Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

228 • HAMASin Iran led by the Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini in preferring massinvolvement through direct popular uprising over piecemeal reformism.It would later finesse its own guerrilla warfare tactics involvingcorps of suicide bombers as well as developing sophisticatedelectoral campaigning to displace rival groups within the Palestinianmovement. Its founding covenant defined the Palestinian struggleas being part of the Islamic religious duty of jihad incumbent on allMuslims under Israeli occupation.While the Hamas covenant solemnly avows the Palestinian identityof the movement, and so disavows any right by the Arab governmentsto determine the fate of the Palestinians, it also places the Palestinianstruggle in a Pan-Islamic context as an obligation demandingthe moral and material support of all Muslims, even those outside theArab nations. Article 27 of the Hamas covenant rejects the secular,nonconfessional platform of the PLO as reflecting the devious influencesof “western missionaries, orientalists, and colonialists.”Hamas derives its autonomy from secular Palestinian nationalistsand its organizational strength from the Ikhwan’s control overMuslim educational and religious foundations in the West Bank.During the period of Jordanian administration (1948–1988), theIkhwan used the authority of the Jordanian Ministry of ReligiousEndowments to dominate the Arab schools and the appointment ofall Friday prayers leaders. The Ikhwan network also took over thecollection and disbursement of the religious tithes of the Muslimfaithful. Over 50 percent of religious publications in the West Bankcame under the control of the Ikhwan. Following the cessation ofJordanian state support, the Ikhwan continued to draw on materialsupport from other official and semiprivate Islamic religious organizationsin Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf emirates. Hamaseventually accepted Iran’s offers of financial and tactical aid afterHezbollah came to the aid of Hamas militants expelled into southernLebanon in 1992.A number of early attacks had been carried out by individual PalestinianHamas members, usually stabbings of individual Israelis. On14 December 1990 two Hamas members stabbed to death three Israelifactory workers in Jaffa. Yet for a one-week period beginning 3July 1992, Hamas clashed with Yasir Arafat’s al Fatah group in theGaza Strip; one child was killed and more than 150 people injured.Hamas opposed al Fatah’s participation in the October 1991 Arab-