Nonsense. Israel’s belligerent occupation of Gaza and the West Bank began in 1967. The first Israeli settlement in Gaza was built in 1970!
Hamas didn’t even exist in incipient form until 1976 when Sheikh Yassin, a crippled Palestinian refugee in Gaza, set up an Islamic Society, and then only as a Muslim social movement focused on developing supports for child care, schooling and sports activities, as well as helping the poor, elderly, etc. His society was practically an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood out of Egypt and had absolutely NOTHING to do with the Iranian revolution.
Moreover, Yassin could not be described as anything other than a liberal Muslim, with highly modern and progressive views. In 1978 Yassin created the Islamic Compound, and only in the mid 1980s did that organization begin to shift toward realization of armed resistance as a necessary means to confront Israel’s belligerent occupation.
Hamas (Harakat Al Mokawama Al Islamiya), which means zeal, was established by Palestinian refugees in Gaza in 1987 – December 14, 1987 to be exact. And as what it is still today, a “movement in Gaza to work against the Israeli settlement policy, resist the occupation and to encourage Palestinians to take part in the resistance effort against Israel” that is able to “embrace all Palestinian resistance organizations and their supporters and friends.”
Hamas didn’t even exist until 20 YEARS after Israel’s belligerent occupation of Gaza and the West Bank had begun. It was also set up AFTER the first intifada had begun. At that point, its creators decided that Hamas needed a security intelligence branch and a military branch. Hamas 1988 Covenant, which it has since revised, plainly states that its roots are in the Palestine struggle to liberate historic Palestine from the Zionist occupation, going back to the Palestine rebellion in the late 1930s. plainly names its enemy combatant: Jewish usurpers of Palestine.
I mean really, no kidding. If the US invaded Canada tomorrow, we would say the very same thing. We will resist the American usurpers who have invaded our land. There is nothing insidious or “terroristic” AT ALL about a grassroots resistance movement that plainly states in its charter that it realizes armed resistance to a belligerent occupation is necessary and that its armed resistance is against the Jewish people who invaded the Palestinians lands.
“They used Gaza only for their territory to be able to launch munitions into Israel.”
Excuse me? Hamas was elected as the leading party in the 2007 National Palestinian elections. Local Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza who were part of Hamas ran for office in democratic elections both invited and encouraged by the Bush administration and subjected to rigorous international observation. Those election were given the A-OK by the head of the international observation team – Jimmy Carter, the ex-President of the USA.
However, because that would have been way too much Palestinian democracy in action for the US and Israel to handle, they blocked Hamas ascent into government, restricted all funds and put Gaza under a total siege that lasted in such brutal form until 2010. In response to international pressure, loosened marginally, but Gaza has been under siege this whole time, with the UN having declared that it would be uninhabitable by 2020! They also engineered a civil war between the PA/ Fateh/PLO and Hamas, which took place in the streets of Gaza. Hamas defeated Fateh/PLO/PA, assumed government in Gaza, and since then the PA and Hamas have worked toward a national unity government, despite much factionalism (there are something like 14 factions that need to be united), as well as all the vicious oppression and attacks and manipulations from Israel, the US, the EU and G7.
A failure? You seem to think people don’t know that the US poured more social assistance into Israel after WWII than it did into the Marshall Plan to help rebuild Europe after WWII. And then once its social assistance to Israel began to decrease it took over from France as Israel’s main supplier of military aid, which is huge. US investment is Israel’s silicon valley, with all its demented military applications of AI- is huge. Israel is nothing more than a Middle East rentier state – a money pit. And in exchange Israel supplies NOTHING of value to the world.
Likewise, Hezbollah formed in response to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, and especially in response to the massacres there of Shia and Palestinians by Israel’s “proxies” in Lebanon, the Christian Phalange Militia. Neither Hezbollah nor Hamas are Iran proxies. As well, the connection between Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran is through the PIJ. In case you don’t know Hamas and the others, such as PIJ, in Gaza are sunni, not shia. Typically there is great hostility between sunni and shia. The big issue between Saudi Arabia and Iran that led to the freeze between them was Iran’s execution of a Saudi sunni cleric.
You are so ignorant.