Hamas classified itself as the militant wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Through the creation of Hamas, “the founding fathers of the Muslim Brotherhood had effectively adopted jihad as a means for achieving national and religious redemption, recognizing the primacy of armed struggle to mobilize the masses, and taking the initiative in guiding the popular uprising.”466 Hamas inherited the Islamic ideology of liberation created by Banna and Qutb, which sanctioned the doctrine of external jihad against Israel with the goals of liberating Palestine and creating an Islamic state. According to Hamas’ charter, jihad “becomes an individual duty binding on every Muslim man and woman…[and] [t]here is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by jihad.”467
Despite this language, Hamas did not emerge during the first intifada as a group that engaged in wanton violence. An examination of the first intifada reveals that Hamas adopted a pragmatic strategy of controlled violence against Israel out of a defensive necessity since the organization could not engage Israel in an open confrontation, which aimed at disrupting peace talks between the PLO and Israel. During the second intifada, Hamas increased the frequency of suicide attacks to terrify the Israel public so that it would pressure the Israeli government to engage in territorial concessions. Hamas’ successful ability to use suicide attacks is attributed
466 Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence and Coexistence, 36.
Emphasis added.
467 Hamas Charter quoted in Yonah Alexander, Palestinian Religious Terrorism, (Ardsley: Transnational Publishers, 2002), 54.
largely to the martyrdom ideology that it developed. This potent ideology ensured that Hamas’
suicide cadres were filled with willing volunteers ready to attack Israel.
4.3.1 Suicide Attacks and the First Intifada
Hamas’ first act of terrorism against Israel was not a suicide attack. Instead, in 1989, Hamas instituted what amounted to be a sicari-like campaign of stabbings and kidnappings.468 Like the sicari, Hamas members openly attacked Israeli citizens in the West Bank and Gaza cities with easily hidden daggers.469 This caught the attention of Israeli counter-terrorism officials and Israel responded by conducting a wave of arrests in the West Bank and Gaza. With over 415 Hamas members arrested, Israel decided to deport these individuals to southern Lebanon.470 This proved to be a disastrous decision that Israel would later regret. When the Hamas members arrived in Lebanon, they were approached by members of Hizbollah. It is believed that the
468 Jonathan Schanzer, “The Challenge of Hamas to Fatah,” (The Middle East Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 2,
Spring 2003). Article available online at http://www.meforum.org/516/the-challenge-of-hamas-to-fatah. Accessed on 10/12/09. The sicari was an extreme Jewish faction operating in Roman controlled Palestine. Using short daggers (sica) they attacked their enemies in public during the daylight. For a discussion of the Sicarri see Walter Laqueur, The New Terrorism, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 10-11.
469Shaul Shay, Islamic Terror Abductions in the Middle East, (Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2007), 25.
470Adam Dolnik and Anjali Bhattacharjee, "Hamas: Suicide Bombings, Rockets, or WMD?" (Terror and Political Violence, Vol. 14, No. 2, 2002), 109. See also Luca Ricolfi, “Palestinians, 1981-2003” in Diego Gambetta ed., Understanding Suicide Missions, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 91.
Hamas members received weapons training from Hizbollah and witnessed Hizbollah’s use of suicide attacks. As Shaul Shay argues, Hamas operatives “underwent terrorist training under the tutelage of the Hizbollah and implemented everything they had learned in their struggle with Israel.”471 When the exiled members returned to Palestine, they came back with sophisticated military training and an idea of a new tactic that could be used against Israel.
Hizbollah’s influence on Hamas was apparent in 1993, when Hamas launched its first suicide attack on April 16, 1993, almost four years after the group’s creation.472 A car filled with explosives driven by Sahar Tama Nabulsi was detonated next to a group of buses in a parking lot where a restaurant, frequented by members of the Mechola settlement in the Jordan valley, was located. The number of causalities “was relatively reduced owing to the fact that most of the soldiers destined to travel on these buses were in the restaurant at the time.”473 According to security officials and policymakers in Israel, “the first Palestinian incident was received with a great astonishment because until that day, the phenomenon of suicide terrorism was mostly limited to the Lebanon region.”474 This marked the beginning of a Hamas suicide campaign that lasted from 1993 until 1996. During that three year time, Hamas engaged in 16 suicide attacks in which 119 people were killed and 467 people were injured.475
471Shaul Shay, The Shahids: Islam and Suicide Attacks, 52.
472Adam Dolnik and Anjali Bhattacharjee, "Hamas: Suicide Bombings, Rockets, or WMD?" 110.
473Ami Pedahzur, Suicide Terrorism, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005), 55.
474Ibid.
475 These statistics were compiled using data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT), and the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT).
What shocked many in Israel about Hamas’ campaign of suicide attacks was that it targeted Israeli civilians. Public statements from Hamas claim that the group began to target Israeli civilians in response to Baruch Goldstein’s Temple Mount massacre.476 In a sense, Hamas sought to capitalize on the rage many Palestinians felt in the aftermath of the Temple Mount carnage so it used the Goldstein atrocity to test whether the Palestinian public would accept their newfound tactic.477 When the retaliatory suicide attack against Israeli civilians was greeted with jubilation on the Palestinian side, Hamas must have realized that targeting civilians with suicide attacks could be integrated into a viable resistance strategy. Hamas made the necessary internal adjustments as it formed the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigade, which would dedicate itself to perpetrating suicide attacks against Israel.
Apart from revenge for the rampage of Baruch Goldstein, Hamas’ first wave of suicide attacks was intended to spoil the forthcoming Oslo Accords. Indeed, the April 4, 1996 suicide attack that killed 8 and wounded 50 was an attempt to sabotage the Declaration of Principles and to undermine the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas believed that the Oslo Accords were fundamentally flawed because they “would bring an end to [Hamas’] lofty vision of an establishment of an Islamic state on all Palestinian-Israeli territory.”478 A two-state solution was irreconcilable to Hamas’ goal of an Islamic Palestine, which included the occupied territories and
476 Dr. Baruch Goldstein was a Jewish settler from Hebron who had worked as a physician with Israel’s
Special Forces Unit. He was also a follower of radical Jewish Rabbi Kane. He entered into the Machpela Cave mosque and killed 30 worshippers with an automatic weapon.
477Khaled Hroub, "Hamas after Shaykh Yasin and Rantisi." (Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 33, No. 4, Summer 2004), 23.
478Ami Pedhazur, Suicide Terrorism, 58.
Israel. Hamas argued that historic Palestine, which included the state of Israel, comprised a holy land (waqf), which had been endowed to all Muslim generations ‘until the day of resurrection.’479 As a result, a solution that did not involve the return of the entire waqf should be rejected. Moreover, the accords granted Fatah a dominant status in the Palestinian Authority in terms of creating and implementing policy. As such, it became evident that Islamic organizations like Hamas would have no voice in the political process.
Toward the end of its first campaign of suicide attacks, Hamas succeeded in its role as saboteur. At the end of 1996, the peace process was in disarray and Hamas had created a climate of fear within Israel. Additionally, Hamas conducted two devastating suicide attacks in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv before the Israeli general election. The attacks killed 33 and wounded 110 and, according to Mia Bloom, prompted the Israeli public to elect the conservative Likud party candidate Benjamin Netanyahu who declared his firm opposition to the peace process.480
The limited nature with which Hamas used suicide attacks during this period suggests an organization that was carefully implementing a new strategy. As aforementioned, there were only 16 attacks in a three year period. The primary reasons why Hamas did not utilize suicide attacks more during this period are a combination of organizational and ideological restraints.
Ideologically, Hamas was in the process of developing a sophisticated martyrdom ideology that would be presented to the potential suicide attacker. As Mohammed Hafez observes, the incentive for martyrdom during the first intifada was presented by Hamas to the attacker in a
479See Hamas Charter chapter III, article 11.
480Mia Bloom, “Palestinian Suicide Bombing: Public Support, Market Share, and Outbidding,” (Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 119, No. 1, 2004), 63.