REA 1
Chapter Introduction
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
· Explain terrorism from Israeli and Arab points of view.
· Describe the rise of Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
· Identify factional groups that emerged from squabbles among the Palestinians.
· Describe the origins of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
· Discuss the origins and growth of Hezbollah after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
· Explain the current political and military aspects of Hezbollah.
· Outline the impact of the first Intifada and the birth of Hamas.
· Describe the current operational capabilities of Hamas.
· Summarize the tactics of the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
· Describe controversial efforts to control Palestinian behavior.
The Wall Separating Israelis and Palestinians
Joel Carillet/Getty Images
According to Al Arabya News (2014) fighters from Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s (PIJ) armed wing, the al Quds Brigade, marched defiantly through Gaza when combat ended after a short undeclared war with Israel in August 2014. Fighting started on July 8, 2014, when Israeli military forces struck Gaza in an effort to stop rocket attacks. Hamas and Islamic Jihad had been launching missiles from Gaza, and the Israelis had had enough. When a shaky cease-fire was established in August, Israel claimed it had killed over 900 militants. Israel usually suffers less in its frequent clashes with Palestinian militants, and the recent war with fighters in Gaza proved to be no different. Although total Palestinian casualties numbered over 2,000 militants and civilians, the Israelis lost 65 soldiers and six civilians. Israel wants the Gaza strip demilitarized. Hamas and its allies do not recognize the legitimacy of Israel and have vowed to eliminate the state. There seems to be little room for compromise.
9-1Messy Definition
If the word terrorism is pejorative around the world, it is even more fraught with emotion when applied to Israel and Palestine. Israelis tend to associate the origin of modern terrorism with the rise of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and its leader Yasser Arafat (1929–2004). The conventional narrative is that Palestinians began using terrorist attacks against Israel when it became evident that Arab conventional forces could not defeat the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). The PLO was composed of many diverse violent extremists, and it fractured into a variety of Palestinian terrorist groups. Hezbollah became part of the equation after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the IDF’s subsequent treatment of Lebanese Shi’ites. The other dominant terrorist group, Hamas, arose in a rebellion in the late 1980s. Several smaller groups, such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, operate in alliance with the two dominant groups. All groups murder innocent defenseless people because they are not strong enough to fight Israel’s military.
Move to the other side of the argument, and the logic is quite different. Terrorism did not originate with Palestinians; it began with two Zionist organizations in the 1930s—the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the more militant Stern Gang. The future Israelis abandoned terrorism only when they turned to conventional fighting in Israel’s War of Independence (1948–1949). From this perspective, Israelis use terrorism as a tool for repression. Proponents of this argument point to Israel’s everyday treatment of Palestinians and the massive casualties inflicted by the better armed IDF. Organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah have military wings to resist the IDF, but their main focus is health, social welfare, and education. Israel’s continued expansion into Palestinian territories is made possible by the IDF.
As casualties mount, the differences between the two perspectives grow heated. There are calmer voices, but it is difficult to hear rational positions. Hardliners on both sides control the debate. For example, Hamas will not abandon its charter, a document calling for the elimination of the state of Israel. Similarly, expansionists in Israel advocate for removing Palestinians from their homes and replacing them with Israeli settlers. It is difficult to hear the voice of reason in such an environment.
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9-1aFatah and the Six-Day War
On June 5, 1967, Israel launched a preemptive war against Syria and Egypt as they engaged in massive military buildups. The IDF moved against Jordan later in the day after being shelled by the Jordanian Army. The war had a tremendous impact on both sides. For the Arabs, it meant total defeat and humiliation. To Israel, it was an unbounded success. The IDF took Jerusalem, the West Bank of the Jordan River, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights. It appeared that conventional arms could not defeat the IDF.
Arafat’s Fatah moved to center stage after the Six-Day War. The self-made leader of the PLO proposed terrorizing unfortified civilian targets (Wallach and Wallach, 1992). Using a group of Fatah warriors known as fedayeen , Arafat began to attack Israel. The initial media coverage of Fatah’s attacks caused the PLO’s status to rise throughout the Arab world, and Arafat’s fortunes rose along with it. All the conventional Arab armies were in disarray. Only the PLO had the courage and will to strike, despite being outnumbered, outgunned, and without a country. They had only the fedayeen (Dawisha, 2003, pp. 256–257).
Arafat conducted Fatah operations from Jordan, despite protests from the government. These hit-and-run strikes drew protests from Israel. They demanded that Jordan put a stop to Fatah’s operations. Israel, angered by a lack of action, decided to take matters into its own hands. It attacked a PLO-controlled city in Jordan. The raid did little to stop Fatah, and attacks increased. Fearing an Israeli invasion, the Jordanians expelled the PLO two years later in September 1970.
Expanding the Concept
Important Terms, Dates, Concepts, and People in the Middle East
· Arab–Israeli Wars: A generic term for several wars
· 1948–1949: Israel’s War of Independence
· 1956 Suez Crisis: Britain, France, and Israel attack Egypt to keep the Suez Canal open; Israel takes the Gaza Strip
· 1967 Six-Day War: Pits Israel against its Arab neighbors; Israel takes Jerusalem, the West Bank, and other areas
· 1973 Yom Kippur War: Egypt and Syria strike Israel to regain occupied territories; Egypt is initially successful, but its major army is surrounded in a counterattack (Muslims frequently call it the Ramadan War)
· Arafat, Yasser: Leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), later the Palestine National Authority (PNA), and later still the Palestine National Council (PNC); widely recognized as the secular leader of the Palestinian movement
· Baalbek: Lebanese city in the Bekaa Valley; original headquarters of Hezbollah
· Camp David Peace Accords: 1978 peace agreement between Egypt and Israel
· Dome of the Rock: The place where Muslims believe Abraham (Ibrahim) had a vision of God
· Eretz Israel: The land of Israel under King David; many Jewish fundamentalists feel that God has called them to retake this land and expel the Arabs
· Fedayeen: Warriors who sacrifice themselves and others
· Gaza Strip: Palestinian strip of land along the Mediterranean
· Golan Heights: Region in Syria overlooking Israel
· Gush Emunim: Literally, “Bloc of the Faithful”; Jewish group formed in 1974 that believes God literally promised Jews the Kingdom of David
· Habash, George: Christian founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
· Hawatmeh, Naiaf: One of the founders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; later led the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
· Interim Agreement: Follow-up to 1993 Oslo Accords in 1995 to allow elections in Palestinian territory
· Intifada: Uprising in Palestinian areas from 1987 to 1993; al Aqsa Intifada was a second uprising from 2000 to 2005
· Jabril, Ahmed: Leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; later leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command
· Jewish settlements: Legal and illegal settlements in Palestinians lands; in 2004, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon proposed withdrawing from the Jewish settlements
· Knesset: The Israeli parliament
· Labor Party: The liberal Israeli political party
· Likud Party: The conservative Israeli political party
· Mossad: The Israeli intelligence service
· Mujahedeen: Holy warriors
· Muslim Brotherhood: An Islamic revivalist organization founded by Hassan al Banna in Cairo in 1928
· Occupied territories: Initially, Palestinian territories under the post–World War I British division of Palestine; later occupied by Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War
· Palestinian diaspora: The displacement in 1948 of Palestinians living in Israel
· Palestine Authority (PA): Formally Palestinian National Authority; a semiautonomous body established after the Oslo Accords
· Palestine National Council (PNC): Representative body from the occupied territories, the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian diaspora
· Rejectionist Front: A group of individuals, political parties, and states that reject Israel’s right to exist
· South Lebanese Army: The security force established by Israel to control south Lebanon after the withdrawal of the Israeli Defense Forces in 1985
· Sykes–Picot Agreement: A 1916 agreement between Britain and France for control of the Middle East
· Tanzim: Fatah’s militia
· Temple Mount: The site of the ancient Jewish Temple, a former Christian church, and the al Aqsa mosque
· Wailing Wall: The remaining western wall of the ancient Jewish Temple in Jerusalem
· West Bank: The West Bank of the Jordan River, formerly controlled by Jordan; seized by Israel in the 1967 war
· Wye Accords: 1998 Israeli–Palestinian agreement to abide by previous commitments
· Zion: The hill on which Jerusalem stands
· Zionist: In contemporary usage, a Jew wishing to reestablish the Jewish homeland; Arabs and many Muslims frequently use the term to refer to all Jews
Arafat, Fatah, and the PLO ended up in southern Lebanon. The PLO grew and drew closer to militant Arab states. Ever the chameleon, Arafat became a terrorist celebrity, moving in leftist circles around the world. Fatah’s raids continued from Lebanon, but Arafat faced a daunting problem. Fatah was falling apart. Driven by extremist ideologues, small groups began breaking away and operating autonomously. Lacking the ability to control the multitude of new organizations, he formed his own group and took personal command. He named the unit after the month the PLO had been driven from Jordan—Black September.
Arafat longed to strike Israel on an international stage, and he turned to leftist allies. The 1972 Summer Olympics were being held in Germany for the first time since World War II. With information that German terrorists supplied, Black September began planning an international strike. The world would be watching the Munich Olympics, and the Israeli Olympic team would be there. It was a tempting target.
Black September struck the Olympic Village and took most of the Israeli Olympic team hostage, killing those who tried to escape. German police moved in, and the world watched a drawn-out siege. The terrorists negotiated transportation to Libya and moved toward the Munich airport. The German police were not ready to surrender, however, and they launched what would become a tragic rescue operation. Plans immediately went awry. Reacting quickly, terrorists machine-gunned their hostages before the German police could take control. The Israeli hostages and a German police officer were killed. It was a terrorist victory, and European leftists and nationalists saw it as partly their triumph (Shalev, 2006).
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9-1bThe 1982 Invasion of Lebanon
The Israelis tracked down those they suspected of belonging to Black September and killed them. Yet, Arafat grew stronger in southern Lebanon. Lebanon was experiencing endemic multiple internal wars. The country was a mix of differing ethnic groups and religions, and each sect controlled its own militia. Armed band roamed the country fighting multiple enemies. Farther to the north, nationalistic Lebanese Christian and Islamic militias opposed each other as well as the Palestinians and foreign interests. Syria backed its own militia in the hope of increasing its influence in Lebanon, and Iran joined the fighting after the revolution of 1979. Civil war raged in Lebanon, allowing dozens of terrorists to slip across the border and attack Israel (see Nasr, 1997, pp. 125–135; Creed, 2002).
By 1982, the Israelis had had enough. On June 6, a massive three-pronged IDF force invaded Lebanon. The PLO and other militias moved forward to take a stand, but they were no match for the coordinated efforts of IDF tanks, aircraft, and infantry. The Israelis rolled through Lebanon. Soon, they were knocking on the doors of Beirut, and Lebanon’s civil war seemed to be over.
Surrounded and bombarded by the Israelis in Beirut, even as the Syrian-backed forces fought the IDF, Arafat knew that the Syrians had no love for him. If the Israelis won, Arafat would be doomed. If the Syrians won, they intended to install their own surrogates in place of the PLO. In August 1982, Arafat left Beirut for Tripoli with 14,000 fedayeen. More than 10,000 guerrillas stayed, but they joined the Syrians.
Self-Check
· Explain the emergence of Fatah from the Six-Day War.
· Why did Black September strike in Germany?
· What impact did the 1982 invasion of Lebanon have on Palestinians?
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9-2Factionalism in Palestinian Terrorism
From 1967 to 1982, the PLO was characterized by internal splintering. Arafat found that he could not retain control of the military wing, and several groups split from it. These groups included the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine; the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command. Another notable defector, Sabri al Banna , created the Abu Nidal Organization, a group that evolved into a global mercenary organization (see Seale, 1992; Gordon, 1999). Kameel Nasr (1997, p. 46) concludes that all of these groups were at their best when they fought each other.
New groups formed after the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Unable to tolerate Israel’s presence in the area, the Syrians rallied all local militias and accepted help from Iran. An Iranian-backed group, Hezbollah, began forming in Lebanon. A popular uprising in 1987, the Intifada , gave rise to a new group, Hamas. As Hamas challenged the PLO for power, Arafat disavowed terrorism in 1988 and called for peace. A second Intifada in 2000 created even more groups. The conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians has spawned a multitude of differing organizations.
To place the many divisions in context, the next section lists the dominant groups within the context of the Israeli–Palestinian struggle. You may wish to use this as a quick reference when examining terrorism in Israel and Palestine. Succeeding sections will focus on the current activities of the three dominant groups: Hezbollah, Hamas, and the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
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9-2aMajor Groups
Abu Nidal Organization (Black June): Sabri al Banna (whose code name was Abu Nidal) and Yasser Arafat were once comrades in arms in the struggle for Palestine, but as others broke from Arafat, so too did Abu Nidal’s rebel organization, Black June . In the end, Abu Nidal and his organization became a mercenary group, not only abandoning Arafat but also completely forsaking the Palestinian cause. The group’s international exploits drew more attention than did those of its rival terrorist organizations as Nidal conducted ruthless operations in the 1980s, including:
· The murder of Jordanian ambassadors in Spain, Italy, and India
· Raids on Jewish schools in Antwerp, Istanbul, and Paris
· Attacks on airports in Rome and Vienna
· Assassinations of PLO leaders in Tunis
· The attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom
· An attack on a synagogue in Istanbul
The Abu Nidal Organization evolved into an international group operating in more than 20 countries. It faded from significance by the 1990s, and Abu Nidal was murdered in Iraq in 2002.
Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades: The al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are based in West Bank refugee camps. Formed after the beginning of the al Aqsa Intifada, the Brigades appear to be Fatah’s answer to the jihadists. Some members are motivated by Hezbollah, suggesting to some analysts that the Brigades have Shi’ite elements. Other analysts think that the Brigades are Fatah’s attempt to take the Intifada’s leadership away from Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). The Brigades were organized along military lines and became one of the first secular groups in the Middle East to use suicide bombers. Many experts believe that Arafat either directly controlled the Brigades or that they operated with his approval. A command council is responsible for leadership, and terrorist operations are divided into six geographical areas. If Yasser Arafat controlled the Brigades, members directly violated his orders on several occasions. The division commanders control, not the command council, the rank-and-file members.
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP): A Christian, Naiaf Hawatmeh, created the DFLP in 1969 when he broke away from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. This Marxist–Leninist group seeks a socialist Palestine and was closely associated with the former Soviet Union. In 2000, the group joined Arafat in Washington, D.C., to negotiate with Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. As a reward, the U.S. Department of State took the DFLP off its list of terrorist groups. The DFLP currently limits its attacks to the IDF.
Fatah: Fatah began as the military wing of the former PLO and was Yasser Arafat’s strongest military muscle. Formed in the early stages of the PLO, Fatah was part of an underground organization formed in 1959. It emerged in the open in 1965 after making terrorist attacks against Israel in 1964. Fatah rose to prominence after the 1967 Six-Day War because it became the only means of attacking Israel. Fatah fought the Jordanians for 10 days in September 1970 and regrouped in Lebanon. It joined in the Lebanese civil war (1975–1990) and was eventually expelled to Tunisia. In the first Intifada (1987–1993), Fatah Hawks, political militants in the PLO, organized street demonstrations and disturbances, but emerging religious groups threatened Fatah’s leadership among the militant Palestinian groups. Fatah went to the bargaining table in Oslo in 1993 and joined the peace process. It currently holds the majority of seats in the Palestinian government. Although it is now a political party, many analysts associate it with the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The Tanzim Brigade and Force 17 come from the ranks of Fatah, and it has traditionally championed Palestinian nationalism over ideology or religion.
Force 17: Officially known as Presidential Security, Force 17 is an arm of Fatah. It operated as Yasser Arafat’s security unit.
Hamas: In December 1987, a few days after the first Intifada began, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Harakat al Muqawama al Islamiyya, or Hamas) was formed. It was composed of the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brothers advocated an international Islamic movement, and most of them did not support violence. Hamas differs from the Brothers’ position in that it has localized the Islamic struggle and accepts violence as a norm. Hamas is organized as a large political union, and its primary mission is to oppose the PLO; today, it represents an alternative to the Palestine National Council. Its military wing is called the Izz el Din al Qassam Brigades, named for a martyr in the 1935 Arab revolt against the British in Palestine. In 2004, Israel assassinated Hamas’s spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin. As soon as Hamas appointed a new leader, the Israelis killed him, too. Hamas is a large organization, but its terrorist wing is rather small. Frequently allied with the PIJ, Hamas competes with other Fatah organizations.
Hezbollah: Hezbollah is the Iranian-backed Party of God, and it operates from southern Lebanon. The local branch of the group forms alliances of convenience with other organizations participated in the al Aqsa Intifada. The international branch is believed to run the most effective terrorist network in the world.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ): A small group that emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1979 and formed in the Gaza Strip in 1981. Whereas the Brothers spoke of an international Islamic awakening, the PIJ felt that the struggle could be nationalized and had to become violent. The PIJ leaders were enamored with the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and even though they were Sunnis, they sought contact with Iran’s revolutionary Shi’ites. The PIJ operates out of the Gaza Strip and forms alliances of convenience with other organizations. It has grown closer to Hamas since the al Aqsa Intifada. The PIJ seeks to destroy Israel and establish an Islamic state in Palestine.
The group has strong links to the United States. In 2003, the U.S. Department of Justice (2003) took actions against the PIJ in Florida. The Justice Department argued that the group had an organized network of financial supporters around the world, including in the United States, and it brought charges against a professor at the University of South Florida for supporting the PIJ as part of that network. Another government report (U.S. Navy, 2008) cites multiple financial structures as another source of strength. Its presence in a multitude of countries leads to a number of funding sources. These funds have allowed the PIJ to remain in the field and to join Hamas in intermittent rocket attacks against Israel. Many analysts believe that the majority of funding comes from Iran and that the group is still shielded by Syria. They also believe that Hezbollah provides most of the training (Non-State Armed Groups, 2008).
Palestine Liberation Front (PLF): Three different groups call themselves the Palestine Liberation Front: The Abu Abbas faction, based in Iran, follows the old-style leadership used by Arafat; the Abdal Fatah Ghanem faction received support from Libya; and the Talat Yaqub faction sought favor with Syria. The name used by all three groups comes from Ahmed Jabril, a former Syrian Army captain who formed the first PLF in 1961. After the Six-Day War in June 1967, the PLF merged with two small radical groups to form the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, but Jabril broke away and formed the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command. The PFLP-GC split in 1977 after Syria backed Lebanese Christians in the Lebanese civil war (1975–1990), and the anti-Syrians formed a new group, reviving the PLF name.
The PLF had yet another internal war in 1984, and Abu Abbas, a militant leader who rebelled against Syria, returned one faction to Arafat, expelling all Syrian influence. Abdal Fatah Ghanem broke from Abbas and sided with Syria. His group remained active in Lebanon. Talat Yaqub tried to remain neutral. After Abdal Fatah Ghanem died of a heart attack, his faction gravitated toward Libyan support. All three factions of the PLF seek to destroy Israel. The PLF’s most notorious action was the hijacking of an Italian luxury liner, the Achille Lauro, in 1985. American forces captured the hijackers, but Abu Abbas was released. He went to the Gaza Strip and eventually to Iraq. He was captured during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and died in captivity.
Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PDFLP): The PDFLP is the military wing of the DFLP.
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP): The PFLP is a Marxist-Leninist Arab nationalist group that emerged after the June 1967 Six-Day War. Egypt initially supported the PFLP but withdrew financing in 1968 when PFLP leaders criticized the Egyptian president. Operating in Lebanon under the command of Wadi Hadad, the PFLP began attacking Israeli airliners in 1968. In 1970, the group staged four hijackings in a six-day period; three of the planes were destroyed in the Jordanian desert in front of international media. Because the PFLP was closely linked to Arafat’s Fatah, the Jordanians drove Arafat from their territory in September 1970. In 1975, it allied with Carlos the Jackal, a Latin American terrorist, and the Red Army Faction, a left-wing terrorist group in Germany, to attack an oil ministers’ conference in Vienna. Although the PFLP has been successful at times, it has been riddled with factionalism. The first splits came in 1968 and 1969 when Ahmed Jabril and George Habash broke from the PFLP. Wadi Hadad left the organization in 1976 when the Palestine National Council disavowed the use of terrorism outside the vicinity of Israel and the territories it occupied. He formed the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command, but died in 1978. Habash returned to the PFLP in 1976 and directed the campaign against Israel. He eventually reconciled with Fatah and handed leadership over to Abu Ali Mustafa in 2000. Mustafa was assassinated by the Israelis in August 2001. Ahmed Sadat, his successor, retaliated by killing an Israeli official. The PFLP has grown in stature since the al Aqsa Intifada.
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command (PFLP-GC): The PFLP was formed in 1967 when George Habash (1926–2008) agreed to ally his group with Ahmed Jabril’s PLF. Habash, a Christian, assumed leadership of the group, but he soon clashed with the Syrian-oriented Jabril. Syria continued to court Jabril, and he broke from Habash in 1968 to form the PFLP-GC. The PFLP-GC advocates armed struggle with Israel; it became one of the most technically sophisticated organizations in the region. It originally operated from southern Lebanon with support from Syria. By the late 1980s, the PFLP-GC was following the lead of the Abu Nidal Organization and renting its services to various governments. Some analysts believe the group was behind various international airline bombings. The PFLP-GC has been eclipsed by suicide bombers since 2000, but Jabril is increasingly emphasizing religion. This places the PFLP-GC closer to jihadist groups, but it still remains one of the most technically sophisticated terrorist organizations in the area. Jabril has always favored military action over sensationalized terrorist events.
Tanzim Brigade: Claiming not to be directly involved in terrorism, the Tanzim Brigade is the militia wing of Fatah.
Self-Check
· What factors led to the breakup of the Palestinian movement?
· How did Hezbollah become involved in the conflict?
· How and when was Hamas formed?
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9-3Hezbollah: Local and International
Hezbollah is one of the more enigmatic organizations in the Middle East due to the manner in which it was formed, its historical metamorphosis, and its desire to play a leading role in Lebanon’s politics. It grew out of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and maintains close links with Iran. Some analysts argue that it is an instrument of Iranian foreign power, but others insist that Tehran does not and cannot control the organization (Perry, 2010, p. 143). A former U.S. deputy secretary of state referred to Hezbollah as the deadliest terrorist group in the world, and some officials link it to al Qaeda (Byman, 2006; Kaplan, 2003). Others note that Hezbollah suicide attacks peaked in 1985 and 1986, and al Qaeda has denounced the group (Perlinger, 2006). Although it is most frequently associated with violence in Lebanon and Israel, Hezbollah has an international wing believed to be based in Damascus. It also created the organizational style that jihadist groups such as the Egyptian Islamic Group, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Armed Islamic Group in Algeria, and al Qaeda would use.
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9-3aThe Origins of Hezbollah
Hezbollah is a configuration of political actors from the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the Shi’ite community of southern Lebanon. Its roots can be traced to a desire to export revolutionary ideals from Iran and Shi’ite emancipation in Lebanon. The linkage of the two came through Syria’s desire to build a relationship with Iran and to control politics in Lebanon. This configuration is complex but logical. The story begins in southern Lebanon after Israel’s 1982 invasion.
The Israeli invasion of Lebanon created an unlikely alliance among Iran’s Revolutionary Guards , secular Syrian Baathists, and southern Lebanese Shi’ites. Iran’s foreign policy under the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Revolutionary Guards was designed to spread religious revolutionary thought throughout the Muslim world. On the surface, the fervently religious Khomeini had little in common with the secular socialists in Syria, but the Syrians were supporting Shi’ites in southern Lebanon. When Israeli tanks rolled through southern Lebanon, they passed through Shi’ite villages, and the Revolutionary Guards begged the Ayatollah Khomeini for a chance to protect their fellow believers in Lebanon. Alawite Syria and Shi’ite Iran now had a common enemy.
Both nations needed a surrogate to fight the Israelis. If Iran openly intervened in the Lebanese civil war (1975–1990), Israel or the United States might attack Iran. Syria also needed a proxy because its troops were no match for the IDF and, like Iran, it feared the United States. As Shi’ite militias resisted the Israeli invasion, religious leaders thought resistance should be based on faith and not on secular politics. The Revolutionary Guards joined with local Shi’ites to form confederated militia groups. The movement gradually became known as Hezbollah, or the Party of God (Harik, 2004, pp. 39–49).
They were not well organized at first (see Figure 9.1). Hezbollah began as a social movement gravitating around young Shi’ites ready to resist the Israelis. Initially, it was little more than an idea, but small unorganized groups began to fight. Their attacks were characterized by extreme violence and heated rhetoric. It was the beginning of a metamorphosis (Azani, 2009, pp. 2–3, 47–48).
Figure 9.1Hezbollah Umbrella, circa 1985
Figure 9.2Movement of the Revolutionary Guards through Syria to Lebanon, 1982
Iranian officials made contact with the Syrians in 1982. Promising reduced oil prices for Syria, the Iranians asked for permission to move 1,000 Revolutionary Guards from Syrian territory across its borders and into the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon. The Revolutionary Guards made connections with the emerging Hezbollah and provided the Lebanese Shi’ite group with money, weapons, and training. Both Syria and Iran wanted to maintain their distance, and the religious leaders of Hezbollah wanted to deny any affiliation with military action. As a result, Hezbollah became a terrorist organization like one no one had ever seen before (see Hiro, 1987, pp. 113–181, 240–243; Taheri, 1987; Kurz, 1994; Wege, 1994; Ranstorp, 1994, 1996).
Hezbollah grew from a council of Shi’ite scholars who claimed to be part of a spiritual movement. Its structure—really, lack of structure—developed simply because no one was in charge. In essence, the council became a large umbrella for semiautonomous groups that were buoyed by the council’s charisma and sheltered by its protection. Syrian and Iranian money and supplies poured into the council, and Hezbollah denied any direct connection with the network gathering under its umbrella. Below the umbrella, several Shi’ite cells operated autonomously and received money, weapons, and ideas through hidden channels linked to the spiritual leaders. The leadership also formed alliances with two Lebanese Shi’ite groups, claiming to be a religious movement designed to support Lebanon’s Shi’ite community (Gambill and Abdelnour, 2002).
During the first few years of its existence, Hezbollah acted more or less like a terrorist clearinghouse (Reuters, 1996; Azani, 2009, p. 47). Influenced by Iran, Hezbollah met as an independent organization and was always willing to deny its Iranian connections. Hezbollah developed under the leadership of three central figures: Sheik Mohammed Hassan Fadlallah , Abbas Musawi , and Hassan Nasrallah (Norton, 2009, pp. 33–35). Fadlallah, the target of an attempted U.S.-sponsored assassination, was a charismatic spiritual leader. Musawi provided the loose connections to Iran. Nasrallah was a practical militarist, organizing Hezbollah into a regional force.
In phase one of the development of Hezbollah, from 1982 to 1985 (see Timeline 9.1, “Phases of Hezbollah”), the Hezbollah umbrella covered many terrorist groups, including a shadowy organization known as Islamic Jihad. According to Amir Taheri (1987), Hezbollah leaders met in the city of Baalbek in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and issued vague “suggestions” to Islamic Jihad. They also provided financial and logistical support for terrorist operations but kept themselves out of the day-to-day affairs of the terrorist group. By keeping their distance, Hezbollah’s leaders were able to claim that they had no direct knowledge of Islamic Jihad. More important, though, they were able to keep Iran from being directly linked to Islamic Jihad’s terrorist campaign against Israel and the West. The tactic was successful, and other groups formed under the umbrella.
Timeline 9.1
Phases of Hezbollah
· 1982–1985, Organizing
Different groups carry out attacks under a variety of names.
· 1985–1990, Kidnapping and bombing
A terrorist organization is created.
· 1990–2000, Legitimacy
The group organizes social services, a political party, and a military wing.
· 2000–2004, Coalition
Hezbollah forms temporary alliances with others in the September 2000 Palestinian uprising against Israel (the al Aqsa Intifada).
· July 2006
Israel launches an offensive in Lebanon.
· August 2006
Israel withdraws, and Hezbollah claims victory.
· September 2006
Iran begins to rebuild the Lebanese infrastructure.
After 1985, Hezbollah began to change. As part of an organization designed to spread the Shi’ite revolution, Hezbollah was not content to act only as an umbrella group to support terrorism (Enteshami, 1995; Reuters, 1996). Its leaders wanted to develop a revolutionary movement similar to the one that gripped Iran in 1978 and 1979. Lebanon was inundated with several militias fighting for control of the government, and Nasrallah saw an opportunity. Following the pattern of the Amal militia, he began changing the structure of Hezbollah. In 1985, he established regional centers, transforming them into operational bases between 1987 and 1989.
After introducing suicide bombers in its initial phase, Hezbollah struck the U.S. Marine Corps and the French Army units based in Beirut on October 23, 1983, forcing the withdrawal of a multinational peacekeeping force. The bombing of the marine barracks resulted in the deaths of 200 marines, and a second suicide bomber killed 50 French soldiers. In its second phase, Hezbollah’s leadership launched a kidnapping campaign in Beirut. Westerners, especially Americans, were taken hostage, but Hezbollah, as always, denied any affiliation with the group conducting the operation.
Tactics were extremely effective in the first two phases. Suicide actions and other bombings disrupted Lebanon. The U.S. embassy was targeted for a bomb attack, and Hezbollah managed to kill the top six CIA operatives in the Middle East. Two of Hezbollah’s kidnappings were simply designed to murder the victims. Hezbollah kidnapped, tortured, and murdered the CIA station chief in Beirut, as well as a marine colonel working for the United Nations. Judith Harik (2004, p. 37) points out that no evidence directly linked Hezbollah to these actions, and the group denied links to terrorism as they denounced terrorism as a tactic. This strategy made the group extremely effective.
Nasrallah had one more trump card. With the blessing of fellow council members, Hezbollah joined the Lebanese political process. Hezbollah’s fourth phase brought the organization out of the shadows. Its militia, operating as a guerrilla force, repeatedly struck the Israelis in Lebanon. The success of this action brought political payoffs, and by 1995, Hezbollah had developed strong political bases of support in parts of Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, and its stronghold in southern Lebanon. It created a vast organization of social services, including schools, hospitals, and public works. This final change worked. In 1998, Hezbollah won a number of seats in the Lebanese parliament while maintaining control of the south. When Palestinians rose up against the Israelis in 2000, Hezbollah embraced their cause, and its transformation was complete (see the preceding feature titled “Another Perspective: Nasrallah’s Management of Image”). It was a nationalistic group with a military wing, and its stated goals were to eliminate Israel and to establish an Islamic government in Lebanon.
Another Perspective
Nasrallah’s Management of Image
What is Hezbollah? Judith Harik (2004) says the answer to this question depends on the audience. For the four audiences below, Hassan Nasrallah has four different answers.
1. Jihadists: He uses militant language and speaks of holy war.
2. Nationalists: He avoids jihad analogies and calls on Sunnis, Shi’ites, Christians, and secularists to fight for Lebanon.
3. Pan-Arabic: He points to Israel as a colony of the West and denounces Europe’s imperial past.
4. International: He cites UN resolutions and claims that Israel violates international law.
Harik concludes that this is not the pattern of an intolerant religious fanatic. Instead, this ability to compromise for various purposes demonstrates Nasrallah’s political skills.
Mark Perry (2010, pp. 141–162) questions conventional approaches to Hezbollah. He argues that the United States bases its view of Hezbollah on stereotypes. Its political leaders do not deny that they manage an armed group, but they claim no responsibility for the kidnappings and bombings of the 1980s. Leaders also admit that they are allied with Iran, yet Hezbollah is distinctively Lebanese. After Hezbollah forced Israel to retreat from Lebanon in 2006, its popularity soared. Its goal is to become a force in Lebanese politics.
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9-3bHezbollah’s Operational Capabilities
By the end of the twentieth century, Hezbollah had become one of the strongest nonstate groups in the Middle East (Ranstorp, 1994). It became the most technologically sophisticated nonstate actor in the first decade of the twenty-first century (Perry, 2010, p. 162). Its leaders are associated with the Shi’ite seminary in Najaf, Iraq. It is organized in three directorates: a political wing, a social services wing, and a security wing (see Figure 9.3). A separate international group, Hezbollah International, operates outside the domestic structure (J. Goldberg, 2002). Its former leader, master terrorist Imad Mugniyah , was killed in Damascus in 2008. A weak Lebanese government allows Hezbollah to maintain strongholds in southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and central pockets in Beirut. Each directorate is subservient to the Supreme Council, which is currently headed by Hassan Nasrallah.
Figure 9.3Hezbollah
Most of Hezbollah’s activities deal with the politics of Lebanon and the vast social service network it maintains in the south. The security wing is based in Lebanon and is responsible for training guerrillas and terrorists. (Supporters of Hezbollah do not make a distinction between guerrilla and terrorist.) Guerrillas are assigned to militias that operate along Israel’s northern border, especially in the Shaba farm region . These paramilitary fighters frequently conduct operations in the open, and they engage in conventional military confrontations with the IDF. Hezbollah can maintain all of these operations because it receives funding from Iran.
Terrorists also operate along the border with and sometimes inside Israel, engaging in murder and kidnapping. Although Israel is their acknowledged enemy, Hezbollah terrorists have also targeted Lebanese Christians and other Arabs unsympathetic to their cause. The primary terrorist tactic is bombing, and Hezbollah has mastered two forms: suicide bombing and radio-controlled bombs for ambushes. Gilles Kepel (2004, p. 34), a specialist in French and Middle Eastern terrorism, believes Hezbollah suicide bombings are directly related to the Shi’ite emphasis on martyrdom.
Hezbollah’s international branch appears to have three major functions.
· (1)
In Europe and in the United States, Hezbollah raises money to support operations (United States of America v. Mohamad Youseff Hammoud et al., 2002).
· (2)
Iran uses Hezbollah as an extension of its own power. Hezbollah protects Iranian interests in Lebanon and projects an Iranian-influenced military presence in other parts of the Middle East. Hezbollah also acts as a buffer between Iran and Israel (Byman, 2003).
· (3)
Hezbollah has established a strong presence in South America.
It uses this base to raise funds through legitimate and illegitimate methods, conduct propaganda, and launch terrorist operations. Should the United States and Iran ever enter a war, South American members of Hezbollah plan to attack the United States (Gato and Windrem, 2007).
According to Jeffery Goldberg (2002), then writing for the New Yorker, Hezbollah International is a shadowy group, and the Supreme Council denies its existence. The international section has cells in several different countries, including the United States, and maintains an extensive international finance ring partially based on smuggling, drugs, and other criminal activity. Imad Mugniyah kept close ties with operatives in the Triborder region and Ciudad del Este (see Chapter 3) and also ran a terrorist training camp off the coast of Venezuela. Mugniyah met with al Qaeda, possibly Osama bin Laden, in the mid-1990s and allegedly taught al Qaeda terrorists methods for attacking buildings.
In 2006, Israel launched a month-long attack against Hezbollah in Lebanon and was surprised by the results. Far from operating as a small terrorist organization, Hezbollah fielded thousands of fighters and recruited more. Regardless of its international wing, Hezbollah has transmogrified into a militia capable of fighting one of the strongest military powers in the region. By most estimates, Hezbollah has emerged with strategic and political victory (Cordesman, 2006; Matthews, 2008; and Lindeman, 2010).
Anthony Cordesman (2006) conducted an analysis of the 2006 campaign and says the Israelis entered Lebanon with several specific goals, including:
· Neutralizing Hezbollah’s effectiveness before Iran could develop nuclear weapons
· Countering the IDF’s image after the 2000 Lebanon and 2005 Gaza withdrawals
· Forcing Lebanon to control Hezbollah
· Rescuing two Israeli soldiers without a prisoner exchange
Writing soon after the war ended, Cordesman cautions that immediate conclusions are often inaccurate. Given that reservation, Israel appeared to achieve only modest objectives, although many Israeli officers thought that the operation had been successful.
The IDF made several mistakes. Matt Mathews (2008), in a review for the U.S. Army, believes that Israel prepared for the war incorrectly. It followed an American doctrine of destroying the enemy’s ability to fight with precision weapons and air power, but it did not adequately plan for a ground offensive after the initial strikes. Cordesman (2006) adds that the Israelis had prepared for a strike against terrorists only to find that they had been fighting a more conventional war. They also lost much sympathy due to multiple strikes on civilian targets. In Infantry magazine, Yousef Aboul-Enein (2008), of the U.S. Navy, notes that Hezbollah spent years studying the tactics of superior military forces. When the IDF attacked, Hezbollah was able to disperse and hold its ground.
The most important aspect of the 2006 war was the political perception of the results. After years of countering Hezbollah and other groups, the Israelis came to believe that terrorists were weak against a military onslaught. Hezbollah was the aggressor, having fired rockets into Israel in the months prior to the attack, and Israel sought to end this. That did not turn out to happen, as Israel lost sympathy because much of the international community believed that its actions were far out of proportion to the damage it received. In the end, Israel’s military forces were not defeated, but the operation was a failure (Harel and Issacharoff, 2008). Hezbollah managed the media’s images of the war and set back Israel’s strategy to normalize relations with its neighbors (Lamloum, 2009).
After the 2006 war, support for Hezbollah grew to an all-time high. Far from seeking to topple the Lebanese government, supporters maintain that Hezbollah’s objective is to become a dominant political force in a coalition of Lebanese political parties (Perry, 2010, pp. 143–145). The Shi’ites inside Lebanon strongly support Hezbollah. They see it as a defensive force but believe its religious base embeds the group in the community. One survey of the 2006 war reported that Lebanon’s Shi’ites stood with Hezbollah against Israel. It also found that they would resist the Lebanese government if it tried to disarm Hezbollah’s military wing (Haddad, 2006).
The U.S. Department of State (2004b) summarizes: Hezbollah is a deadly international terrorist organization that has developed international links and uses international crime to finance its operations. Its primary sponsor is Iran, and it receives secondary support from Syria—nations that are listed as state sponsors of terrorism. In addition to its murders of Israelis, Hezbollah has killed U.S. citizens and kidnapped and tortured Americans. The State Department previously saw Hezbollah as a group of international murderers, and the view has not changed (U.S. State Department, 2015).
Hezbollah was also involved in the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight, during which an American was murdered, and two bombings in Argentina in 1992 and 1994. It has been responsible for a campaign of suicide bombings, the murders of Lebanese Christians, international arms smuggling, and a host of international criminal activities, including crimes in the United States.
The future of Hezbollah changed with the Syrian civil war. Bashir Assad, who is fighting to keep power, belongs to the Alawite sect of Islam, and its beliefs are closely related to Shi’a theology. When the war broke out, Hezbollah sent fighters to support Assad. When ISIS formed in 2014, Iraqi Shi’ite militia joined the fray in Iraq with open support from Iran. The United States began operations against ISIS in 2014 and were joined by a coalition of European and Arab nations. Iran rejected the coalition, but Hezbollah, the United States, and Iran oppose the same enemy.
Self-Check
· What circumstances gave rise to Hezbollah, and how did the group change over time?
· What are Hezbollah’s current operational abilities?
· What impact has the Syrian civil war had on Hezbollah?
9-4Hamas and the Rise of Sunni Religious Organizations
Arab nationalism grew through the early part of the twentieth century and flourished until the June 1967 Six-Day War. Groups spawned from Fatah and independent organizations like the PIJ began their activities by embracing some form of nationalism. Before Abu Nidal degenerated into mercenary activities, he favored Arab socialism as a form of nationalism. In the 1970s and 1980s, Baathist nationalists in Syria and Iraq also believed in socialism. Adeed Dawisha (2003, pp. 253–280) points out that nationalism ultimately failed. It did not unite the Arabs, nor did it raise their standard of living. As nationalism waned, religious fervor took its place. The PIJ began using religious imagery, and other groups were born from religious fervor.
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9-4aAn Overview of Hamas
The story of Hamas is tied to the late Sheik Ahmed Yassin (1938-2004). Yassin grew up in Gaza under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood. He believed that Islam was the only path that could restore Palestine, and he preached reform and social welfare. Many Palestinians in Gaza began to follow Yassin’s powerful call. When he told followers to secretly gather weapons in 1984, they obeyed, but it cost him his freedom. The Israelis discovered Yassin’s plans and jailed him. He was released in 1986 and decided that in the future, his organization would have a military wing. The Palestinian Muslim Brothers would become the nucleus of Hamas (Institute for Counter-Terrorism, 2004).
Hamas was formed in December 1987 at the beginning of the first Intifada (Isseroff, 2004). Yassin was disappointed with the secular direction of the PLO and wanted to steer the resistance movement along a religious course. Several technically trained university graduates—engineers, teachers, and Islamic scholars—joined the movement. They published the Hamas Charter in 1988, declaring that Palestine was a God-given land, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. There could be no compromise with the Israelis, and Israel could not be allowed to exist. Unlike Arafat’s PLO, Hamas would fight Israel with religious zeal. Unlike the PIJ, Hamas would be much more than a military organization. It would be a Muslim government, the forerunner of a Palestinian Muslim state (Levit, 2006, pp. 17–18, 30–32).
Hamas’s organization reflects this original charter (Hamas, 1988), maintaining a political wing to oversee internal and foreign relations. Its largest unit, especially in Gaza, is its social wing. According to the third pillar of Islam, Zakat, Muslims are to give alms and share with the poor. Hamas runs charities, schools, hospitals, and other social service organizations in Gaza, where unemployment is sometimes as high as 85 percent. These social services have made Hamas popular among the Palestinians. Hamas’s military wing, the Izz el Din al Qassam Brigades, is named after a martyr from the time of the British occupation of Palestine.
Hamas’s relationship with the PLO and the PA has been shaky (Westcott, 2000). The reason can be traced to its religious orientation. Although Yassin and his followers vowed never to use violence against fellow Palestinians, they have always opposed Arafat.
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9-4bStruggles for Leadership
After the first Intifada, Hamas faced an internal power struggle. Yassin was jailed from 1989 to 1997, and during that time, the American-educated Musa Abu Marzuq took over Hamas. His strategy was much more violent than Yassin’s had been. He also sought financial backing from Syria and Iran in an attempt to assert greater power in the organization. He assembled a new leadership core and based it in Jordan, leading others to call it the “outside” leadership, in contrast to Yassin’ “inside” leadership group, which believed the struggle should remain inside Palestine (Levitt, 2002, pp. 34–37).
Marzuq’s leadership also caused a struggle with the Palestinian Authority (PA; Institute for Counter-Terrorism, 2004). In 1996, Marzuq authorized a campaign of suicide bombing inside Israel. The PIJ launched one at the same time, and both campaigns continued into 1997. They were especially savage, targeting civilians and public places. Bombs were designed to kill, cripple, and maim. Some bombs were even laced with rat poison to cause wounds to continue bleeding after treatment. Israel gave Arafat an ultimatum: Crack down on Hamas, or Israel would. The PA arrested a number of Hamas’s leaders, and Marzuq’s offensive waned.
After Yassin was released from prison in 1997, he gradually reasserted control over Hamas, even though he remained under house arrest. He moved operations back to the Gaza Strip. Violence continued up until 2000 but was slowly decreasing. Leaders of the al Qassam Brigades were incensed at the decrease, claiming that both the inside and outside leadership were placing too much attention on political solutions (see Levitt, 2002, pp. 33–51). In the meantime, Jordanian officials closed Hamas operations in Amman, and the outsiders who could avoid arrest fled to Syria. By 2000, some observers believed a lasting peace might be at hand. They were disappointed (Karman, 2000; Wikas, 2002). The al Aqsa Intifada started in September of that year.
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9-4cThe al Aqsa Intifada
It is hard to overstate the effect of the al Aqsa Intifada on Hamas. Quarreling between the al Qassam leaders and the political wing came to a standstill. Moderates and hardliners drew closer together. As the IDF swarmed into Palestinian areas, Arafat’s makeshift government, the PNA, lost much of its power. Hamas, therefore, had the opportunity to assert its muscle. The distinction among the various Palestinian forces began to blur, and Hamas grew stronger by forming alliances with Hezbollah and the PIJ. It then joined the largest suicide bombing campaign the Middle East had ever seen.
In the summer of 2003, PA prime minister Mahmud Abbas brokered a limited cease-fire, asking Hamas, the PIJ, and related groups to end their campaigns. However, the peace effort ended in August after a suicide bombing on a bus in Jerusalem. The Israelis responded by renewing a policy of selective assassination; that is, they identified leaders of Hamas and systematically murdered them (see the feature titled “Expanding the Concept: Israeli Selective Assassination” later in this chapter). Hamas passed another milestone in the campaign against Israel: It used a female suicide bomber in a joint operation with a newer group, the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (J. Stern, 2003a). Hamas had followed the lead of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, and the Chechen rebels, who also had used female suicide bombers.
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9-4dSeeking Election
In March 2004, Yassin was leaving a mosque in Gaza when Israeli helicopters appeared and fired three missiles at him. He met the fate of other Hamas leaders before him and was killed instantly. Hamas announced his replacement, Abdel Aziz Rantisi , an old member of the inside faction. However, the Israelis assassinated Rantisi in the same manner, shortly after he took office. A new leader was appointed, but Hamas kept his identity secret (Oliver, 2004; Keinon, 2004).
Some analysts believed the new leader was Khalid Meshal , an outsider operating from Damascus. At first, this suggested that Hamas would change its focus from Israel to the global jihad because the outside leadership had a larger perspective (Lake, 2004). Analysts looked at two Hamas communiqués issued in August 2004 as U.S. and Iraqi forces battled the Shi’ite militia of Muqtada al Sadr in Najaf, Iraq. In the midst of the battle, Hamas’s first communiqué condemned the United States for fighting around Najaf, the site of a Shi’ite holy shrine, and it called on all Iraqi people to band together to defeat America. The second statement was different; it called on all Iraqis to support the militia of Muqtada al Sadr. This was stunning, as Sunnis from the Muslim Brotherhood would be unwilling to support a Shi’ite militia in defense of a Shi’a shrine. Evidence indicated that Hamas had undergone some type of internal transformation (Paz, 2004).
Hamas had indeed undergone a transformation, and Khaled Meshal was its new leader, but few were prepared for the impact that this would have on the PA. The transformation began after the 1993 Oslo Accords and the growing disillusionment with Fatah. Despite Arafat’s domination of Palestinian politics, Fatah was a corrupt organization. Arafat received millions of dollars from supporters and through international aid, and he doled out funds like a big-city political boss. The majority of the money went to local political leaders instead of to needy Palestinians. Even when the PA seemed to be on the verge of achieving independence, Fatah functioned by its familiar corrupt rules, and it continued to do so after Arafat’s death (McGreal, 2006). When elections were slated for 2006, Palestinians were given the opportunity to select a new parliament. They voted Fatah out of power in January, and Hamas won the election.
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9-4eHamas versus Fatah
Hamas controlled the majority of seats in the Palestinian parliament, while Mahmud Abbas retained the presidency. This set the stage for a confrontation between Hamas and Fatah. Tension festered between the rival groups after the election, and Meshal continued to lead Hamas in exile. In Syria, he was free for international travel and fund-raising, something that he could not have accomplished from Gaza, where Israeli restrictions would have limited his movements. This benefited Hamas, ironically, because Meshal’s new government needed money. The United States and the European Union refused to recognize Hamas’s victory, stating that they would neither support nor discuss settlements with a terrorist organization. They cut off all aid to the PA, which increased bitter feelings between Hamas and Fatah.
Disheartened by the split in Palestinian leadership, Saudi Arabia brokered a power-sharing arrangement between Hamas and Fatah. It was a tenuous agreement, and the United States and the European Union still refused to restore foreign aid to the PA. That brought matters further along. Hamas and Fatah never really considered themselves full partners, and violent skirmishes between the two groups broke out in November 2006. According to news reports, several Arab nations restored peace, but intermittent assaults and counterassaults continued into the summer of 2007. All pretense of power sharing broke down in June when Hamas openly attacked Fatah’s strong points in Gaza. Fatah responded by forcibly closing all Hamas offices on the West Bank, but Hamas grew stronger in Gaza. By June 15, Hamas had driven Fatah from Gaza, and Abbas had dissolved the government. He formed a new parliament and cabinet, excluding Hamas. The United States and the European Union restored foreign aid to the West Bank, but Hamas controlled Gaza despite Abbas’s actions. Over 200 Palestinians were killed in the fighting (Fisher, 2007).
9-4fRockets and Operation Cast Lead
Meshal wasted no time taking advantage of the new base in Gaza. According to the Council on Foreign Relations (2009), Meshal wanted to attack Israel. In the past, Hamas had relied on suicide bombers—Meshal called them the F-16s of the Palestinians—but control of Gaza gave them a geographical base. They began launching homemade rockets across the border into Israel.
On December 27, 2008, Israel kicked off Operation Cast Lead, a devastating air and artillery assault on Gaza, followed by a ground invasion on January 3, 2009. According to news reports, several nations condemned the Israeli incursion, and the United States urged Israel to show restraint (Patriquin, 2009). Supporters of Israel were infuriated, stating that Israel had a right to defend itself. They asked why there had been no international outcry against Hamas’s rocket attacks. Critics emerged, the supporters argued, only when Israel took steps to defend its borders (R. Freedman, 2009). Israel maintained the attack for 22 days, destroying munitions and supplies. It also targeted underground tunnels that Hamas used to bring in military stores. The fighting caused hundreds of casualties.
Controversy over the invasion centered on proportionality. Anthony Cordesman (2009) said that the strategic results might eventually be questionable but that the tactical results were clear. Faced with rocket attacks, Israel responded with overwhelming military force. This temporarily eradicated Hamas’s military capability while ensuring that Israeli troops suffered only minimal casualties during the fighting. Such a strategy exacts a high humanitarian toll, Cordesman argues, but it reflects legitimate military action. In addition, it was a tactical success.
George Bisharat and colleagues (Bisharat et al., 2009), writing for an American law journal, argues that the Israeli response was illegal under international law. Two primary factors weigh against Israel. Even though the military response was designed to be overwhelming, the massive response produced hundreds of civilian casualties. In addition, Israel effectively occupied the Gaza Strip. It withdrew from the region in 2005, but it controlled the entry and exit of people and provisions. Such control, Bisharat says, made Israel legally responsible for protecting all the residents of Gaza. The response to Hamas’s attacks should have been measured.
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9-4gUnity?
Despite its turbulent history, Hamas and the Palestinian National Authority reached a compromise in 2014. Both sides agreed to form a unity government. A Washington Post report points out some of the sticking points (Booth and Gearan, 2014). Although negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel broke down in 2015, both sides at least discussed the possibility of creating a Palestinian state and a lasting peace. Hamas rejects Israel’s right to exist, and if that stand remains unchanged, it might shut the door on future negotiation. The United States lists Hamas as a U.S. State Department Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). The implications for its support of the Palestinian Authority are unclear. Israel’s political leadership stated flatly that it would not deal with a government that includes terrorists.
The results of unity are unknown as of this writing. Fatah and Hamas fought a brief but vicious civil war in 2007. Other extremist groups operate in the Gaza Strip, and they would like to replace Hamas. An ISIS-related movement started in the same area in 2015, and Sunnis are killing Sunnis. There are many contradictory factors at play. It is possible that both sides may join a unity government, but the major question is: Will it last? That is a perpetual issue in a region filled political irony and changing allies.
· Why did religion merge with the Palestinian movement? How did Hamas obtain power in Gaza?
· Was Operation Cast Lead justified?
· Can there be any hope for peace with Hamas?
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9-5Fatah Restructured: The al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
Suicide bombing became the most important tactic of all the Palestinian terrorist groups at the beginning of the al Aqsa Intifada in September 2000. Hezbollah, Hamas, and the PIJ were in the forefront, giving leadership to local religious groups. Fatah also became involved, but it continued in its secular orientation. Its two main forces were the politically oriented Force 17 and the Tanzim Brigade. Other Fatah splinter groups joined the Intifada, and although they resisted Arafat’s control, they also steered clear of religion. This became a problem because local jihadists and religious terrorists dominated the al Aqsa Intifada (Shahar, 2002). If Fatah wanted to play a leading role, it had to move from the secular to the religious realm.
BBC News (2003) reports that Fatah has shown a newfound religious streak that comes from the grassroots of Palestinian society. The al Aqsa Brigades were formed to put Fatah at the center of the new Intifada. The Brigades began as a secular group, but they increasingly used jihadist rhetoric. They were also the first secular Palestinian group to use suicide tactics. Hezbollah, Hamas, and the PIJ do not recognize Israel’s right to exist. This is not so with the Brigades. They claim their purpose is limited: Their goal is to stop Israeli incursions and attacks in Palestinian areas, and they intend to punish Israel for each attack. Whether this explanation is accepted or not, one thing is clear: The Brigades became the most potent Palestinian force in the al Aqsa Intifada.
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9-5aEffective Tactics
The National Counterterrorism Center (2015) states that the tactics of the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades have evolved over time. They were very active until 2005, but overall activity is difficult to assess for two reasons. First, the groups have splintered and operate autonomously. Some are active, and some are not. Second, the Martyrs Brigades participated in an Israeli amnesty program. Israel’s frequent incursions in the West Bank have also deprived the Martyrs Brigades of some key leaders. They may have lost credibility.
In an early analysis the Council on Foreign Relations (2004) says the Martyrs Brigades promised that they would strike Israeli military targets only inside Palestinian territory. This practice was soon abandoned, however, and attacks moved into Israel proper. The Brigades’ primary tactics have been drive-by shootings, sniper shootings, ambushes, and kidnap–murders. Yet, as with so many other terrorist groups, their most devastating tactic has been the use of suicide bombers. In a later report, the council reports that the Martyrs Brigades fired rockets into Israel in response to the deaths of two Palestinian teenagers (Danin, 2013).
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9-5bLeadership of the Martyrs Brigades
Leadership of the Brigades is a controversial topic. They seem to be directly associated with their parent group, Fatah, but it is unclear how their operations are directed and from where. One school of thought maintains that Arafat led and paid for the Brigades. Israeli intelligence claims that they have proof of Arafat’s involvement. Shahar (2002) says that the IDF raided Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah in 2002 and captured PNA documents that show payments to various factions inside the Brigades, payments that were personally approved by Arafat. The Israelis say that Arafat may not have determined targeting and timing but that he paid the expenses and set the agenda.
Other investigations point to another conclusion. The Council on Foreign Relations (2004) believes that Arafat may have run the Brigades but admits that there may be another source of leadership. A BBC News (2003) investigation points to Marwan Barghouti (currently in Israeli custody) as the commander. A Palestinian spokesman, Hassan Abdel Rahman, says that the documents Israel seized in 2002 are false and claims that the Israelis planted them (Rothem, 2002). Arafat claimed that he knew nothing about the Brigades.
PBS’s Frontline (2002) conducted an interview with a Palestinian leader code-named Jihad Ja’Aire at the height of the first bombing campaign. Ja’Aire claimed that he and all of the other Brigades commanders were under Arafat’s control. Arafat provided the direction, Ja’Aire said, and all the members obeyed him. This does not condemn Arafat, Ja’Aire pointed out, because the group operates with a different philosophy. If Israel had accepted the 1967 borders, that is, the borders before Israel added the West Bank and Gaza Strip after the Six-Day War, and stopped incursions into Palestinian areas, Arafat could have called off the attacks.
Whether Arafat had direct control of the Brigades remains a subject of debate, partly because of the way the Brigades are organized. Taking a cue from international jihadist groups, the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades have little centralized structure. Their administration has been pushed down to the lowest operational level so that each unit might function almost autonomously. Cells exist in several Palestinian communities, and leaders are empowered to take action on their own without approval from a hierarchy. In addition, Israel has targeted the Brigades’ leadership for selective assassination; nevertheless, the organization continues.
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9-5cBeginning a Network
No matter where the leadership authority lies, the managerial relations within the Brigades remain a mystery, even to the Palestinians. In June 2004, some of the leading figures in the Palestinian territories formed the Fatah General Council to investigate the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Arafat’s relation to them. This enraged some in the Brigades because they believed that Arafat was manipulating the entire investigation. Claiming that Arafat had abandoned them, disgruntled members of the Brigades surrounded his house and threatened him. If Arafat controlled the Brigades, his hold may not have been very tight (Algazy, 2004).
Self-Check
· What started the al Aqsa Intifada?
· What tactics did terrorists use in the al Aqsa Intifada?
· Do the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades unite the Palestinians in a common effort? Explain.
Another Perspective
David’s Kingdom and Israeli Settlements
Many supporters of Israel and a good number of Israeli peace activists do not favor expansion into Palestinian areas. Moshe Amon (2004) writes that although Israel is a secular democracy, it is being influenced by religious extremists. Ultraorthodox rabbis, he maintains, seek to conquer the biblical Kingdom of David. Jewish extremists, with the support of the state, have moved into Palestinian areas to establish permanent settlements. Many militants believe that when David’s Kingdom is restored, every person on earth will follow the teachings of the God of Israel. Amon says some of the militants fight Israeli soldiers, and some of their leaders call for the murder of non-Jews. Amon believes this behavior threatens not only Israel’s moral character but its very survival.
Another Perspective
Controversial Tactics
Israel has engaged in tactics that have enraged the Palestinians and many others. Critics call these tactics Israeli terrorism. Defenders say that Israel has a right to protect itself. The United States almost always supports Israel, frequently using its veto power in the UN Security Council to keep the United Nations from condemning Israeli actions. Controversial tactics include:
· Destroying the homes of suicide bombers’ families
· Selectively assassinating Palestinian leaders
· Killing innocents when striking militants
· Excessively using force
· Executing commando raids in neighboring countries
· Invading Lebanon in June 2006
· Invading Gaza in December 2008
· Blockading Gaza
· Violently intercepting ships in May 2010 during the Gaza blockade
Israeli Selective Assassination
Israel targeted Hamas’s leaders throughout the al Aqsa Intifada.
|
Person |
Position |
Israeli Action |
|
Riyad Abu Zayd |
Military commander |
Ambush, February 2003 |
|
Ibrahim Maqadah |
Military commander |
Helicopter attack, May 2003 |
|
Abdullah Qawasmah |
Suicide bomb commander |
Ambush, June 2003 |
|
Ismail Shanab |
Political leader |
Bomb strike, August 2003 |
|
Sheik Ahmed Yassin |
Head of Hamas |
Helicopter attack, March 2004 |
|
Abdel Aziz Rantisi |
Replaced Yassin |
Helicopter attack, April 2004 |
|
Mahmud al Mabbuh |
Political/military leader |
Murdered in Dubai hotel, February 2010 |
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9-6Controversial Counterterrorist Policies
Many Israeli police and military units have established excellent reputations in counterterrorist operations. Mossad , the Israeli intelligence service, is known for its expertise. Shin Beth, the domestic Israeli security service, is one of the most effective secret police forces in the world. The IDF is an excellent fighting machine. The Israeli police know how to handle bombs, snipers, kidnappings, and everyday crime. The tactical operations of these units are second to none.
Tactical operations, however, differ from policies. Governments decide the broad philosophy and practice of a policy, and tactical operations take place within the guidelines of long-term political goals. Policy involves a strategic view of a problem and the means to settle it. Unlike Israel’s excellent tactical record, its counterterrorist policies have stirred international controversy (see Another Perspective: Controversial Tactics).
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9-6aBulldozing
When Israel first faced suicide bombings, the government implemented a controversial policy called bulldozing, whose purpose was to destroy the family homes of suicide bombers. If militant charities and governments were going to compensate families of martyrs, the Israelis reasoned, bulldozing homes would be more painful than the pleasure of economic reward. Soon, the homes of not only families but of suspected leaders in militant groups and others were targeted for bulldozing. In 2004, farms and other areas were bulldozed. The policy expanded to include clearing ground for military reasons and clearing space to build a security fence, that is, a wall separating Israel from Palestinian areas (Palestine Monitor, 2004; The International New York Times, 2004). Critics maintain that bulldozing is done to further Israel’s self-interests.
9-6bInvading Lebanon
Judith Harik (2004, pp. 117–124) describes another controversial policy: punishing Lebanon for the sins of Hezbollah. As discussed earlier in the chapter, Israel launched its first invasion of Lebanon to rid the south of the PLO. That ended after an 18-year occupation and the creation of a new enemy, Hezbollah. In 1996, Israel launched a limited offensive in Lebanon to disrupt Hezbollah operations, and dozens of innocent Lebanese were killed in the process.
The Israelis responded with force again in July 2006. Israel was surprised when Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel while Hezbollah ground forces ambushed a military unit inside the borders of Israel. Israel launched an immediate attack, and then announced that it planned to destroy Hezbollah (al Jazeera, 2006). The IDF launched a massive series of strikes for nearly a month. Critics maintained that the operation was overkill. In a war that lasted nearly a month, hundreds of Lebanese civilians were killed, nearly a million Lebanese were displaced, and Lebanon’s infrastructure was destroyed (Daily Mail, 2007; Chomsky, 2006; Salem, 2006).
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9-6cThe Wall
In an effort to stop Palestinian attacks, the government of Ariel Sharon proposed an idea that dates back to Hadrian of the Roman Empire. The Israelis began constructing a massive wall. On the surface, this might seem to be an uncontroversial issue, but the path of the wall grabbed the attention of the world. The concrete and barbed-wire barrier snaked through Palestinian areas, often putting water and other resources in the hands of the Israelis. It also separated people from services, jobs, and their families. Much of the international community condemned the wall (I. Black, 2003).
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9-6dSelective Assassination
The most controversial aspect of Israel’s counterterrorist policy is selective assassination. Israel has maintained a consistent policy against terrorism. When it is struck, it hits back hard. Israeli commandos and the IDF units have allegedly killed opposition leaders in the past, including Abu Jihad of the PLO and Fathi Shekaki of the PIJ, but the policy expanded during the al Aqsa Intifada when Israel began the wholesale assassination of Hamas leadership.
Reuven Paz (2004) questions the effectiveness of this policy, suggesting that it might internationalize the conflict. Left-wing political leaders in Israel deplore the policy, calling such assassinations “gangster murders” (Kafala, 2001). Human rights groups have condemned the policy and challenged it in Israeli courts (BBC News, 2002). Nations all over the world have condemned Israel for these targeted assassinations as well.
Daniel Byman (2006) defends the controversial policy, arguing that Israel’s selective assassinations are publicly transparent. Each proposed attack must go through several stages, excluding legal review. The public is aware of the moral dilemma and various tradeoffs. Byman admits that the policy remains controversial, and says it would be stronger if the judiciary were involved in the process. It is important to note that Israeli deaths from terrorism have dropped since it began employing its controversial policy.
Charles Krauthammer (2004) reflects the feelings of those who support these controversial policies. Israel is under attack, he writes. Though the United Nations, for instance, condemned the security fence, Krauthammer maintains that its construction reduced suicide attacks. Many Israelis feel that harsh policies must be implemented to deter terrorism (Kafala, 2001). Furthermore, the United States has repeatedly taken the position that Israel cannot be condemned for harsh measures until the international community also denounces Palestinian terrorism.
Self-Check
· Why might Israeli policies toward Lebanon be described as a failure?
· Is collective punishment for terrorist violence effective?
· Do retribution and intensive security measures stop terrorism? Explain.
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9-7Emphasizing the Points
The modern conflict between Israel and Palestine is based in terrorism. Fatah imitated the Irgun by using terrorist tactics, but the movement was not united. Palestinian militancy is characterized by factionalism. Terrorism moved to the international arena in the 1980s, but it has remained localized for the past three decades. The current major operational groups are Hezbollah, Hamas, and the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Israeli policies are controversial. Critics claim the Israelis overreact. Defenders maintain that strong tactics are necessary to counter terror.
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Chapter Review
9-8aSummary of Chapter Objectives
· The pejorative meaning of the term terrorism is explosive in Israeli–Palestinian relations. Israel and its allies, especially the United States, have branded the militant groups opposing its statehood as terrorists. Palestinians and their supporters point to the disproportionate amount of force used by Israel in response to violence and refer to that as terrorism. The debate is distorted by extreme positions on both sides.
· Fatah began as a militant organization a decade after Israel’s statehood. It absorbed and later dominated the PLO. Its leader, Yasser Arafat, tried to lead the entire resistance movement but was frustrated by numerous factions breaking away to form new terrorist groups.
· Many groups emerged from Fatah and the PLO, and the PLO even formed new groups it could control. The Fatah splinter groups included Abu Nidal Organization (Black June), al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Black September, DFLP, Force 17, PLF, PDFLP, PFLP, PFLP-GC, and Tanzim Brigades.
· The PIJ emerged from Egypt in the 1970s. It evolved into a religious organization with the philosophy that while religious law would be implemented after victory, the more immediate objective was the destruction of Israel. Several groups use Islamic Jihad in their names.
· Hezbollah is a Shi’ite group formed during the Lebanese civil war with Iranian backing. It evolved over time and currently has multiple functions, including a military wing. Israel, the United States, and many other Western countries call it a terrorist group. Many Muslim counties see it as a legitimate military force.
· Hezbollah has gone through distinct phases, moving from small terrorist operations in Lebanon to political and social action. It also created a defense force and successfully fought Israel in a 2006 war.
· Hamas emerged from the first Intifada. It embraced the principles of religious law and expressed disgust for the secular policies and corruption of the PLO. It formed a large organization and mastered the art of suicide attacks. It opposes any peace with Israel, and its charter calls for the destruction of Israel.
· Hamas won control of the Palestinian government in 2006. Although the United States has refused to negotiate with Hamas, many people believe that Hamas will target neither the United States nor other Western countries.
· The al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades formed from Fatah, embracing religion and suicide attacks. There are many questions about its leadership. Currently, they operate within a network of independent cells having no central command structure.
· Israel has responded to terrorism with controversial policies. These include bulldozing, invasions of Lebanon, constructing a wall to separate Palestinians from Israelis, and targeted assassinations.
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Chapter Review
9-8bLooking into the Future
The future of Israel–Palestinian relations will be defined by Israel’s willingness to recognize Palestinian statehood, its decision to either continue or suspend expanded settlements in Palestinian lands, and the ability of each side to control its political extremists. Israel will continue to attempt to strengthen ties with Jordan, Egypt, and Turkey. Doing so will not only give it important alliances, it will increase trade and diplomatic relations. Palestinian poverty and Israel’s violations of human rights will continue to create political unrest. Access to water is crucial, and Israel currently controls it. Both sides must eventually reach a position of realpolitik to attain peace. Israel and the United States will not deal with Hamas because it is a terrorist group. Hamas rules in Gaza and has pledged to form a joint government with the Palestinian National Authority. The reality is that Hamas has morphed into a political organization with the power to govern, and governing involves realistic compromise. If Hamas wants peace, it must drop its demand for the eradication of Israel and work with the international community to meet the needs of the Palestinian people. Israel and the United States must recognize that Hamas has power and seek to engage its leadership, if they want to reduce tensions and improve social conditions.
There are two wild cards. The first is the Syrian civil war. The rise of ISIS has changed the dynamics of Israeli–Palestinian relations as well as the future of the entire region. The reality is that ISIS presents a threat to several international revivals. The main question for the future is: Will the enemy of my enemy become my friend? To date, the answer has been no. The second wild card is Israel’s population bomb. Unless Israel forcefully displaces its Arab population, it will soon outnumber the Jewish population. Currently, many Arabs are treated as second-class citizens. Whether Arabs will be included or excluded as full citizens remains to be seen.
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Chapter Review
9-8cKey Terms
· fedayeen
· Intifada
· Sheik Mohammed Hassan Fadlallah
· Izz el Din al Qassam Brigades
· Mossad