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Interview with Hamas Militant Jamal Abu Alhija

Andrew Kennis

On March 22, 2004, Israel assassinated Sheikh Ahmad Ismail Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas. Confined to a wheelchair and paralyzed from the neck down since he was 12 years old as a result of a childhood sporting accident, Yassin was also going blind and deaf due to chronic illnesses he suffered late in his life.

Yassin was killed by three missiles launched from an Israeli helicopter, killing him and 17 Palestinian civilians, including two of Yassin’s sons. He was leaving mosque services at the time. Israeli media reported that the assassination was approved by the Israeli government and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon himself supervised the attack.

The physically challenged leader was strongly influenced by Muslim Brotherhood teachers in the 1950s. Involved in religious activities and groups from that time until the first intifada, and imprisoned for his views and activism by Egypt as well as Israel, in December 1987 he went on to found Hamas, presently one of the largest mass movements in Palestine.

Hamas was an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, the religious social movement with headquarters in Egypt that Yassin had belonged to. Thus, Hamas began as a religious movement whose objectives were to advance education, health and the being of Palestinians. Only later did it become the controversial violent group that it is today.

The Israeli intelligence saw Hamas as a potential rival to Yassar Arafat’s group, Fatah, the dominant faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization. As a result, Israel began to finance Hamas. This continued even as the military wing of the group, Izzidine al-Qasem, began to attack Israeli targets during negotiations for the Oslo accords in 1993. Today, it is one of the four main armed groups in Palestine.

In spite of the activities of its military wing, Hamas continues to fulfill its original political and social functions. Hamas manages hospitals, clinics, distributes unemployment funds obtained abroad (around 70% of Palestinians are unemployed) and organizes educational, athletic and cultural programs. It has also participated in workshops, conferences and conventions that have called for a “peace process.”

In the last few months, there has been a radical change in the Israel political arena towards Hamas, whose principal support has been in the Gaza Strip. Instead of assassinating only leaders from the armed resistant wing of Hamas, Israel has begun to kill its political leaders as well.

“Everybody in Hamas is a potential target for liquidation,” declared the head of the Israeli state, Moshe Yaalon, to the Associated Press last August. The assassination of Yassin has been the most important articulation of this new policy.

The translator and I were in a car, close to the most devastated part of the refugee camp in Jenin. An entire neighborhood in the camp was destroyed during the Israeli invasion of April 2002, which lasted ten days and resulted in the death of 55 Palestinians – half of them civilians – and 22 Israeli soldiers.

It was close to this zone, which many called “ground zero,” that we found Jamal Abu Alhija, the leader of Hamas in the refugee camp, walking in plain daylight in the middle of the street with other members of the organization.

Alhija is a soft-spoken man. He lost his arm during the Jenin (the camp is a center of armed resistance where all four armed groups have a significant presence, but also his home. His 15 year-old son, Asam, described how the soldiers encircled the house looking for Alhija, who was not there. The IDF proceeded to burn the house to the ground.

Alhija’s life continues to be in grave danger. According to Palestinian sources, however, he continues to survive in Jenin.

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Andrew Kennis: I am here with a leader from Hamas in the middle of the Jenin refugee camp and my first question is, what is Hamas?

Jamal Abu Alhija: In fact, Hamas is a Palestinian movement and it was founded to help the Palestinian people here, to help them realize their rights. It is a movement that has introduced many activites, not only political activities, but also educational activities, sanitation projects, sports programs and social projects. Hamas has contributed to many activities in Palestinian society.

We have also participated in many workshops, conferences and conventions in calling for the peace process.

During this Intifada, Hamas has done excellent work and has distinguished itself from other Palestinian movements and groups.

AK: What were the differences?

JA: A lot of people belong to Hamas—it is a mass movement. Hamas has organized mass demonstrations and the people have reacted positively to such demonstrations, which have been against the Israeli occupation.

The first phase of the second Intifada was to engage in peaceful demonstrations. However, the Israeli army killed our sons, our brothers and wounded thousands of our people. And they killed a lot of people.

I want to clarify that Hamas is against the occupation. We are against the occupation because we see our friends and our sons killed by the Israeli army… Our trees and our lands have been taken by the Israelis, in light of this agression and with these victims, we have found ourselves obliged to fight and struggle against the Israeli soldiers.

The Hamas movement wants to find a strategy as to how to fight the Israelis. The strategy that we have found to work now, is to sneak our people into Israel and to undertake operations. The last strong operation was near the Haifa airport, which was very successful against Israeli politics.

Another successful operation was understaken in Jerusalem by Azardine Amazray, which killed 22 or 25 people or so. Actually, we don’t know exactly how many people were killed, but whatever the numbers may be, we want to match the same level of Israeli aggression.

We also organized our members to fight against the last Jenin invasion and many other previous invasions by the Israeli army. You can visit many houses inside the camp and you will discover that Hamas has a lot of martyrs and brave fighters that Jenin depends upon.

AK: Some people criticize Hamas for conducting resistance outside the green line. They think the Palestinian cause will be advanced more and that it would be a better tactic to only have resistance inside the green line and not inside Israel, which allows other countries and the media to easily characterize Hamas as being a terrorist organization.

JA: In the first year of the second Intifada, Hamas did not undertake any operations inside Israel. In the previous Intifada in 1987, Hamas also did not undertake any operations. At the same time, the Israelis killed many of our people, subjecting us to many Israeli military agressions. Thus, Hamas has been obliged to do this for many reasons.

The first reason is that the people here have been repressed by Israeli politics. If you remember, during the first Intifada, they followed the breaking of arms politics by Yitzhak Rabin.

The second reason is that the Israeli government refused to comply with any important UN resolutions. For example, Israel failed to implement 242, 338 and 198. They did not implement them.

Another reason is that the investigation commitee from the United Nations that was supposed to investigate the recent invasion was blocked by the Israeli government.

The whole world, the whole United States and Western European world, look through one eye, not with two eyes. Palestine has been subjected to agression, to killing and to destruction and nobody said anything. At the same time, the Israeli government refused to implement any UN resolutions. And so, we have been obliged to undertake these operations to defend ourselves.

AK: As I mentioned earlier, some critics support resistance, even violent resistance, but only inside the green line against the soldiers—just against them because it seems like they are the biggest problem. And then you draw attention to the problem too.

JA: The first thing is that we don’t live with security. I want to live in peace within my own lands. What are the reasons why we don’t have security? So, I want to inflict insecurity on the Israeli people to make them feel like us.

Let me give you some good examples. For instance, Hezbollah. Do you know about them?

AK: In south Lebanon, right?

JA: Yes, in south Lebanon. The Israel soldiers withdrew from these lands not because of the UN resolutions, but because of Hezbollah being successfully able to scare the Israeli soldiers out of Lebanon, only through strikes.

Also, if you want to wait for the world to solve this problem and to ask Israel to leave our land, this will not work. The Israeli government does not care, they just want to continue to occupy our land.

Another example is the Golan Heights, Syria’s land. This territory has been occupied by Israel since 1967. And what has the world done about this problem? Nothing, not nothing. If we wait for Israel to do something, or for the world to force it to do something, we cannot solve any problem. If the Israeli government does not want to obey or to implement the UN resolutions, what can we do.

In response to the point on young people. Yes, most of the young men that did these operations inside of Israel range from about 18 to 20. These people did these operations because in their previous experience, they had done good work and have excellent enthusiasm.

AK: Are they volunteers or are they chosen?

JA: Both volunteers from inside and outside the organization have done these operations. They do these operations as a result of the Israeli agressions. When they hear that the Israelis have killed 2 Palestinians, or 10 Palestinians, or when Israel commits crimes such as the invasion of the Jenin refugee camp, they volunteer.

The members of this movement want to do something, because they want revenge. Because the Israelis killed their brothers and their sons.

Raheb (another Hamas member who sat in on interview): I want to make a point about the operations against “innocent Israelis.” They are not innocent. They are not innocent because when Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, called auxiliary soldiers, they are not official soldiers. They are innocent because as you know, military work is obligatory in Israel. When he called upon the auxiliary soldiers, within one hour, they arrived with their tanks, their planes and started to kill our sons and brothers inside Jenin camp. How can you consider them innocent? They killed our brothers, they occupied our lands.

Let me explain again. The Israeli soldiers, the auxiliary soldiers that were called in by Sharon to fight against the innocent people here in Jenin camp, to fight against children, against women. They were innocent people, they work and have offices in Israel and are just like any other innocent man. But within one hour, less than one hour, they were transformed from innocent men into soldiers to fight against the Palestinian people.

Lastly, there are scriptures for self-defense in three major religions. In Judasim, in Christianity and in Islam there are scriptures that allow for self-defense. We are only defending ourselves.

AK: Would Hamas end all operations inside of Israel if they had a Palestinian state with the 1967 borders and a right of return, a limited right of return and East Jerusalem as the capital? Would that be enough to satisfy the demands of Hamas?

JA: We can accept and be satisfied with this solution, that is, with the ’67 lands and to have some people returned as refugees to their houses. We can be satisfied with this. In this scenario, we will then be a peaceful political party that object to our government in peaceful means, not by force, like now. So as a phase one, we can accept.

But that is as a preliminary phase and not a permanent solution. You see, this man [looking to his left at another Hamas member] . . this man’s village is inside of Israel. And I cannot convince this man that his village will be finished and will always belong to the Israeli people. One day, they should return our lands.

Andrew Kennis is a student in the Political Science department.