It obviously feels like we're in another round of that cycle right now. How does Hamas stay in power for so long? They elected into office in 2006 It now 2023 Are they that popular There are no elections in the Palestinian scene until now Neither presidential elections nor legislative elections
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So for some people would say Hamas's rule is illegitimate because it is not elected. The reason behind this is that Israel says they wouldn't allow elections in East Jerusalem.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: For these legislative elections, as in the past, the Israelis refused access to the city for Palestinian election officials, candidates, and campaigns, and allowed only a small number of Palestinian residents to participate, with their votes cast as absentee ballots in Israeli post offices.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: East Jerusalem is considered as part of the occupied territories in 1967. The Palestinians say this is part of the future Palestinian state. Israel says no, this is part of unified Jerusalem. We are not going to allow any elections in this Jerusalem.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: And many Palestinians live there, of course, the majority. So because of this, there are no elections. It's kind of very difficult to say how popular they are in the Gaza Strip.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Unemployment, for example, in the Gaza Strip is the highest in the world, more than 60%. Health services are extremely bad. People die, you know, waiting for permission to go outside Gaza Strip for medical care and service.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: So it's a bleak situation. Hamas says this is because of the blockade. The people say, yes, it is because of the blockade, but you are the reason of the blockade as well.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hamas replies saying, well, I am doing this for Palestine and for resistance. So you have all these kind of debates going around.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: And after every single war, Hamas' support goes up, ironically speaking. And then during peacetime, people would point their finger to the bad services and Hamas' support goes down.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You've got this cycle of wars going on, and then you haven't had an election since 2006 when Hamas initially took power. Do we have any idea how the people in Gaza feel about the events of last weekend?
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: Arab armies, once, twice, three times, and they have this kind of image of being the most powerful and mighty force in the region. So Hamas is not kind of an official army, and they managed to go after the Israeli army and deep into Israeli-controlled territory, 30, 40 kilometers.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: For the Palestinians, now they turned a blind eye on the bad practices and others, but that was it. People obviously aren't jubilant anymore. Like, how do they feel about Hamas now that Gaza is being destroyed?
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: Well, that's the bigger question. Nobody expected the scale of retaliation that Israel is doing now. What we are seeing now is total kind of flattening of the entire city.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: An ambulance with a young girl and wounded woman inside, rocked by explosions as they attempt to flee. They're among the tens of thousands of people on the move. after Israel's military called on nearly half of Gaza's population, some 1.1 million people, to get south in a matter of hours.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: For some people, they use the terminology of genocide. Even others, like NRC, the Norwegian Refugee Council, has warned against the risk of a humanitarian ethnic cleansing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The death toll is hitting 3,000 people now. So this is unexpected in this kind of short span of time. So definitely for me, we will have big questioning time that Hamas would face.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: What do you think its next chapter is? Well, this is the $1 million question, in fact. I really don't know. It depends on the end game of this invasion or this Israeli attack.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If the threat of ground invasion materializes, I think we are going to enter a new chapter whereby maybe Hamas could be, let's say, destroyed and dismantled or the main branches of it.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: But this would open another chapter, meaning where would Hamas' military wing go? Would it be fragmented into smaller splinter groups, more radical than the mother organization, in this case Hamas?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What Israel is going to do about them, in fact. Now we are dealing with one organization, political one, they have calculations, they go back and forth. But with smaller groups, totally unaccountable to any central command, maybe you are kind of multiplying your difficulties.
--:-- Khaled al-Hroub: So again, it's really very difficult situation, very difficult questions facing everyone.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Professor Khalid al-Hrub, Middle Eastern Studies at Northwestern University in Qatar. He's written a bunch of books about Palestine, including one called Hamas, A Beginner's Guide.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Our show today was produced by Halima Shah and Siona Peterous, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Serena Solin, engineered by Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Rameswaram for Today Explained. This is Today Explained.
