Israel And Hamas

The conflict between Palestinians and Israelis has heightened since 2001, even as any perceived threat to Israel from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, or even Syria, has declined. Israel, according to Chaim Herzog, Israel's sixth President, had been "born in battle" and would be "obliged to live by the sword." Yet, the Israeli government's conquest and occupation of the West Bank and Gaza brought about a very difficult challenge, although resistance on a mass basis was only taken upyears later in the First Intifadha. Israel could not tolerate Palestinian Arabs' resistance of their authority on the legal basis of denial of self-determination,2 and eventually preferred to grant some measures of self-determination while continuing to consolidate control of the Occupied Territories, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. However, a comprehensive peace, shimmering in the distance, has eluded all. Inter-Israeli and inter-Palestinian divisions deepenedas peace danced closer before retreating. Israel's stance towards the democratically elected Palestinian government headed by HAMAS in 2006, and towards Palestinian national coherence-legal, territorial, political, and economic-has been a major obstacle to substantive peacemaking. The reasons for recalcitrant Israeli and HAMAS stances illustrate both continuities and changes in the dynamics of conflict since the Oslo period (roughly 1994 to the al-Aqsa Intifadha of 2000). Now, more than ever, a long-term truce and negotiations are necessary. These could lead in stages to that mirage-like peace, and a new type of security regime. The rise in popularity and strength of the HAMAS (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya, or Movement of the Islamic Resistance) Organization and its interaction with Israel is important to an understanding of Israel's "Arab" policies and its approach to counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. The crisis brought about by the electoral success of HAMAS in 2006 also challenged Western powers' commitment to democratic change in the Middle East because Palestinians had supported the organization in the polls. Thus, the viability of a twostate solution rested on an Israeli acknowledgement of the Islamist movement, HAMAS, and on Fatah's ceding power to it. Shifts in Israel's stated national security objectives (and dissent over them) reveal HAMAS' placement at the nexus of Israel's domestic, Israeli-Palestinian, and regional objectives. Israel has treated certain enemies differently than others: Iran, Hizbullah, and Islamist Palestinians (whether HAMAS, supporters of Islamic Jihad, or the Islamic Movement inside Israel) all fall into a particular rubric in which Islamism-the most salient and enduring socio religious movement in the Middle East in the wake of Arab nationalism-is identified with terrorism and insurgency rather than with group politics and identity. The antipathy to religious fervor was somewhat ironic in light of Israel's own expanding "religious" (haredim) groups.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the impact of ‘strategic culture’ on Israeli military operations against Hamas between 1987 and 2014. It has often been argued that Israeli policies and military operations against Hamas have proven tactically effective, but strategically disastrous, allowing the Islamic Resistance Movement to grow from a small spin-off of the Muslim Brotherhood into a powerful military and political actor in the Palestinian arena. This book argues, contrary to this opinion, that Israel was effective in its struggle against the Islamic Resistance Movement between 1987 and 2014, as the Jewish state ultimately managed to deny the majority of Hamas' strategic aims and to preserve a position of relative strength. By relying on a synthesis of primary sources, interviews, memoirs, scholarly and professional military studies and information gathered from the media, the study delivers a careful and comprehensive analysis of the conflict. It provides an historical outline of the development of the Israeli ‘strategic culture’ and analyzes its impact on the process of military adaptation during the First Intifada, the Oslo Peace Process, the al-Aqsa Intifada and the Gaza wars. Finally, the book illuminates how the Israeli strategic culture moulded a distinctive ‘way of war’ that, though marked by successes and failures, ultimately proved effective against Hamas. This book will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, Middle Eastern politics, counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism and security studies in general.

Contents: (1) Overview; (2) Evaluating the Annapolis Process: Signs of Progress or of Setbacks?; Debate Over the Urgency of Reaching a 2-State Solution; Windows of Opportunity for Consensus on the Peace Process; Going Forward from Annapolis; (3) Changes Since Oslo: Middle East Geopolitics; Demographic Concerns -- Arabs to Outnumber Jews?; Violence and Palestinian Factionalism; Impediments to Palestinian Territorial Contiguity and Movement; (4) Alternatives to a 2-State Solution: ¿1-State Solution¿; Israeli Unilateralism; ¿Jordanian¿ or ¿Regional¿ Option; ¿Status Quo¿; (5) The U.S. Approach.; The Role of Hamas; Capacity-Building for Palestinian Moderates; Israeli Settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Maps.

Following the horrific attack on October 7, support for a devastating military retaliation and resolution has taken center stage. Nevertheless, within Israel, numerous critical voices cast doubt on the sustainability of such approaches. They champion the principles of morality, legality, and common sense as the true keys to a lasting solution. This book focuses on these voices which are critical of Israeli government policies. They are deeply grieving and affected by the October 7 attack, while also able to hold both Palestinian and Israeli pain and aspirations not as mutually exclusive, but as an impetus for creating a better and more equitable future for all who inhabit the land. It chronicles the reactions of intellectuals and scholars to unfolding events. All the pieces in this volume were written within a few days to a few months of October 7 and comprise an archive of a particular discourse taking shape in Israel at this historical juncture. The book is dedicated to the memory of Vivian Silver, who devoted her life to waging peace through valiant activism, and was murdered in her home on October 7. The editor’s royalties will go to support an annual lecture in her memory on the themes of peace and democracy. With contributions by Shaul Arieli, Eva Illouz, Idan Landau, Yaniv Ronen, Yofi Tirosh, Assaf David, Ameer Fakhoury, Ghadir Hani, Eran Tzidkiyahu, Orit Kamir, Orly Noy, Noam Shuster-Eliassi, Jessica Ausinheiler, Meirav Jones, Tal Correm, Anwar Mhajne, David Kretzmer, Omer Bartov, Rawia Aburabia, Hannah Safran, Tanya Zion-Waldoks, Galit Cohen-Kedem, Avi Shilon, Hagar Kotef, Merav Amir, Ali Al-Awar, and Nicholas Kristof.

For the Palestinians who live in the narrow coastal strip of Gaza, the Israeli invasion of December 2008 was a nightmare of unimaginable proportions: In the 22-day-long action 1,400 Gazans were killed, several hundred on the first day alone. And yet, while nothing should diminish Palestinian suffering through those frightful days, it is possible something redemptive is emerging from the tragedy of Gaza. For, as Norman Finkelstein details, in a concise work that melds cold anger with cool analysis, the profound injustice of the Israeli assault was widely recognized by bodies that it is impossible to brand as partial or extremist. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN investigation headed by Richard Goldstone, in documenting Israel’s use of indiscriminate and intentional force against the civilian population during the invasion (100 Palestinians died for every one Israeli), have had an impact on longstanding support for Israel. Jews in both the Unites States and the United Kingdom, for instance, have begun to voice dissent, and this trend is especially apparent among the young. Such a shift, Finkelstein contends, can create new pressure capable of moving the Middle East crisis towards a solution, one that embraces justice for Palestinians and Israelis alike. This new paperback edition has been revised throughout and includes an extensive afterword on the Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla which resulted in the deaths of nine activists and further strained the loyalty of many of Israel’s traditional allies around the world. It also contains a brand new appendix in which Finkelstein dissects the official Israeli investigation of the flotilla attack.

Declared a terrorist menace yet elected to government in a free election, Hamas now stands as the most important Sunni Islamist group in the Middle East. How did Hamas grow to be so powerful? Who supports it? What is its future? This essential insight into Hamas answers these questions. Milton-Edwards and Farrell have between them spent decades researching and reporting from the heartlands of the Hamas movement and gained unrivalled access to the world of Islamic resistance and radical Islam in its potent Palestinian form. Drawing on their frontline experiences of recent events, their access to secret documents from the western intelligence community and interviews with leaders, militants, and commanders of Hamas' armed battalions, they reveal the full story of Hamas and the future of political Islam in the Middle East. Milton-Edwards and Farrell show Hamas to be a broad and thus more powerful regional phenomenon than previously thought, and by doing so contend that it is now time to rethink the war and the nature of Islam and its role in the Middle East. Beverley Milton-Edwards is Professor in the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy at Queens University, Belfast. She is the author of books such as Contemporary Politics in the Middle East (2006) and The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: a People's War (2009). Prize-winning journalist Stephen Farrell is Foreign Correspondent for the New York Times and was previously Middle East correspondent for The Times.

Contents: (1) Gaza Conflict: Post-Conflict Developments; Origins; Did Israel Achieve Its Goals?; (2) Palestinian Rocket Attacks from Gaza: Threat Assessment and Israeli Responses; (3) Impact on Palestinian Civilians, and Israeli Civilians; (4) Addressing the Needs of the Gazan Population; Preventing Arms Smuggling into Gaza; Intra-Palestinian Politics ¿- Fatah (PA/PLO) and Hamas; Regional and International Implications; Impact on Israeli Elections; Effect on the Arab-Israeli Peace Process; (5) Defense Approp. for U.S.-Israeli Missile Defense Programs; Oversight of U.S. Arms Sales to Israel; U.S. Humanitarian Aid and Other Econ. Assistance to Palestinians; U.S. Security Assistance to the Palestinian Authority; (6) Implications for U.S. Policy. Illus.

Operation Protective Edge, launched on July 8, 2014, saw heavy fighting between the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas in Gaza. Throughout the war US government media spokespersons confirmed Israels right to self-defense against rockets and tunnels, and condemned Hamas for initiating the conflict and its use of human shields. But there is an important difference between confirmation and pro-active demonstration at the highest political level. The longstanding alliance between the United States and Israel has always been subject to the administration and president of the day. In this case, the Obama administrations support for Israels right to self-defense was qualified, and as a result the Israeli political leadership felt constrained in its ability to defeat Hamas militarily without risking criticism from the United States that would impact negatively on the special relationship. In its role as ally, the United States was careful not to apply direct political pressure on Israel. However, US government public criticisms relating to Gazan civilian loss of life damaged Israel on the international stage via harrowing media coverage surrounding the conflict. The Federal Aviation Administration order to airlines to stop flying to Israel enhanced Hamas claim that it had inflicted a strategic defeat to the Zionist State. For the last 70 years Israel has recognized that the United States is its primary strategic ally a principle initiated by Israels first Prime Minister and Defense Minister, David Ben-Gurion. Political and military policies have to be directed to prevent a rift. But the Protective Edge experience has brought to the fore that in times of crisis Israel cannot rely on a special relationship to secure its safety and must of necessity possess the political will and military ability to defend itself and to take actions that may result in a strained relationship.