HAMAS: A Conventional Terrorist Group? Essay examples

By the year 1967, the Israeli state shocked the world when it seized the remaining Palestinian territories. These territories

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the one of the world’s oldest conflicts, and it is still an ongoing problem in the world. Zionists and Arabs: two groups with conflicting beliefs who both claim Israel as their own. In wake of the Holocaust the U.N decided to gift the Jews a homeland for the lives lost in the genocide. In 1947, the U.N Partition divided the land of Israel (Historic Palestine) into two separate states: Arab and Jewish. Since then, the state of Israel has been the center of conflict between the Arabs and the Zionists. As time passed the Zionists gained more land from winning the Six-Day War, and consequently the Palestinians had to live as refugees in other Arab countries. Additionally, more than 75% of the land belonged to

Much of the tension and terrorism between the Middle East and the United States can be traced back to the twentieth century. In the early 1920s oil became very essential to the United States, therefore the U.S. invested in the Middle East oil industry. Since both sides of the world were connected through this investment, the Middle East was more exposed to western society. “As Western ideas spread through the region, many Muslims feared that their traditional values and beliefs were being weakened” (Appleby, 1032). In order to continue following the traditional Muslim religious laws, Muslim movements were created to overthrow pro-Western governments in the Middle East. Even though Muslims believed that terrorism is the opposite of their faith, they supported these movements and were called fundamentalist militants. In 1947 the United Nations divided Palestine into two sections in order to give the Jews land that they can call ‘home’. One section was called Israel, and the other section was to become a Palestine state. This was the beginning of a military war; the Palestinians wanted their own nation therefore they began planning raids and terrorist attacks against their neighbor Israel. The United States gave aid to Israel, and immediately became Muslim target.

-Palestinians—most Palestinian organizations like Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) just want to have their own state and Israelis withdrawn from the occupied territories but extremist like Hamas wants to takeover the whole Israel and either make Jews as second citizens or push them to the sea.

This tension came to a climax in 1936 during Arab Revolt, leaving 300 Jews and 5,000 Arabs dead, and over 15,000 Arabs injured. After WWII, large amounts of Jews were left as refugees, and on the eve of the expiration of the League of Nations Mandate, Israel announced its independence. A day latter, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon joined forces in order to stop Israel from becoming a state. There were a total of around 15,000 killed. A Palestinian’s journal explained the brutality when they wrote, “They took about 40 prisoners from the village. But after the battle was over, they took them to the quarry where they shot them dead and threw their bodies in the quarry” (10). Almost one million Palestinians were forcibly relocate. The war ended in 1949 in a ceasefire.

Israeli forces defeated the Palestinian militias and Arab armies in a vicious conflict that turned 700,000 Palestinian civilians into refugees. The UN

As of recent years, with the rise of right-wing, nationalistic politicians in Israel, the hunger for settlement of Palestine has increased. Seeing the land as theirs to take, more and more Jewish settlements have been improved and expanded on in the West Bank, culminating and high profile confrontations between the new Jewish settlers and the Palestinian

Meanwhile, Zionists had been organizing small but steady waves of immigration into Palestine as early as 1882. The new, Jewish settlements, dubbed the “new Yishuv”, grew in strength; though it initially faced serious financial setbacks, the new Yishuv had become a viable political community by the eve of World War I. Arab resentment toward the Zionists emerged due to economic and political concerns: the local Palestinian population were justifiably afraid that the Jewish population would monopolize trade or provide unwanted economic competition, while the Arab nationalists were anxious that Zionism not interfere with their own political aspirations.

Zionists and Palestinian Arabs wanted individual nations and both felt they had a claim to Palestine. Shortly after in 1947, the United Nations General Assembly Resolution (UNGAR) called for a partition, which divided the country so that each state would have a majority of its own population. This divide meant that some of the Jewish settlements would fall within the proposed Arab state while an extremely large number of Palestinian Arabs would become part of the proposed Jewish state. (Beinin and Hajjar 2014). A year later in May, Israel unilaterally declared their independence and the State of Israel was established. This of course started a war, and neighboring Arab states invaded Israel almost immediately. During this war about 750,000 Arab Palestinians fled to Lebanon, the West Bank, and the Gaza strip. (http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/%E2%80%9Cpalestine-refugees-unresolved-question-time-syria-crisis%E2%80%9D) Also during this fight, Israel expanded its borders far beyond the UN partition lines, leaving Egypt to take hold of the Gaza Strip & Jordan to control the West

Territory regarded by the Jewish people as their homeland is also regarded by the Arab movement as belonging to the Palestinian Arabs. The conflict between Palestinian Jews and Arabs emerged in the early 20th century during the 1920 Nebi Musa riots, ending into a full scale civil war in 1947 and expanding to all Arab League countries with the creation of the modern State of Israel in May 1948. The conflict, which started as a political and nationalist conflict over

Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that originated in Lebanon in 1982. In just more than twenty years Hezbollah has proved itself to be an effective terrorist organization. Hezbollah is much more than just a terrorist organization. In Lebanon it has become a major political party and social force to be reckoned with, as well as a major supporter of other terrorist groups. Hezbollah is a powerful organization and this power has led to its dominance in the world of terror.

Hamas’s origins stretch back decades through the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine; and Hamas took it current shape during the early years of the intifada. Hamas was not only formed to resist an Israeli state, but also was firmly against the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) dominance in the Palestinian National movement.

This group was created in 1978 and continues to expand its power today. It began as a branch of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. This terrorist group has several goals ranging from creating a Islamic state to continuing the armed struggle against Israeli occupation of Palestine territories. Their acts of

Both of these approaches would pave the way for Hamas’ seemingly bipolar tenure in Palestine. By the 1970’s, the Palestinian population was disillusioned by secularism, Westernization and materialism, and many looked toward the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic revival as an alternative . A drastic turn of events led to niche in Palestine that a more violent facet of the Muslim Brotherhood was willing to fill.

Tensions between the Arabs and Zionists started after the 1800’s when the immigration of the European Jews to Palestine was on the increase. The population of Palestine from 1882-1883 was 468,000 and the population consisted of 408 Muslims, 44,000 Christians and 15,000 Jews. During this time Palestine was under the Ottoman Empire.