Why is Hamas fighting Israel? Why is there a major conflict between Israel and Gaza every few years? What does Hamas want and what does Israel want? Why are people organising “Free Palestine” rallies around the world to show support to Gazans?
Hamas’s current conflict with Israel is just a continuation of the Arab-Israeli conflicts that began in early-mid 1940s, which then escalated into full-blown wars by 1948. While in the past a lot more Arab nations were involved in the conflict, at the moment, Iran, Lebanon, and Jordan emerged as key players, along with the Militant groups they support, like Hamas and Hezbollah. To understand why Hamas is fighting Israel, we need to go back a bit in history.
The formation of Israel and Arab-Israeli conflict
The Palestinian region during Roman times was a collection of states or provinces that included the then-nation of Israel (Judea and Samaria) and other neighbouring Phoenician cities. The Romans slaughtered the Jews and exiled them from Palestine after the Jewish revolt in AD 70. While the majority of Jews fled to both the West and the East, a few remained within the Palestinian regions. By the 7th century AD, the Jewish population in Palestine and Arabia had grown significantly, but they began to be persecuted by Muslims. Muhammad, the founder of Islam, conducted military campaigns against the jews and their homeland, slaughtered many, captured their lands, including Jerusalem, with the Jewish holy temple in it, and proclaimed them to be Islamic properties moving forward. Thanks to Islam, Palestine and much of Arabia became part of the Muslim Caliphate. Later on, the Ottoman Empire came to power and ruled over a vast region in the Middle East, including the Palestinian region.
By the time of the First World War, the European Jews already begun facing persecution wherever they went. So, a certain group of Jews created the Zionist organisation with the aim of building a country – a homeland for jews so that they don’t have to live as foreigners in other countries. They considered several countries and regions as potential locations to establish the new sovereign State of Israel. Ultimately, they concluded that Palestine would be the best option, partly because of their ancestral connections to the land.
After World War I, the Ottoman Empire fell, and the British gained control of the Palestinian region. While under the control of the British, numerous Jews began migrating to Palestine. By the time of the Second World War, the emigration intensified due tothe Nazi persecution of Jews. The Zionist organisation, which wanted to build a homeland for jews in Palestine, set up a fund and used that money to purchase land. Therefore, through that fund, the Jews legally purchased significant portions of land from the then Arab owners.
It is important to note that most landowners were absentee owners, meaning they did not live in Palestine. They lived elsewhere and leased their lands in Palestine to peasants to work and produce crops. So the Jews purchased the lands from the rich Arab owners who are not in Palestine. However, that had a direct effect on the Palestinians who were previously working those lands. They now had no land to work on, and they were forced to leave and find alternatives. That led some of them to become disgruntled, which then led to clashes between the new Jewish owners and the Palestinian Arab peasants. However, those clashes have been relatively insignificant.
As the Jewish land ownership and population numbers grew, their efforts to form a Jewish homeland also grew. They sought the Help of the British and requested Britain to declare a portion of Palestine to be Israel, the land of the Jews. This is what intensified the clashes between the Jews and the Arabs. When the Jewish attempts to form a Jewish State became more concrete, the Arabs from neighbouring Arab states joined the conflict and encouraged the local Arabs to fight the Jews. Despite Arab resistance and fights, Israel declared its independence on the 15th May 1948. However, the conflict with the Arabs never ended, even to this day.
Why do the Jews want their own country?
In the Israeli Declaration of Independence1, the Zionists said, “THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
The Jews were happy for people of various races, ethnicities, and religions to coexist in their country, but they wanted it to be a Jewish homeland. Why? Because they have lived without a homeland for almost a couple of centuries already, and they faced persecution wherever they went. They were persecuted by the Muslims in Arabia, they were persecuted by Christians and Nazis in Europe, they were persecuted by the communists in Russia and elsewhere. So, they no longer wanted to live in other countries where they had to fear that one day they might be persecuted and kicked out. They wanted a land that they could call home, a land from which no one could banish them. That’s why they wanted Israel to be a Jewish nation, not because they hated non-Jews.
In fact, the Jews have shown themselves to be trustworthy in this matter. The State of Israel remained true to the statements made in its Declaration of Independence. The Arabs (non-Jews) living in the State of Israel have the same rights as the Jews. There are Arab majority political parties in Israel, whose coalition is the primary opposition to the current Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu.2 The Israeli Supreme Court has, among its permanent members, a Muslim Arab Israeli judge (Chaled Kabub)3. Non-Jewish, arab israelis are present in all levels of government and even in the Israeli Armed Forces.
Why are the Arabs against the State of Israel?
The United Nations Organisation and much of the media say that the Arabs are fighting Israel because Israel unjustly occupied their lands and displaced the native Palestinians. Therefore, the struggle really is for the oppressed Palestinians to regain the lands and have the “right to self-determination”. This can’t be any farther from the truth.
Remember that the Arab landowners willingly sold their lands to the Jews. They did not have a problem with Jews owning large portions of the land, but they did have a problem with the Jews converting that land to a Jewish state. Why? because of Islamic beliefs. According to Islamic beliefs, once Islam conquers a land, it becomes a permanent endowment to the Islamic Ummah (the global family of Muslims – Islamadom). Muslims must never ever relinquish those lands. Sure, they can be owned by a Jew or someone else, but only insofar as they remain ultimately under Islamic control. So, if Palestine remains an Islamic state, then the Muslims won’t have much of a problem with Jews owning lands within that Islamic State, as long as they pay their “unbelievers tax” for protection. However, by establishing a Jewish state in that region, the Jews have essentially taken away what must belong to Islam forever. This is at the heart of the conflict in Gaza.
The conflict is not for nationalism, self-determination, or freeing people from oppression. The conflict is for religious reasons. Don’t take my word for it; Hamas explains it better than I. You can read my full interview with Hamas by clicking the link below.