Erik Skare

3. Rise of the Vanguard

  1. Palestinian Islamic Jihad communiqué, December 11, 1987.
  2. Abu Imad al-­Rifa'i, Harakat al-­jihad al-­islami fi Filastin: Bidayat al-­mashru' al-­jihadi wa samatihi (Beirut: Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 2001), 11–12.
  3. Beverley Milton-­Edwards, Islamic Politics in Palestine (London: I. B. Tauris, 1999), 120; Ziad Abu-­Amr, Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 99.
  4. This chapter is based on chapters 1–3 in Erik Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Faith, Awareness, and Revolution in the Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).
  5. Fathi al-­Shiqaqi, 'al-­Jihad: al-­Qissa al-­haqiqiyya', in Rif 'at Sayyid Ahmad, ed., Rihlat al-­damm alladhi hazam al-­sayf: al-­A'mal al-­kamila li-­l-­shahid al-­duktur Fathi al-­Shiqaqi (Cairo: Markaz Yafa li-­l-­dirasat wa-­l-­abhath, 1996), 1139.
  6. Christoph Reuter, My Life Is a Weapon: A Modern History of Suicide Bombing (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 96.
  7. Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 95, 258–9, 444; Benny Morris, 1948 and After: Israel and the Palestinians (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 82n4.
  8. Text in this and the preceding paragraph is taken from Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 14.
  9. Ghassan Charbel, 'Ziyara li-­dhakirat al-­amin al-­amm li-­harakat 'al-­jihad al-­islami fi Filastin' 4. Shallah: Talabtuhu bi-­tashkil tanzim wa hin kashaf al-­sirr baya'tuhu bay'at 'al-­jihad' al-­Shiqaqi an hassan nasrallah: sayakun khumayni al-­Arab idha 'ash', al-­Hayat, January 10, 2003.
  10. PIJ co-­founder, interview with Erik Skare, August 6, 2018.
  11. Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 213–14.
  12. Muhammad Muru, Fathi al-­Shiqaqi: Sawt al-­Mustad'afin fi muwajahat mashru' al-­haymana al-­Gharbi (Cairo: Markaz Yafa li-­l-­dirasat wa-­l-­abhath, 1997), 2.
  13. Loren D. Lybarger, Identity and Religion in Palestine: The Struggle Between Islamism and Secularism in the Occupied Territories (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 17–18; Fathi al-­Shiqaqi, 'al-­Qadiya al-­Filastiniyya: Hiya al-­qadiya al-­markaziyya li-­l-­haraka al-­islamiyya . . . limadha?', in Ahmad, Rihlat al-­damm alladhi hazam al-­Sayf, 65. Correct reference for this footnote is Fathi al-Shiqaqi, "al-Tarikh limadha..?" al-Talia al-Islamiyya 11 (1983): 65-66.
  14. Anwar Abu Taha, Harakat al-­jihad al-­islami fi Filastin: Nash'atan wa minhajan (Beirut: Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 2001), 16.
  15. Al-­Quds Brigades, 'Dhikra 'al-­Shiqaqi' fi dhakirat 'al-­shami', saraya.ps, January 7, 2015
  16. Yusuf Arif al-­Hajj Muhammad, al-­Masira al-­jihadiyya li-­harakat al-­jihad al-­islami fi Filastin (Gaza: Muhjat al-­Quds, 2011), 37.
  17. Ramadan Shallah, Haqa'iq wa mawafiq (Damascus: Mu'assasat al-­Aqsa al-­thaqafiyya, 2007), 24.
  18. Fathi al-­Shiqaqi, 'al-­Thawra al-­islamiyya fi Iran wa-­l-­thawra al-­Filastiniyya', in Ahmad, Rihlat al-­damm alladhi hazam al-­sayf, 558.
  19. Shallah, Haqa'iq wa mawafiq, 80.
  20. The Mahdi, a messianic figure in Islamic eschatology, is believed to have disappeared 873–4 CE, entering a state of occultation, only to return at the end of times to restore justice and equity on Earth.
  21. Fathi al-­Shiqaqi, al-­Khumayni: al-­Hall al-­islami wa-­l-­badil (Cairo: al-­mukhtar al-­islami, 1979), 37.
  22. Skare, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 2.
  23. Fathi al-­Shiqaqi, 'Afghanistan: Judhur al-­sira: al-­Thawra. al-­Mustaqbal. Hal huwa inbi'ath salibi jadid?', in Ahmad, Rihlat al-­damm alladhi hazam al-­sayf, 144.
  24. Ibid., 142.
  25. Al-­Shiqaqi, 'al-­Tarikh limadha?'
  26. Al-­Shiqaqi, al-­Khumayni, 30–1. Typographical error. Correct pages 20-1.
  27. Al-­Shiqaqi, 'Markaziyyat Filastin wa-­l-­mashru' al-­islami al-­mu'asir', in Ahmad, Rihlat al-­damm alladhi hazam al-­sayf, 431.
  28. Al-­Shiqaqi, 'al-­Qadiya al-­Filastiniyya', 178–9.
  29. Ibid., 174; al-­Shiqaqi, 'Markaziyyat Filastin wa-­l-­mashru' al-­islami al-­mu'asir', 450.
  30. Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 42.
  31. Al-­Shiqaqi, 'Markaziyyat Filastin wa-­l-­mashru' al-­islami al-­mu'asir', 431. Correct page is 433.
  32. Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 42–3.
  33. Al-­Shiqaqi, 'Markaziyyat Filastin wa-­l-­mashru' al-­islami al-­mu'asir', 454.
  34. PIJ communiqué, 'Forward, O March of Sacred Struggle', December 18, 1987.
  35. PIJ communiqué, 'O World, Listen for a Moment, and Hear the Cries of Our Children and Mothers', January 29, 1988.
  36. Skare, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 46.
  37. Qibla is the direction Muslims face when in prayer. While Muslims originally faced Jerusalem in prayer, this changed to the Kaaba in Mecca approximately one and a half years after the emigration of Prophet Muhammad.
  38. Fathi al-­Shiqaqi, 'Filastin nuqtat al-­sidam ma' al-­mashru' al-­Gharbi al-­isti'mari', in Ahmad, Rihlat al-­damm alladhi hazam al-­sayf, 709.
  39. For a more elaborate analysis of the Quranic dimension, see Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 43–8.
  40. Al-­Shiqaqi, 'Markaziyyat Filastin wa-­l-­mashru' al-­islami al-­mu'asir', 441.
  41. Ibid., 437.
  42. Abu Taha, Harakat al-­jihad al-­islami fi Filastin, 45–6.
  43. Anwar Abu Taha, interview with Erik Skare, March 19, 2018.
  44. Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 45, 47–8.
  45. Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 148–9.
  46. Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 220.
  47. Muhammad, al-­Masira al-­jihadiyya, 31.
  48. Meir Hatina, Islam and Salvation in Palestine (Tel Aviv: Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and Africa Studies, 2001), 27.
  49. Nicolas Dot-­Pouillard and Eugénie Rébillard, 'The Intellectual, the Militant, the Prisoner and the Partisan: The Genesis of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine (1974–1988)', Muslim World 103 (2013): 9.
  50. Ibid.
  51. Sara Roy, 'The Political Economy of Despair: Changing Political and Economic Realities in the Gaza Strip', Journal of Palestine Studies 20, no. 3 (1991): 65.
  52. Milton-­Edwards, Islamic Politics in Palestine, 107–8.
  53. Human Rights Watch, 'Gaza: Halt Morality Enforcement Campaign', hrw.org, March 2, 2011.
  54. Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 36.
  55. Eric Hobsbawm, Interesting Times: A Twentieth-­Century Life (New York: Pantheon Books, 2002), 218.
  56. Al-­Quds Brigades, 'Khabar: al-­Qiyadi al-­shami li-­"l-­i'lam al-­harbi" al-­Shiqaqi sana' mashru' islami thawri shamilt', saraya.ps, October 27, 2013.
  57. Riyad Salih Hashish, Rihlat haya bayn al-­bilad wa-­l-­shahada (Gaza: al-­kalima li-­l-­nashr wa-­l-­tawzi', 2018), 174–5.
  58. Shallah, Haqa'iq wa mawafiq, 71.
  59. Abu Taha, Harakat al-­jihad al-­islami fi Filastin, 21.
  60. Milton-­Edwards, Islamic Politics in Palestine, 119–20.
  61. Hashish, Rihlat haya bayn al-­bilad wa-­l-­shahada, 165–6. Correct page number is 171.
  62. Al-­Quds Brigades, 'Dhikra 'al-­Shiqaqi' fi dhakirat 'al-­shami'.
  63. Hashish, Rihlat haya bayn al-­bilad wa-­l-­shahada, 171. Correct page number is 175.
  64. Al-­Quds Brigades, 'Khabar: al-­Qiyadi al-­shami li-­"l-­i'lam al-­harbi" al-­shiqaqi sana' mashru' islami thawri shamil', saraya.ps, October 27, 2013.
  65. Jean-­Pierre Filiu, Gaza: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 158.
  66. Tareq Baconi, Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018), 18.
  67. Muhammad al-­Sarsawi and Adnan Ali, D. Fathi al-­Shiqaqi al-­shahid wa-­l-­shahid (n.p., 1996), 19.
  68. PIJ co-­founder, interview with Erik Skare, August 6, 2018.
  69. Britannica, 'Hundred Flowers Campaign', December 29, 2023, britannica.com.
  70. Al-­Sarsawi and Ali, D. Fathi al-­Shiqaqi al-­shahid wa-­l-­shahid, 19.
  71. Hashish, Rihlat haya bayn al-­bilad wa-­l-­shahada, 168.
  72. Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 23–4.
  73. Hashish, Rihlat haya bayn al-­bilad wa-­l-­shahada, 174.
  74. Ibid., 168. Correct page number is 174.
  75. Milton-­Edwards, Islamic Politics in Palestine, 120; Hatina, Islam and Salvation in Palestine, 29; Muhammad, al-­Masira al-­jihadiyya, 46–7.
  76. Al-­Quds Brigades, 'Fathi al-­Shiqaqi . . . Thawra tajub al-­watan . . . wa fikra tardad tawajjuhan', saraya.ps, October 25, 2015.
  77. Al-­Quds Brigades, 'Suwwar . . . al-­shahid al-­qa'id mahmud al-­khawaja: Haqqan annahu rajul la yatakarrar', saraya.ps, November 22, 2015.
  78. Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 62.
  79. Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Masirat harakat al-­jihad al-­islami fi Filastin (Beirut: PIJ, 1989), 17; 'Ab'ad da'wat Abbas li-­l-­hiwar ma' Hamas', al-­Jazeera, June 16, 2008; Dot-­Pouillard and Rébillard, 'The Intellectual, the Militant, the Prisoner and the Partisan', 8.
  80. Reuven Paz, 'The Development of Palestinian Islamic Groups', in Barry Rubin, ed., Revolutionaries and Reformers: Contemporary Islamist Movements in the Middle East (New York: SUNY Press, 2003), 23.
  81. Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 67; Yezid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 608.
  82. Markaz Ru'ya li-­l-­Tanmiya al-­Siyasiyya, 'Khadr Habib', Vision Centre for Political Development, April 18, 2023, vision-­pd.org.
  83. Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 77.
  84. Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Masirat harakat al-­jihad al-­islami fi Filastin, 17.
  85. 'al-­Sira al-­dhatiyya li-­l-­amin al-­amm al-­muntakhab li-­harakat al-­jihad al-­islami al-­ustadh al-­nakhala', Filastin al-­Yawm, September 27, 2018, paltoday.ps; al-­Quds Brigades, 'al-­Shahid al-­Qa'id Misbah al-­Suri: Khaddab bi-­dammihi Judran sijn Ghazza al-­markazi', saraya.ps, October 6, 2011.
  86. For a more elaborate analysis of PIJ's recruitment efforts of the PLO fighters in prison, see Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 70–6.
  87. Al-­Quds Brigades, 'al-­Shahid al-­qa'id 'Issam Musa Brahma': Awwal qa'id 'Askari li-­l-­jihad al-­islami bi-­l-­diffa al-­muhtalla', saraya.ps, June 29, 2011.
  88. Rif 'at Sayyid Ahmad, 'Rihlat al-­damm alladhi hazam al-­sayf ', in Ahmad, Rihlat al-­damm alladhi hazam al-­sayf, 59; Milton-­Edwards, Islamic Politics in Palestine, 120; Hatina, Islam and Salvation in Palestine, 33. First reference redundant.
  89. Filiu, Gaza, 190.
  90. Hillel Frisch, 'Has the Israeli-­Palestinian Conflict Become Islamic? Fatah, Islam, and the al-­Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades', Terrorism and Political Violence 17, no. 3 (October 2005): 394–6.
  91. Abu-­Amr, Islamic Fundamentalism, xv.
  92. David Motadel, 'Islamic Revolutionaries and the End of Empire', in Martin Thomas and Andrew S. Thompson, eds, The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 556, 564, 570.
  93. Abu Samir Musa, interview with Erik Skare, Rashidiyya, March 21, 2018.
  94. Dot-­Pouillard and Rébillard, 'The Intellectual, the Militant, the Prisoner and the Partisan,' 14.
  95. PIJ co-­founder, interview with Erik Skare, August 6, 2018.
  96. Frode Løvlie, 'Questioning the Secular-­Religious Cleavage in Palestinian Politics: Comparing Fatah and Hamas', Politics and Religion 7, no. 1 (March 2014): 103.
  97. For a comprehensive analysis and exploration of the Fatah Maoists' shift to Islamism, which informs this paragraph, see Manfred Sing, 'Brothers in Arms: How Palestinian Maoists Turned Jihadists', Die Welt des Islams 51, no. 1 (2011): 1–44.
  98. Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 214.
  99. Wendy Pearlman, Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 64.
  100. 'al-­Yawm, al-­sira al-­dhatiyya li-­l-­amin al-­amm al-­muntakhab li-­harakat al-­jihad al-­Islami al-­Ustadh al-­Nakhala', Filastin al-­Yawm.
  101. Al-­Quds Brigades, 'al-­Shahid al-­Qa'id Muhammad Sa'id al-­Jamal: Dhikhra butulat ta'abba al-­nisyan', saraya.ps, October 6, 2011.
  102. Anwar Abu Taha, interview with Erik Skare, March 19, 2018.
  103. David McDowall, Palestine and Israel: The Uprising and Beyond (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 109; al-­Quds Brigades, 'Abu sarhad yarwi li-­l-­ilam al-­harbi adaq tafasil amaliyyat al-­hurub al-­mu'jiza li-­l-­Marra al-­ula . . . suwwar', saraya.ps, October 3, 2013.
  104. Sing, 'Brothers in Arms', 3.
  105. Azzam Tamimi, Hamas: Unwritten Chapters (London: Hurst, 2009), 44.
  106. Khaled Hroub, Hamas: Political Thought and Practice (Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2000), 33.
  107. Tamimi, Hamas, 45–6.
  108. Jean-­Pierre Filiu, 'The Origins of Hamas: Militant Legacy or Israeli Tool?', Journal of Palestine Studies 41, no. 3 (June 2012): 186.
  109. The name Majd was an acronym for Munazzamat al-­Jihad wa-­l-­Da'wa, Organization for Jihad and Proselytizing.
  110. Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State, 607–8.
  111. Tamimi, Hamas, 53.
  112. Frode Løvlie, 'The Institutional Trajectory of Hamas: From Radicalism to Pragmatism – and Back Again?' (PhD thesis, University of Bergen, 2015), 115.
  113. Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence, and Coexistence (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 35.
  114. Løvlie, 'The Institutional Trajectory of Hamas', 116.
  115. Hroub, Hamas, 39.
  116. Mishal and Sela, The Palestinian Hamas, 35.
  117. Ibid.
  118. Abu Taha, Harakat al-­jihad al-­islami fi Filastin, 53–4.
  119. Milton-­Edwards, Islamic Politics in Palestine, 172.
  120. Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 159.
  121. Hatina, Islam and Salvation in Palestine, 108.
  122. Hroub, Hamas, 127–8.
  123. This paragraph uses text from Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 215.
  124. Hatina, Islam and Salvation in Palestine, 107, 197.
  125. Menachem Klein, 'Competing Brothers: The Web of Hamas–PLO Relations', Terrorism and Political Violence 8, no. 2 (June 1996): 128.
  126. Muhammad, al-­Masira al-­jihadiyya, 193.
  127. Anwar Abu Taha, interview with Erik Skare, March 19, 2018.
  128. Hroub, 'Between Islam and Nationalism', Journal of Palestine Studies 31, no. 3 (2002): 108.