Comparative Essay on the Fatah and Hamas

Fatah and Hamas are known rival Palestinian groups that in the past attacked Israel (Gelvin 197). Even though the common enemy has been Israel, the two groups have always antagonized each other as far as leadership is concerned. In this paper, a comparison will be made in regards to the origin and emergence of Fatah and Hamas. Further, the paper also outlines the goals of both the groups and how the goals have changed over the defined time. Also, the paper makes a comparison as far as the ideologies and political thoughts of the groups are concerned. Moreover, the strategies and the means that are applied in military and peace talks and the manner in which they have changed over time is discussed. The paper finalizes by expounding on the position of the two factions in regards to peace deals made such as the Oslo Agreements.

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Origin and Emergence

Both Fatah and Hamas are known rival Palestinian groups that in the past attacked Israel. The roots of Hamas are traceable in Gaza Strip in 1987 and was established by Sheik Ahmed Yassin and Dr. Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi. The duo has been killed by Israel. Hamas is said to be a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The brotherhood group is both a religious and political outfit with several outlets and offices in the Arab world. Hamas has guided principles and guidelines that emphasize on the destroying state of Israel. The groups charter is mainly to ensure that Allah is raised every inch of Palestine. Over time, the Hamas group is softening its ground with Ismail Haniya the Prime Minister under the unity government advocating for a long-term cease-fire with Israel in the event that Israel considers withdrawing from the territory it occupied after the 1967 war (Gelvin 201).

On the other hand, Yasser Arafat is acknowledged as the founder of Fatah. During its formation in the 1950s, Fatah was made of a small group of Palestinian nationalists. The formation is part of the PLO, a loose umbrella group made up of Palestinian organizations that were formed in Cairo in the mid-1960s. Fatah grew so fast and became the most powerful member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which Arafat also led (Sayigh 17).

Goals

Fatah was formed with the main goal of getting rid of the Israeli presence in the Palestinian state. While achieving their objective violence was widely acknowledged and accepted.

On the other hand, Hamas was formed with the objective of looking forward to destroying Israel. The goal also included pursuing the Palestinian State that also included the Gaza strip, the West Bank, the entire Jerusalem, and Israel. Notably, the objectives of the organizations have changed over a period of time. The current objective of Fatah is to accept a two state kind of solution where the two states of Israel and Palestine would exist together. According to this objective, Palestine is to comprise of Gaze, Westbank, and parts of Jerusalem. For Hamas, the current objective is that they do not accept in official terms the peace process that may occur with Israel. In the recent times, Hamas has acted so moderately and reasoned. In pursuing its objectives, Hamas hopes to bring Israel to an end and liberate Palestine in the process (Gelvin 204). However, the thinking it has been employing is in the short term and dictated by short goals that ensure that it can get into negotiations.

Ideology and Political Thought

These two groups have been at loggerheads in regards to ideology. Hamas is mainly an Islamist group while Fatah is known as just as mainly secular in nature. In regards to political thoughts and leaderships, the groups have been challenging each other politically since the 1990s. After the known al-Aqsa Intifada of 2000, the two groups started to fight each other even though the two Palestinian groups fought a war against Israel. The ideological focus of Hamas was Islamic and they strongly believed that it gave them a chance as well as the narrative that the struggle was missing. The military groups under the Fatah mainly learnt a lot from different fighting groups and insurgencies in the world. More of the lessons were learnt from Mujahedeen in Afghanistan and Hezbollah with the aim being on how to target IDF and Israel. Fatah has its ideology mainly focusing on the liberation of what is thought to be Palestinian homeland getting from occupation and forming or making up a nation-state. The PLO is known to be a group with several factions that joined together to form Fatah and this was without any consideration of religion (Hilal 27).

In the year 2004, Hamas grew to be an almost same strength as the Fatah. The leadership vacuum was witnessed when Yassir Arafat passed away. Owing to the grown strength of Hamas, the Palestinians would then elect them to power. Getting the support of the United States, Fatah deterred Hamas the chance to govern. There was a duel between the two factions hence leading to the 2007 civil war that happened in Gaza. After the November 2012 conflict that occurred between Israel and Hamas and the consequent elevation of the Palestinian mission at the United Nations, Fatah and Hamas have considered engaging in peace talks with an aim of having harmonious working relationship (Hilal 30).

Strategies and Means

While fighting Israel, Hamas has been employing different strategies. One of the strategies is that it has been carrying out suicide bombings and rocket attacks during the war with Israel. On the other hand, Fatah has been collaborating with outside powers, especially the United States as a means of remaining in power and denying Hamas the chance to serve the Palestinians. In fact, the collaboration led to a duel between the two factions hence the 2007 Gaza civil war (Gelvin 208).

Given that Fatah gets support from U.S, Hamas, on the other hand, gets lots of support from Iran. To fight with Israel, Iran has been the chief patron of Hamas. Iran supplied cash and advanced rockets to Hamas. Hamas also make the shorter range rockets for war and highly depends on Iran for support and get advanced items. Hamas while fighting the Israeli is seen to be a war conduit between the Iran and Israel. Owing to the immense support that Hamas get from Iran, it has become very difficult for Israel to bomb and make Hamas submissive. Hamas have tunnels that get into Egypt. The tunnels are for resupplying Gaza. The tunnels are dug under the Egyptian border and they appear past the border guards. Through this tunnels, smugglers supply goods to them that Israel would not allow. The tunnels are purposeful to serve the Hamas and Gaza civilians. Through this tunnels, Hamas and other militant groups get weapons and other parts for assembling the homemade rockets.

Position vis-a-vis peace deals (namely Oslo Agreements)

The disagreement between secularism and Islam increased after signing the Oslo agreement in September 1993. However, Hamas opposed the Oslo agreement given that it saw it perceived autonomy to be dangerous as compared to occupation (Sayigh 19). To Hamas, autonomy was a form of reorganizing the occupation in a way that was rather comfortable to the Israelis. According to the Hamas, the Oslo agreement was making Palestine be subservient to the Israelis (Fawcett 14). Palestine, in essence, had no sovereignty in its rule. The other area of contention was that the agreement did not fully recognize the political rights of the Palestinians. Further, Israel continues to claim territory on the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Hamas rejected the Oslo agreement and all the other agreements between the PLO and Israel and promised to fight it right from the beginning (Sayigh 23). Hamas sabotaged the Oslo agreement and the PA through the suicide bombings against the Israel 1994-1996.

During the signing of the Oslo Accord, the supporters of Arafats Fatah movement fully accepted the accord. Even though they accepted, they termed the accord as an unfortunate though a necessary compromise. It was clear that Hamas, on the other hand, did not acknowledge the agreement. In fact, Hamas warned that having a two-state solution would end up leading to betrayal on the aspirations of Palestinian refugees to return to land within Israel that was lost in the Nakba of1948.

Works Cited

Fawcett, Louise. International relations of the Middle East. Oxford University Press, 2013.

Gelvin, James L. The Israel-Palestine conflict: One hundred years of war. Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Hilal, Jamil. "The polarization of the Palestinian political field." Journal of Palestine Studies 39.3 (2010): 24-39.

Sayigh, Yezid. "Armed struggle and state formation." Journal of Palestine Studies 26.4 (1997): 17-32.