Blackwell Reference Online

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Arabic ‘zeal’; acronym of Harakat al Muqawama al Islami , Movement of Islamic Resistance. Islamic organization in the occupied territories. Founded by Sheikh Ahmad Yasin and six other leaders of the muslim brotherhood soon after the intifada began in December 1987, it aimed to end the Israeli occupation of Gaza, the west bank and East Jerusalem and to form an Islamic state there. Its long-term aim was the creation of an Islamic state in the whole of Palestine (including Israel) which had been British mandated territory. Hamas was a popular movement which founded clinics and mosques and, with hizbullah, took the leading part in the Intifada. As it was a decentralized organization, it was little affected by the seizure and imprisonment of Yasin by the Israelis in 1989. Hamas received grants from Iran and also from the gulf states, after they stopped funding the plo for supporting Saddam hussein in the gulf war. It opposed the PLO's decision to take part in the Middle East peace process which began in 1991 and rejected the Oslo Accords of 1993. When the PLO set up the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip in May 1994, with several Jewish settlements still existing there, Hamas intensified its opposition. It used suicide bombers on Israeli buses and in markets to disrupt the peace process and helped to bring about the fall of the Labour government under Shimon peres in 1996 by ... log in or subscribe to read full text