Erik Skare

4. Peace, Blood, and Twisted Metal

  1. Yahya Sinwar, al-­Shawk wa-­l-­qaranful (n.p., 2004), 214.
  2. Nur Masalha, The Palestine Nakba: Decolonizing History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory (London: Zed Books, 2012), 115–16; Ilan Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2008), 194.
  3. Sinwar, al-­Shawk wa-­l-­qaranful, 61.
  4. Ibid., 25.
  5. Ibid., 14.
  6. Ibid., 32.
  7. Al-­Zaydawi, 'Yahya al-­Sinwar: Rajul alladhi tukhshah Isra'il hayyan wa maytan', Maydan, October 11, 2023.
  8. Sinwar, al-­Shawk wa-­l-­qaranful, 218.
  9. Frank Gardner, 'Yahya Sinwar: Who Is the Hamas Leader in Gaza?', BBC News, November 21, 2023.
  10. For references to the moniker in Western secondary sources, see, for example, Peter Beaumont, 'Election of New Hamas Gaza Strip Leader Increases Fears of Confrontation', Guardian, February 13, 2017.
  11. Mkhaimar Abusada, 'The Strongest Man in Gaza: Inside the Mind of Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar', Haaretz, January 17, 2024.
  12. Muhammad Abu Tayr, Sayyidi Umar: Dhikriyat al-­shaykh Muhammad Abu Tayr fi al-­muqawama wa thalatha wa thalathin 'aman min al-­i'tiqal (Beirut: Markaz al-­zaytuna li-­l-­dirasat wa-­l-­istisharat, 2017), 238, 241.
  13. Sinwar, al-­Shawk wa-­l-­qaranful, 218.
  14. 'Dabit majmu'at al-­shuhada' ', al-­Markaz al-­Filastini al-­Ilami, February 19, 2010, palestine-­info.com.
  15. Yezid Sayigh, 'We Serve the People': Hamas Policing in Gaza (Washington,DC: Brandeis University, Crown Center for Middle East Studies, 2011), 46.
  16. Ibrahim al-­Maqadma, Ma'alim fi al-­tariq li-­tahrir Filastin, 2nd ed. (n.p., 2002), 285.
  17. There are disagreements with regard to who founded the Izz al-­Din al-­Qassam Brigades in the early 1990s, presumably due to uncertainties caused by its clandestine nature. While some refer to Imad Aql as its founder in early 1991 ('Dabit majmu'at al-­shuhada' '), others refer to his namesake, Walid Aql, in central Gaza in late 1991 (Mishal and Sela, The Palestinian Hamas, 64) or Yasir al-­Namruti from Khan Younis, who worked with Sinwar in Majd before targeting Israelis from 1992 (al-­Qassam Brigades, 'Yasir al-­Namruti'). Because of the Brigades' early nature, it is more precise to describe them all as co-­founders of more or less connected military cells across the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
  18. Robert Fisk, 'Hamas Mourns Its Greatest Martyr', Independent: News, November 29, 1993.
  19. Sarri Samur, 'Fashal al-­thuwar al-­Afghan ahraj wa ad'af al-­tayar al-­salafi fi Hamas', al-­Jazeera, September 10, 2019.
  20. 'al-­Shaykh Ahmad Yasin: Shahid ala asr al-­intifada', episode 3, al-­Jazeera, May 1, 1999.
  21. Frode Løvlie, 'The Institutional Trajectory of Hamas: From Radicalism to Pragmatism – and Back Again?' (PhD thesis, University of Bergen, 2015), 114.
  22. Al-­Maqadma, Ma'alim fi al-­tariq li-­tahrir Filastin, 268.
  23. The ten most common occupations among al-­Qassam Brigades members account for three-­quarters of the total. Lower-­ranked jobs reflect the types of occupations listed in the table and include plasterer, repair man, stonecutter, car painter, tile worker, and tanner. Specialized positions included one teacher, one imam, and one physiotherapist.
  24. A total of 111 Hamas militants were killed in this period. Twelve lacked information about education level and are omitted from Table 4.1. Table 4.2 accounts for one-­third of the total. The other occupations reflect the table and include plasterer, repairman, stone-­cutter, and the like. Of specialized labour, there was one teacher, one imam, and one physiotherapist.
  25. Erik Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Faith, Awareness, and Revolution in the Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 79–80.
  26. Bilal Shalash, 'al-­Qassam fi shahr (Kanun al-­thani– janayir)', n.d., document in author's possession.
  27. Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence, and Coexistence (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 57; Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 92–3; Erik Skare, 'Insulated Eruptions of Discontent: Palestinian Protests in the Absence of Trusted Organisations', Contemporary Levant 7, no. 2 (July 2022): 106–17.
  28. Adnan Abu Amer, 'Harakat al-­jihad al-­islami: Al-­Nash'a wa-­l-­Tatawwur wa-­l-­mawaqif al-­siyasiyya', Adnan Abu Amer blog, January 16, 2018.
  29. 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.
  30. Sinwar, al-­Shawk wa-­l-­qaranful, 229.
  31. Muhammad Deif was the nom de guerre of Muhammad Diab Ibrahim al-­Masri.
  32. Nidal al-­Mughrabi and Maayan Lubell, 'Deep Underground, Mohammed Deif Shapes Hamas War with Israel', Reuters, August 14, 2014.
  33. Sinwar, al-­Shawk wa-­l-­qaranful, 255; Nicolas Pelham, 'Hamas's Deadly "Phantom": The Man behind the Attacks', Economist, October 20, 2023.
  34. Fathi al-­Shiqaqi, 'al-­Intifada ba'd Madrid', 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), 544.
  35. Mishal and Sela, The Palestinian Hamas, 67.
  36. Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 126.
  37. Ronen Bergman, Rise and Kill First: The Secret Story of Israel's Targeted Assassinations (New York: Random House, 2018), 444.
  38. Pelham, 'Hamas's Deadly "Phantom" '.
  39. Al-­Maqadma, Ma'alim fi al-­tariq li-­tahrir Filastin, 73, 76.
  40. Fathi al-­Shiqaqi, 'al-­Ittifaq hall al-­mashakil allati yu'ani minha al-­kayan al-­sahyuni mundhu ihtilal 1967 hatta alan', in Ahmad, Rihlat al-­damm alladhi hazam al-­sayf, 912; 'al-­Shaykh Ahmad Yasin: Shahid ala asr al-­intifada', episode 8, al-­Jazeera, June 5, 1999.
  41. Beverley Milton-­Edwards and Stephen Farrell, Hamas: The Islamic Resistance Movement (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010), 70.
  42. François Burgat, Face to Face with Political Islam (London: I. B. Tauris, 2003), 53.
  43. Abu Tayr, Sayyidi Umar, 217–18.
  44. Mishal and Sela, The Palestinian Hamas, 67
  45. Jeroen Gunning, Hamas in Politics: Democracy, Religion, Violence (London: Hurst, 2009), 42.
  46. Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 121.
  47. Gunning, Hamas in Politics, 43, 46.
  48. Khaled Hroub, Hamas: Political Thought and Practice (Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2000), 43.
  49. Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 160.
  50. Mishal and Sela, The Palestinian Hamas, 57, 209n6.
  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. United States of America v. Sami Amin al-­Arian, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, Bashir Musa Mohammad Nafi, Sameeh Hammoudeh, Muhammad Tasir Hassan al-­Khatib, Abd al-­Aziz Awda, Ghassan Zayed Ballut, Hatim Naji Fariz, Case No. 8:03-­CR-­77-­T-­30TBM (M.D. Fla. 2004), at 19.
  53. Anders Strindberg, 'The Damascus-­Based Alliance of Palestinian Forces: A Primer', Journal of Palestine Studies 29, no. 3 (2000): 61.
  54. Hroub, Hamas, 123.
  55. Azzam Tamimi, Hamas: Unwritten Chapters (London: Hurst, 2009), 57.
  56. Ibid., 58–9.
  57. Ibid., 60.
  58. Mishal and Sela, The Palestinian Hamas, 166.
  59. Gunning, Hamas in Politics, 113; Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal, The Palestinian People: A History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 369.
  60. Mishal and Sela, The Palestinian Hamas, 56–7.
  61. Wendy Kristianasen, 'Challenge and Counterchallenge: Hamas's Response to Oslo', Journal of Palestine Studies 28, no. 3 (1999): 22.
  62. 'al-­Shaykh Ahmad Yasin: Shahid ala asr al-­intifada', episode 6, al-­Jazeera, May 22, 1999.
  63. Wolf Blitzer, 'Who Was Ismail Abu Shanab?', CNN, August 21, 2003.
  64. Tareq Baconi, Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018), 35.
  65. Thabit Mardawi, Namut fi al-­watan . . . wa lan nughadir. Malhamat jinin bi-­shahadat al-­asir al-­mujahid Thabit Mardawi (Gaza: al-­markaz al-­Filastini li-­l-­tawasul al-­hadari, 2006), 134.
  66. Jeroen Gunning, 'Peace with Hamas? The Transforming Potential of Political Participation', International Affairs 80, no. 2 (March 2004): 236.
  67. Sara Roy, Hamas and Civil Society in Gaza: Engaging the Islamist Social Sector (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 30.
  68. Mishal and Sela, The Palestinian Hamas, 64, 151.
  69. Mishal, 'The Pragmatic Dimension of the Palestinian Hamas', 576.
  70. Mohammed al-­Kassim, 'Saleh al-­Arouri Killing Deals Blow to Hamas but Conflict May Still Widen', Jerusalem Post, January 5, 2024.
  71. 'A Hamas Hardliner', Economist, January 31, 2008.
  72. Mishal and Sela, The Palestinian Hamas, 71.
  73. Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 114–15.
  74. Ibid., 122.
  75. Lia, A Police Force Without A State, 307–9.
  76. Quoted in ibid., 307.
  77. Data in Figure 4.1 are from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 'Jadwal tafsili bi-amaliyyat harakat al-jihad al-islami mundhu nash'atha hatta (2006/2)', document in author's possession; Hamas data are from the Global Terrorism Database, start.umd.edu.
  78. Husam Badran, Katibat al-­shimal: al-­Sabiqun ila al-­janna (n.p.: al-­maktab al-­i'lami li-­kata'ib al-­shahid Izz al-­Din al-­Qassam, 2010), 16–17.
  79. Yusuf Arif al-­Hajj Muhammad, al-­Masira al-­jihadiyya li-­harakat al-­jihad al-­islami fi Filastin (Gaza: Muhjat al-­Quds, 2011), 70.
  80. Sara Roy, 'Hamas and the Transformation(s) of Political Islam in Palestine', Current History 102, no. 660 (2003): 15.
  81. Roy, Hamas and Civil Society in Gaza, 86–7.
  82. Muhammad, al-­Masira al-­jihadiyya, 73.
  83. Mishal and Sela, The Palestinian Hamas; Dipak K. Gupta and Kusum Mundra, 'Suicide Bombing as a Strategic Weapon: An Empirical Investigation of Hamas and Islami Jihad', Terrorism and Political Violence 17, no. 4 (December 2005): 579–98; Gunning, Hamas in Politics; Wendy Pearlman, 'Spoiling Inside and Out: Internal Political Contestation and the Middle East Peace Process', International Security 33, no. 3 (2008–9): 79–109; Milton-­Edwards and Farrell, Hamas.
  84. This section is based on, and uses text from, Erik Skare, 'Controlling the State in the Political Theory of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad', Religions 12, no. 11 (November 2021): 1–12.
  85. Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 206–7.
  86. Fathi al-­Shiqaqi, 'Iran al-­thawra wa-­l-­dawla', in Ahmad, Rihlat al-­damm alladhi hazam al-­sayf, 190–9.
  87. Fathi al-­Shiqaqi, 'al-­Harakat al-­islamiyya wa tatawwurat al-­qadiya al-­ Filastiniyya', in Ahmad, Rihlat al-­damm alladhi hazam al-­sayf, 1212–23.
  88. Skare, A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 122.
  89. Fathi al-­Shiqaqi, 'al-­Usuliyya wa-­l-­ilmaniyya', in Ahmad, Rihlat al-­damm alladhi hazam al-­sayf, 591.
  90. Ibid., 592.
  91. Ibid., 591.
  92. Ibid.
  93. Anwar Abu Taha, interview with Erik Skare, March 19, 2018.
  94. Al-­Shiqaqi, 'al-­Harakat al-­islamiyya wa tatawwurat al-­qadiya al-­Filastiniyya', 1218.
  95. Anwar Abu Taha, interview with Erik Skare, March 19, 2018.
  96. Kimmerling and Migdal, The Palestinian People, 367–8.
  97. Jamal Mansur, al-­Tahawwul al-­dimuqrati al-­Filastini (Nablus: Markaz al-­buhuth wa-­l-­dirasat al-­Filastiniyya, 1999), 19.
  98. Ibid., 20.
  99. Ellen Meiksins Wood, Liberty and Property: A Social History of Western Political Thought from the Renaissance to Enlightenment (New York: Verso, 2012), 243.
  100. Mansur, al-­Tahawwul al-­Dimuqrati al-­Filastini, 15, 19. Remove page 19.
  101. Ibid., 19.
  102. Ibid., 95.
  103. Ibid., 37–8.
  104. Ibid., 24. Correct page number is 23.
  105. Ibid., 45.
  106. Ibid., 37.
  107. Ibid., 19.
  108. Ibid., 19, 95. Correct page number is 18.
  109. Quoted in ibid., 45.
  110. Al-­Shiqaqi, 'al-­Harakat al-­islamiyya wa tatawwurat al-­qadiya al-­Filastiniyya', 1218. Correct page number is 1219.
  111. Al-­Shiqaqi, 'al-­Usuliyya wa-­l-­ilmaniyya', 595.
  112. Mansur, al-­Tahawwul al-­dimuqrati al-­Filastini, 96.
  113. Ibid., 22.
  114. Ibid., 13.
  115. Al-­Shiqaqi, 'al-­Harakat al-­islamiyya wa tatawwurat al-­qadiya al-­Filastiniyya', 1218. Correct page number is 1219.
  116. Ibid.
  117. Ibid.
  118. Ibid.
  119. Mansur, al-­Tahawwul al-­dimuqrati al-­Filastini, 13.
  120. Ibid., 13, 20, 96. Page 13 is redundant.
  121. Ibid., 96.
  122. Ibid., 99.
  123. 'Profile: Hamas Activist Jamal Mansour', BBC News, July 31, 2001.