Israel - Harakat al-Muqaama al-Islamiya (HAMAS)

HAMAS was formed in August 1988 in the West Bank by Sheik Ahmad Yassine as competition to al-Fatah (Arafat's group) for political leadership of the 1.8 million Palestinians in the occupied zones. Yassine was a refugee in 1948 and is well connected to the Ikwhan, or the Muslim Brotherhood, in Egypt. He controlled all the Muslim organizations in Gaza as a holy man. When the intifada began, he created HAMAS to lend support and provide an alternative to the PLO. In May 1989 he was charged with manslaughter and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The nearly blind, paraplegic, 61-year-old Sheik Ahmed Yassine was released in October 1997 to kick start the peace process. Yassine was one of 11 children, and remains poor despite the fact he handled millions of dollars in funds. He lived in a three-room flat in the Sabra area of Gaza City. He was jailed in 1989 and was released either because the Israelis did not want him to die in prison or as a token gesture for a botched Mossad hit on another HAMAS leader. The lack of terrorist acts since his release means that the aging and ailing Yassin and Arafat have struck a deal to chill out and see if the Israelis live up to their word (and to cash those U.S. peace checks).

Currently, the group is supported by about 30 percent of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and is more powerful than Fatah, the PLO's military wing. The intifada (which began in the summer of 1988) hardened HAMAS into the most ardent and powerful group defending the Palestinians' perceived right to not only self-determination, but to the destruction of Israel. Part of their success strategy is a decentralized structure based on the Muslim Brotherhood, a popular Islamic fundamentalist group. HAMAS has been having its lunch handed to it by Shin Bet (the Israeli Secret Police). In August of '95, Shin Bet held a news conference to gloat over the capture of Abdel Nasser Issa, 27, and his apprentice, considered to be the head bomb maker for HAMAS. Both men credited Yehiya Ayash-aka "The Engineer"-as the man who taught them their bomb-making skills in the Gaza Strip. Issa is accused of recruiting and transporting suicide bombers. The arrest also confirmed that the group's spiritual mentor, Sheik Izzadine Khalil, is now in Damascus. Khalil was deported from Israel in 1992.

But in a turn of events for HAMAS, Ayash was assassinated by Shin Bet in January 1996 in a daring cellular phone explosion in Gaza City. Most Israelis rejoiced, while others pondered how many Palestinians Ayash had taught his trade to and how many of those would employ their new skills to avenge their mentor's death.

For now, there are plenty of angry 14- to 20-year-olds to toss rocks, pull triggers and vaporize themselves for HAMAS. The only university these kids have a chance of attending is the ultra-radical Islamic University of Gaza.

HAMAS is short for Harakat al-Muqaama al-Islamiya (Islamic Resistance Movement), but also means zeal or enthusiasm in Arabic. HAMAS members are not the well-trained military terrorists of al-Fatah but a youthful cadre of young Palestinians mostly enlisted from the poorest parts of the Occupied Territories. Most believe that they will find salvation and martyrdom by destroying Israel. Every member is sworn to destroy Israel and to create a new Islamic state based on the Koran. Initially, their campaign of rock throwing turned to stabbing Israeli citizens, including teenage schoolchildren. After HAMAS killed five Israeli Defense Force members, 415 HAMAS members were exiled to southern Lebanon by the Israelis, provoking an international outcry. In the seven years of intifada, Israelis have killed more than 2,000 Palestinians. HAMAS has slain more than 575 collaborators and more than 160 Israelis. The attacks have escalated in their frequency and nature, including the recent bombing of a Tel Aviv bus. HAMAS is expected to continue to terrorize Israelis into the foreseeable future, and Yasir Arafat and his Palestinian police will be expected to control HAMAS, thereby pitting Muslim against Muslim to maintain peace with the Jews, creating another schism in the Middle East. The Jordanian chapter, which was shut down in late 1999, was the most hawkish of the bunch and was credited with the July 1995 bombing in Ramat Gan.

HAMAS is gaining hard-core supporters from former PLO sympathizers. It has an office in Tehran, where they get financial support and receive military training from Hezbollah.

http://www.hamas.org/