The salaries of UNRWA workers are paid through contributions that UNRWA receives from 38 contributing countries. The U.S. provides 30 percent of that budget, Canada contributes 4 percent of that budget, and the European countries contribute well over 55 percent of that budget. Ironically, the Arab world provides only 3 percent. (5)
Coordinating Terrorism With Other Groups
While Hamas has always seen itself as a competitor and religious alternative to the PLO (and later the Palestinian Authority, PA), it has also always shared with the PLO the ultimate goal of Israel’s destruction and the creation of an Islamic Palestinian State “from the River to the Sea.” Thus it entered into a cooperative partnership with Arafat after the Oslo Accords. Akhmed Yassin and Yassir Arafat developed a macabre game of “good cop/bad cop” toward Israel and the West. Hamas received secret PA assistance and funding, as long as it carried out terror attacks about which Arafat could claim plausible deniability. Then Arafat could not only deny his role in the terrorism, but could make himself look like the helpless victim of a rowdy and uncontrollable bunch of hot-headed Islamic extremists.
This ploy worked well for a number of years prior to the Intifada with the EU, the UK, and even the USA. President Clinton seems to have accepted at face value ArafatÂ’s disclaimers and urged Israel continuously to be more accommodating and supporting of him as he struggled to gain control over Hamas. European leaders fawned over Yassin as well as Arafat, according them the respect and courtesy given to legitimate heads of state.
The West was finally given undeniable proof of this partnership of terror when Israel re-occupied the West Bank in April, 2002. Entering ArafatÂ’s MuqatÂ’a (compound of main offices and headquarters), the IDF confiscated dozens of computers and hard drives and files. Within a few weeks Israel was able to provide President Bush with hard-copy proof of the collusion between Hamas and the PA in the tens of thousands of documents, many signed by ArafatÂ’s own hand, in which details of logistics, finance, planning, timing, and denials were worked out. At that point President Bush announced publicly that he no longer considered Arafat to be a meaningful partner for peace.
Since Arafat’s death (November, 2004), Hamas has played the same ‘good cop/bad cop” game with its junior partner-in-terror, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but with its role reversed. Now Hamas pretends to abide by a truce negotiated in Cairo, while Islamic Jihad carries out terror attacks.
In February, 2005, Hamas agreed to a “tahdiyeh” (a calming, or cooling off period) at the Cairo Conference, under considerable pressure from Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak (who in turn was under pressure from President Bush.) Hamas leaders were quick to assert that this “calm” was merely the “respite of the warrior,” a lull in the fighting so that the terror groups could gain time to re-arm, re-group, and prepare for the next round. And, indeed, Hamas claims to have honored this agreement. But, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other groups have stepped up their terror activities, such that almost 2000 attacks were perpetrated during that year. Israeli intelligence indicates that Hamas is as active as ever in the planning and execution of these attacks. It simply allows the other terror groups to claim credit. (6)
Hamas also works with al-Qaeda, since they share long-term strategic objectives (their war against what Osama bin-Laden terms “Global Un-Belief” with the goal of Islam’s supremacy over all the world). In addition to what one might cringingly term ‘moral support’ and personal interactions, there have been some cases of mutual operational assistance. Currently, Israeli intelligence reports a number of active el-Qaeda cells in the Gaza Strip. With the Gaza Strip now open to the Sinai Peninsula, the el-Qaeda cells in Gaza can work untrammeled with the el-Qaeda terrorist camps in southern Sinai to mount serious military threats to Egypt, Israel, and the entire Eastern Mediterranean.(7)
The “Spiritual Leader”
One key to Hamas true character was the character of its maximum leader, Sheikh Ahmed IsmaÂ’il Yassin, born in 1936 in the village of al-Jora, near the port city of Ashkelon. His family fled to Gaza during the 1948 war. A soccer sporting accident at the age of 14 left him paralyzed and wheelchair-bound, but he married and fathered 12 children.
As a student in Egypt, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood and was arrested during a sweep of activists after an attempted coup against President Gamal Abdul-Nasser in 1965. Imprisoned and later exiled from Egypt, he returned to Gaza in 1968 where he became one of the most prominent Muslim Brotherhood figures. He was arrested by Israel in 1984 because of his leadership in arms procurement and was sentenced to 13 years in prison; but was released the following year as part of the prisoner exchange with Akhmed JibrilÂ’s PFLP-GC terrorist organization.
Upon his release, Yassin resumed his work of setting up a military infrastructure, including the stockpiling of weapons for the war against Israel. In December, 1987, Yassin directed the BrotherhoodÂ’s expansion and re-definition as Hamas. One of his first achievements as HamasÂ’ leader was to establish Hamas cells in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
In 1989, once Hamas surfaced as a bona fide terror group and not the harmless religious revivalist cult that Israel originally thought it was, Yassin was arrested and charged with premeditated murder, possession of weapons, incitement, the illegal transfer of $500,000, assisting the escape of two convicts from prison, recruiting members for Hamas, and membership in an illegal organization. In 1991, he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment plus fifteen years. But in 1997 he was released in exchange for two Mossad agents held by Jordan's King Hussein after a failed assassination attempt on another Hamas leader, Khaled MashÂ’al, in Amman.
During YassinÂ’s imprisonment, the second tier of Hamas leadership, including Musa Abu Marzuq, became the acting leaders of the movement. Hamas then devised a strategy to ensure the continued operation of its leadership. Upon his release in 1997 he resumed his position of leadership, but with a highly structured and fully staffed level of lower tier leaders ready to step forward and take his place if necessary.
Yassin led HamasÂ’ rejection of the Oslo Accords, and directed a series of terror attacks aimed at disrupting the peace process. Although he was disillusioned with, and sometimes disparaging of, ArafatÂ’s claim to have the ability to achieve victory over Israel in his terror war, Yassin cooperated with Arafat, and coordinated terror attacks with him. Arafat and Yassin planned attacks that were timed to torpedo peace talks or Palestinian pressure on Arafat to democratize; but being able to blame Hamas, Arafat avoided responsibility and pretended to take steps to rein in the insubordinate terror gangs. The ruse worked for years (

.
Yassin often proclaimed that his happiest day would be the day he died as a martyr for the holy cause of “Palestine and Jihad.” That day came on the morning of March 22, 2004, when an Israel Defense Force helicopter attack killed him and several of his followers.
Yassin left as his legacy a younger generation of terrorists to pick up the Hamas standard.
Musa Mohammed Abu Marzuq
Abu Marzuq was born in 1951, in the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. He went to Egypt to study engineering and upon his return to Gaza became a close collaborator of Yassin. (9)
In 1974 he left Gaza for the United States, where he continued his studies in engineering. Between 1981 and 1992 he lived with his family in Falls Church, Virginia. In 1989 he was elected the head of the Political Bureau of Hamas, which is the movement's most senior leadership body in decisions on central matters such as the policy of terrorist attacks, issuing directives to activists to operate in the Israel, in the Territories, and in Hamas areas of operation abroad.
From 1989 to 1993 he organized Hamas along rigorous lines, assisted Yassin to establish active cells in the West Bank, and developed the organizationÂ’s financial arm. In the fall of 1992 Abu Marzuq headed a Hamas delegation to Tehran for the purpose of concluding a number of political and military cooperation agreements with Iran. He was also the chief liaison between Hamas and the PLO while Arafat was in exile in Tunis.
Abu Marzuq was arrested in New York on July 25, 1995 upon one of his trips back to the US. After extradition to Israel he was expelled to Jordan in May, 1997. Later he made his way back to the Gaza Strip. Today he lives in Damascus, to be out of IsraelÂ’s reach.
Abdul Azziz Rantisi
Rantizi began his career in the Hamas as one of the six founders of the movement in December 1987, together with Sheikh Yassin and others. In December 1992, he was expelled to Lebanon, as part of the expulsion of 416 Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives, and emerged as general spokesman of those expelled to southern Lebanon. Upon his return to the Palestinian Authority territories, he was imprisoned by the PA for insulting Arafat. Following his release from a PA prison, Rantizi returned to his position as “right hand” to Yassin. He was one of the main opponents to any cease-fire and cessation of terrorist attacks inside Israel.
Rantizi delivered sermons, addresses, and interviews utilizing extreme language, in which he called for the continuation of the terrorist activity against the State of Israel and its citizens, opposing any cease fire. This served as instructions to the field operatives in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to continue their terrorist activity.
He also encouraged followers to assassinate PM Sharon and other Israeli leaders. He was a strong proponent of suicide bombings against all Israelis (not just military). He rejected all possibilities of recognizing the existence of Israel or negotiating a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
After YassinÂ’s execution by Israel in March, Rantizi assumed the leadership of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and promptly escalated its terror activities. But his leadership role did not last long. After almost two decades of incitement, murder, the direct responsibility for scores of Israeli deaths, and the planning of a seemingly endless series of terror attacks, Rantizi was executed by Israel when an Israeli helicopter launched a strike on his car, on April 17, 2004.(11)
Khalid Al-Mash'al (12)
MashÂ’al was appointed the new leader of Hamas on March 24, 2004, shortly after YassinÂ’s death, but he remained in semi-hiding in Damascus. He promptly re-affirmed HamasÂ’ central tenet, the destruction of Israel via a holy war.
Al-Mash'al was born in 1956 in the village of Silwan, near East Jerusalem, then under Jordanian rule. Following the 1967 war, when Silwan came under Israeli sovereignty, Al-Mash'al and his family moved to Kuwait to join his father, who had gone there for employment several years earlier., where al-MashÂ’al completed his education. Like all of the Hamas founders, Al-Mash'al was initially a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and was active in Brotherhood agitation in Kuwait. Following the expulsion of all Palestinians as retribution for their support of Saddam Hussein's 1990 conquest of Kuwait, Al-Mash'al and his family left for Jordan.
Upon his arrival there in 1990, Al-Mash'al assumed responsibility for the international fundraising efforts of Hamas at the organization's office in Amman. After the arrest of Abu Marzuq in 1995, the fifty-member Hamas Consultative Council, or Shura, elected Al-Mash'al chairman of the Political Bureau. Al-Mash'al also assumed responsibility for the terror activities of the 'Iz Ad-Din Al- Qassam Brigades, which were relocated to Hamas offices in Amman, Jordan, in 1995.
From 1992 until 1999, Al-Mash'al led the Political Bureau from Amman, Jordan. He and three other Hamas representatives were expelled from Jordan on August 31, 1999, and from then until 2001 Al-Mash'al divided his time between Qatar, and Syria. Since 2001, Al-Mash'al has directed the organization's activities from Hamas offices located in Damascus
HamasÂ’ Role in Post-Oslo Terrorism
Although Yassin rejected the Oslo Accords and sometimes berated Arafat for signing them, he worked very closely with Arafat and the PLO, and developed an effective modus operandi as described above. So close was the interaction between Hamas and the PA that Arafat described Yassin as “Habibna, Habibna, Habibna, Habibna, Habibna” (“our Friend!” x 5)(13).
Hamas’ greatest contribution to Arafat’s terror war was the development of suicide bombings as a major tactical weapon. Hamas founded the suicide bomber academy in Gaza City, deployed the first suicide bombers in the Fall of 1994, and boasted a graduating class of 115 bomber-martyrs in 2001. Between September 2000 and March 2004, Hamas carried out 425 attacks against Israel, 52 of which were suicide bombings, killing 377 Israelis (288 in suicide bombings) and wounding 1646 more. Of great help to Arafat was Hamas’ ability and willingness to torpedo peace talks by scheduling carefully timed terror attacks (sometimes several in quick succession), knowing that Israel would call a halt to the “peace talks” in order to formulate a response to the new resurgence of terror. (14)
Unwilling to launch a full-scale military assault on Hamas terrorists because of the toll on innocent Palestinians that would result, Israel fought to defend itself against the terror onslaught by what are known as ‘pinpoint assassinations” or ‘decapitations” of major terrorist leaders. Naturally, Sheikh Akhmed Yassin and Abdul-Azziz Rantisi were high on the list.
IsraelÂ’s targeted assassinations caused much of HamasÂ’ local leadership to flee. The second tier of commanders fled to Damascus (Khaled MashÂ’al) or went underground in the Gaza Strip and West Bank (Mahmoud az-Zahar). Unofficial estimates place at about 1,000 the number of Hamas terrorists killed. Efficient and usually bloodless arrests over the years have landed about 7,000 operatives in Israeli prisons, thus decimating HamasÂ’ ranks and rendering it less and less capable of terror attacks. This loss of manpower is one of the reasons why Hamas so frequently demands that Israel release Hamas terrorists from its jails.
After IsraelÂ’s unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank, Hamas leader Mahmoud az-Zahar said:
“Neither the liberation of the Gaza Strip nor of the West Bank, nor even Jerusalem, will suffice. Hamas will pursue its armed struggle until the liberation of all of our lands.”
Elections
In last monthÂ’s elections for seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, Hamas scored much bigger than expected, winning more than half the seats in what seems to have been an orderly democratic election.
Hamas emphasized in its electioneering the need to clean up the Fatah corruption and mis-management. As a result, many analysts today suggest that the popular vote did not mean that the voting population was in support of HamasÂ’ genocidal terrorist agenda, but rather simply longed for efficient garbage collection and honest government.
However, Hamas leaders Mahmoud Az-Zahar and Khaled al-Mash’al stressed repeatedly in post-election speeches that Hamas has “known stances” (genocide of world-wide Jewry, destruction of Israel, creation of a fundamentalist Moslem state based on Shari’a law with non-Moslems reduced to dhimmitude), and therefore the popular vote was an endorsement of these ‘known stances.” Moreover, many Hamas posters and leaflets used graphic depictions of Hamas terrorists, armed and masked, preparing to “liberate el-Aqsa” and Jerusalem. The message to the Palestinian rank and file has been perfectly clear.
So now, Hamas, as a legitimate political party in the Palestinian Authority National council, has a ruling majority and is working with Fatah to divide up the government portfolios. Those Hamas covets give some insight into their future plans.
First on their list is security, which would give them control over the military arm of the PA (totaling 68,000 men). The next priority is the finance ministry, so that they can finance the war against Israel. Finally social services are important to them, so that they can continue their “da’wa” and ultimately implement Shari’a law.(16)
But the transfer of power will not go smoothly because Fatah does not want to give control of security forces or the PAÂ’s money. Growing friction between Hamas and Fatah may well escalate from internecine rivalries, at the level of localized killings and brief fire-fights, into a bona fide civil war. A recent post-election decision by the Palestinian National Council to give President Mahmoud Abbas the power to nullify political decisions of a terrorist group is a ploy in FatahÂ’s strategy to reverse HamasÂ’ gains and re-establish itself as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. Israel and the USA are working too to undermine Hamas by withholding funds until Hamas relinquishes its commitment to IsraelÂ’s destruction. The EU and the UK also currently reject any cooperation with Hamas since it remains an obdurate terrorist group.
But so far, Hamas is not impressed. The UN and Russia have already made advances to recognize and support Hamas. Arab governments have already promised to make up for any loss of funds from Western countries due to rejection of Hamas legitimacy. So despite opposition, Hamas is on its way to becoming the recognized and legitimate ruling power in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The danger for Israel is that as Hamas successfully overwhelms Fatah and establishes itself as a legitimate political force, gets into the good graces of the EU and UK , and eventually perhaps the USA as well. Then Hamas will have the political legitimacy and leverage it needs in order to reload, re arm, re recruit, re-deploy and gear up for the next phase; the last great final jihad....just as its Covenant promises.
HamasÂ’ Long Range Plans
Mahmoud az-Zahar lays out the character of the Islamist Palestinian state according to the Hamas vision: “This will be a state which will be based on the principals of the Shari’a and will be part of the Arab Islamist Umma,” he says. “In the Shari’a-led Palestine, mixed dancing will be prohibited.
In Hamas' Palestine, homosexuals and lesbians which Zahar defines as “a minority of moral and mental deviants” will have no rights.” In the Islamist Palestinian state, says Zahar, each Palestinian citizen will be required to behave according to the Shari’a. (17)
The Islamist Palestinian state will also refrain from negotiations and cooperation with Israel, according to Zahar: “It is in our national interest to stop the cooperation with Israel in any field.” Hamas, Zahar says, will also use all the weapons in the Palestinian territory to create an Islamist Palestinian state in all of Palestine’s territory, and use terrorism to obliterate the Israeli state. In response to a question concerning the nature of Palestine under Hamas rule, from a Newsweek reporter on August 30, 2005, Zahar responded, “It should be Hamastan.” (1

But Hamas’ long range plans do not stop at the borders of “Palestine.” Its covenant and other statements are similar to those of Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Ayman ez-Zawahiri’s recent letter to the West, and pronouncements from other Islamist organizations. They all strive to establish a Caliphate encircling the globe. To quote Ahmad Yassin: “The 21st century is the century of Islam,” and “Jihad will be the personal obligation of every Muslim man and woman, and there will be no alternative to Muslims threatening the interests of the hostile Americans and Westerners and striking at them everywhere.” and his successor Mahmoud az-Zahar says, “Israel will disappear and after it the US.” (19)
Khaled Mash’al currently continues to espouse Hamas’ long-range plan of Islam’s world conquest. At the Al-Murabit Mosque in Damascus February 3, 2006, as part of a Friday sermon, aired on el-Jazeera, he preached: “We say to this West, which does not act reasonably, and does not learn its lessons: By Allah, you will be defeated…..The nation of Muhammad is gaining victory in Palestine. The nation of Muhammad is gaining victory in Iraq, and it will be victorious in all Arab and Muslim lands.
'Their multitudes will be defeated and turn their backs [and flee].' These fools will be defeated, the wheel of time will turn, and times of victory and glory will be upon our nation, and the West will be full of remorse, when it is too late….. Today, the Arab and Islamic nation is rising and awakening, and it will reach its peak, Allah willing. It will be victorious. It will link the present to the past. It will open up the horizons of the future. It will regain the leadership of the world. Allah willing, the day is not far off.” (20)
And these are not just idle words. As early as 2002, the FBI concluded that 50 to 100 trained Hamas and Hezbollah agents had already infiltrated America and have the potential of being operational as terrorist groups against American targets.
And Hamas may have even bigger plans. Reports indicate it is actively planning attacks against American forces, in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kuwait. Of particular note, it was a Palestinian with possible ties to Hamas, Ahmed Mustafa Ibrahim Ali, who shot three American corrections officers at a prison in Kosovo in April 2004 (21)
And Hamas is planning for the future as well. A story on its children’s website, el-Fateh, tells young future Hamas terrorists that they must strive for the re-conquest of Spain in order to liberate “al-Andalus” (the Arab term for Spain). (22)
Western Responses
Western responses to Hamas’ success in the January elections are divided. On one hand, Russia, France, the UN, and (not unexpectedly) most Arab nations, argue that as the government legally and democratically elected by the Palestinian people in fair and open elections, Hamas should be “given a chance.” Former President Jimmy Carter sums up the argument in a recent Washington Post article (23). The West should give Hamas the leeway to show the world that it can rise to the challenge of governance and offer to Israel some sort of negotiated settlement that Israel can be pressured to accept.
The most frequently offered defense of this whitewashing of terrorists and their terrorist government is the assertion that the onus of governance will moderate Hamas. The need to collect the garbage, make the trains run on time, handle finances, etc., will obligate Hamas to come to terms with the reality of a neighboring Jewish State and an outside world that no longer condones genocide (although this last assertion is somewhat dubious, given the recent failures of the UN and the West to act effectively regarding the Arab Moslem Sudanese genocide of black African Christian and Animist Sudanese in the south).
The weakness of this argument is that it has no basis in the reality of the Middle East. The PLO under Arafat was not tamed when it was given its “observer status” in the UN in 1974. Arafat did not become statesmanlike when he was elected “el-rais” of the Palestinian Authority in 1994. Hezbollah has not been tamed by its recent emergence as a political force in Lebanon.
Israel and the USA have so far withheld financial support and recognition. After 20 years of HamasÂ’ terror war, thousands of terror attacks, hundreds of Israelis dead and thousands more injured or maimed for life, scores of suicide bombings, more than one hundred attempted suicide bombings, and its leadersÂ’ continued insistence that Hamas will never abandon its Covenant of genocide and world conquest, Israel is reluctant to accept third party assertions that Hamas will be an honest peace partner.
Seventy years ago, when the German people elected the Nazi party to power, the world looked the other way and ignored all that Hitler had written in Mein Kampf. Five years later 70,000,000 people had died. Today the world is witness to the second time that a free election has resulted in the rise to power of a terrorist party with a genocidal agenda fully outlined in its own shortened version of Mein Kampf. Will the world pretend that the Hamas Charter is irrelevant, even as Hamas leaders swear to fulfill its monstrous goals? Will Western powers pressure Israel to acquiesce to HamasÂ’ demands, make concessions, even as Hamas leaders declare that no concessions are adequate as long as the hated Jewish state exists?