The decision to establish the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) was taken on the day following the intifada by top leaders of the Palestinian Muslim Brothers, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, Abdul ’Aziz al-Rantisi, Salah Shehadeh, Muhammad sham’ah, ’Isa al-Nashar, ’Abdul Fattah Dukhan and Ibrahim al-Yazuri. (The first three were assassinated by Israel in later years.)
Hamas was formed by the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood itself in order to respond to a number of factors pressing upon the organization. Internally and by the time of the intifada, the rank and file of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood were witnessing intense internal debate on the passive approach to the Israeli occupation. There were two opposing views. One pushed for a change in policy toward confrontation with the occupation, thus bypassing old and traditional thinking whose focus was on the Islamization of society first. The other view clung to the classical school of thought within the Muslim Brotherhood movements, which adhered to the concept of ‘preparing the generations for a battle’ which had no deadline. When the intifada erupted, the exponents of the confrontational policy gained a stronger position, arguing that Islamists would suffer a great loss if they decided not to take part in the intifada, definitively and equally with all the other participating Palestinian factions.
Externally, hard living conditions for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which had been created and exacerbated by the Israeli occupation, reached an unprecedented state. Poverty combined with feelings of oppression and humiliation charged the Palestinian atmosphere with the ripe conditions for revolt against the occupation. The intifada was the flashpoint. The explosion reflected the accumulation of past experiences and suffering more than any specific event that triggered things on the first day of the uprising. Strategically speaking, it was the golden opportunity for the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood to heed (and be seen to lead) the uprising. It did just so by creating Hamas.
Externally there was the factor of the rivalry at this time from a similar Islamic organization, not as national or leftist as the Islamic Jihad. As discussed above, the Islamic Jihad Movement had been on the rise during the few years preceding the intifada. The very incident that triggered the intifada itself involved Islamic Jihad members who freed themselves from an Israeli prison and engaged in a shoot-out with the Israeli soldiers. Feeling envious of the Islamic Jihad and its members, who emerged as heroes in the eyes of the Palestinians after the incident, the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood felt the danger of losing ground to its small, yet more active, competitor. The presence and activities of the Islamic Jihad partly compelled the Muslim Brotherhood to speed up its internal transformation.
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