Hamas Jihad And Popular Legitimacy

This book investigates the many faces of Hamas and examines its ongoing evolution as a resistance organisation in the context of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Specifically, the work interrogates Hamas’ interpretation, reinterpretation and application of the twin concepts of muqawama (resistance) and jihad (striving in the name of God). The text frames the movement’s capacity to accrue popular legitimacy through its evolving resistance discourses, centred on the notion of jihad, and the practical applications thereof. Moving beyond the dominant security-orientated approaches to Hamas, the book investigates the malleable nature of both resistance and jihad including their social, symbolic, political and ideational applications. The diverse interpretations of these concepts allow Hamas to function as a comprehensive social movement. Where possible, this volume attempts to privilege first-order or experiential knowledge emanating from the movement itself, its political representatives, and the Palestinian population in general. Many of these accounts were collected by the author during fieldwork in the Middle East. Not only does this work present new primary data, but it also investigates a variety of contemporary empirical events related to Palestine and the Middle East. This book offers an alternative way of viewing the movement’s popular legitimacy grounded in theoretical, empirical and ethnographic terms. This book will be of much interest to students of Hamas, political violence, critical terrorism studies, Middle Eastern politics, security studies and IR in general.

Can a single organization be committed to political activism and charitable good works while simultaneously dispatching suicide bombers to attack civilian targets? This book provides a documented assessment of Hamas, showing the alarming extent to which the group's political and social welfare leaders support terrorism.

This book investigates the many faces of Hamas and examines its ongoing evolution as a resistance organisation in the context of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Specifically, the work interrogates Hamas’ interpretation, reinterpretation and application of the twin concepts of muqawama (resistance) and jihad (striving in the name of God). The text frames the movement’s capacity to accrue popular legitimacy through its evolving resistance discourses, centred on the notion of jihad, and the practical applications thereof. Moving beyond the dominant security-orientated approaches to Hamas, the book investigates the malleable nature of both resistance and jihad including their social, symbolic, political and ideational applications. The diverse interpretations of these concepts allow Hamas to function as a comprehensive social movement. Where possible, this volume attempts to privilege first-order or experiential knowledge emanating from the movement itself, its political representatives, and the Palestinian population in general. Many of these accounts were collected by the author during fieldwork in the Middle East. Not only does this work present new primary data, but it also investigates a variety of contemporary empirical events related to Palestine and the Middle East. This book offers an alternative way of viewing the movement’s popular legitimacy grounded in theoretical, empirical and ethnographic terms. This book will be of much interest to students of Hamas, political violence, critical terrorism studies, Middle Eastern politics, security studies and IR in general.

Drawing on interviews with members of Hamas as well as its critics, the book provides unique insight into the movements internal organisation, how its leaders are selected and decisions made.

Since winning the majority in the Palestinian legislative council in 2006 and seizing power in Gaza in 2007, Hamas’ location in power has posed a serious challenge to its ability to govern without sacrificing its ideological positions. Various factors such as the obligations of governance, regional polarization, the struggle for power against Fatah, the international environment, and the Israeli occupation have affected their governance. Hamas in Power: The Question of Transformation discusses the changes in Hamas’ stance towards the borders of the Palestinian statehood (Two States Solution), the armed resistance, and the peace process. It also attempts to explain Hamas’ perceptions of these issues after assuming power and becoming a government. Covering key topics such as peace, power, governance, and ideology, this reference work is ideal for policymakers, government officials, diplomats, researchers, scholars, academicians, practitioners, instructors, and students.

Founded in 1981, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is one of the most important yet least understood Palestinian armed factions, both in terms of its history and ideology. Yet no in-depth translation of its ideological corpus exists. This book is the first to provide a comprehensive account of the ideology of PIJ in the movement's own words. Based on the author's extensive fieldwork and archival research in the occupied Palestinian territories and Lebanon, the book comprises the PIJ's written texts produced since 1979, translated here into English for the first time. In addition to the primary texts, the book includes expert commentary from the author for each source to help explain the context and the broader significance of the documents. The key contention of the book is that although PIJ employs Islamic signifiers and symbolism, its ideology is strikingly similar to the anti-colonialism of the PLO in the 1960s, and in stark contrast to Hamas. A comprehensive resource on the PIJ, it covers: · PIJ beliefs about the Palestinian problem · what type of Islamism the PIJ espouses · how the PIJ regards Shiites and Iran · how it can be understood as an Islamist organization · what it envisions for Palestinian society in the future This is the only sourcebook available on the PIJ.

Hamas is not hostile to Jews because of religion. Rather, Hamas's view toward Israel is based on a fundamental belief that Israel has occupied land that is inherently Palestinian and Islamic.

Using a wealth of primary sources, this book traces the history of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), one of the most important yet least understood Palestinian armed factions from its origins in the early 1980s to today, exploring its continued presence despite its more powerful sister movement Hamas.