Some things get lost in translation. Others just need spelling out. This is true of the name of the terrorist organization and regime in Gaza: Hamas. Hamas is an acronym of the Arabic “Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya,” the Islamic Resistance Movement.
The word “Hamas” in Arabic means “zeal.” Fittingly, in biblical Hebrew, the word means “violence,” ‘injustice,” and “theft.” In modern Hebrew, the acronym is used for “homerim mesukanim,” hazardous materials.
Hamas is “hazmat” indeed. It developed from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the title “Islamic Resistance Movement” says it all. Its zeal was apparent in the barbaric invasion on October 7 in which more than 1,200 people were murdered – many of them tortured, raped, beheaded, and burned alive – and some 250 abducted, at least 134 of whom remain, dead or alive, in the Gaza Strip.
The second largest terrorist movement in Gaza has an even more declarative name: Palestinian Islamic Jihad, known by its acronym PIJ. The name should need no explanation or excuses unless your head is buried deep in the Middle East sand.
These are the terrorist movements that are being supported by those enthusiastically chanting at demonstrations around the world: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” As their names imply, the goal of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad is not to “free Palestine,” but to eradicate Israel and replace it with an Islamist caliphate ruled, like Gaza, according to Sharia law. The Western protesters – the feminists, the LGBT+, the Christians, and the secular socialists – none of them would be able to live freely, let alone demonstrate, in the Gaza Strip.
Think back to 2014 and the spread of another jihadist movement whose name and intentions the West did not know how to fully interpret: ISIL or ISIS, or what is now simply known as Islamic State. Both Hebrew and Arabic speakers refer to it by the acronym Da’esh, standing for al-Dawla al-Islamiya fil Iraq wa al-Sham. The “al-Sham” part of the name refers to Greater Syria or Levant. It is deliberately reminiscent of the rule of the Muslim caliphs in the 7th century – from the river to the sea: from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean and beyond.
At its height, ISIS controlled a huge area in Syria and Iraq. Although it no longer has physical control over much territory, the Islamic State ideology lives on in terror cells that are active around the world, including in Africa. The lethal mass terror attack at a concert hall near Moscow last month was another reminder that Islamic State mutates but doesn’t die.
The same is probably true of Hamas. It will be almost impossible to destroy Hamas’s capabilities without a ground operation in Rafah and without the world placing pressure on its sponsors. Even then, the Hamas ideology will not entirely disappear.
Both Hamas and PIJ are supported by Iran – or the Islamic Republic of Iran, to give it its full name. Iran backs other terrorist proxies, including Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, and the Yemen-based Houthis, who attack Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, and global shipping in the Red Sea.
The nature of the fundamentalist threat might not be apparent to Western protesters, but many Arab countries are highly aware of the dangers and Hamas is banned in Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain, among other places. The violent clashes between Muslim Brotherhood supporters chanting pro-Hamas slogans and Jordanian security forces are an example of the tensions. Jordan fears Hamas attempts to topple the monarchy in the Palestinian-majority Hashemite Kingdom.
Iran’s guiding hand was evident in the meetings of senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad figures in Tehran in recent days, in part leading up to Al-Quds Day on April 5.
When Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian met with PIJ leader Ziad al-Nakhalah on March 30, Middle East analyst Joe Truzman noted that, curiously, the flag on the table between them was an upside-down Sudanese pendant rather than the similar Palestinian flag. It might be as much a Freudian slip as a diplomatic faux pas. Abdollahian has met with his Sudanese counterpart recently and analysts note Iranian offers of advanced weapons to Sudan’s embattled president Abdel Fattah Al Burhan. These could be employed in Sudan’s civil war and to extend Iran’s terrorist tentacles to another strategic site on the Red Sea, at the Horn of Africa.
When Mohammed Rez Zahedi, the top commander in the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was killed in a precise air attack in Damascus on Monday, along with his deputy and others, the ayatollahs’ regime mourned a “martyr.” But Zahedi was no saint. The targeted killing, attributed to Israel, sent out a strong message that no one in the IRGC and regime is immune and doubled down on the message that Israel – assuming Israel was behind it – will not allow Iran to establish itself in Syria as a threat to the Jewish state it frequently threatens to “wipe off the map.”
The post-October 7 war is being fought against terrorists on many fronts, including in Gaza and the South, in the North, and in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). There have also been drone attacks attributed to the Islamic Resistance of Iraq, another Iranian-backed terrorist coalition with a telling name. These attacks also threaten Jordan, where, this week, a drone aimed at Israel landed, and where Iran is happy to help foster discontent via Hamas. Those who think the Palestinian Authority (PA) could replace Hamas in Gaza – not something that Hamas would readily agree to – should keep in mind the spate of terror attacks perpetrated by members of the PA security forces, including on Route 90 in the Jordan Valley last week.
THE INCIDENT this week in which seven members of the World Central Kitchen (WCK) were killed in an airstrike in the Gaza Strip is still being investigated but serves as a reminder of the complex problems there. They were hit while involved in distributing humanitarian aid. Promising a thorough investigation, IDF Spokesman R.-Adm. Daniel Hagari noted that: “WCK also came to help Israelis after the massacre of October 7; they were one of the first NGOs here.” WCK is not UNRWA, which has members and facilities deeply involved in the October 7 atrocity and its aftermath.
Multi-faceted problem
The response of the Arab world to the question of Gaza’s future is indicative of the multi-faceted nature of the problems and threats emanating from the coastal strip, from which Israel withdrew in full in 2005. Egypt has not opened its mutual border with Gaza, well aware of the dangers of Hamas and already suffering from the Islamic State cells which are located in Sinai.
The Saudis, pragmatically, are reluctant to fund the rebuilding of Gaza unless there is a guarantee that it won’t be under Hamas control and subject to endless rounds of hostilities.
Qatar, on the other hand, is playing a double game: It hosts Hamas leaders in luxury hotels and villas while pretending to be an objective negotiator for the release of the hostages. It has poured funds into Gaza in the past, ostensibly to avoid a socioeconomic crisis, and has built modern neighborhoods, theoretically to house “refugees.” But like everything else in Gaza, the best is reserved for senior Hamas members and their families. Qatar has no qualms when it comes to helping Hamas and benefiting from the subsequent destruction it causes.
With all the major news stories, it was easy to overlook the arrest this week of the sister of Qatar-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Sabah Avad al-Salam Haniyeh, 57, (like two of her sisters) is married to an Israeli Bedouin and enjoys full citizenship and rights. Sabah was arrested in a police raid on her home in Tel Sheba, a Bedouin village near Beersheba. She was not detained for being the sister of an arch-terrorist – she was arrested on suspicion of going into the family business: terrorism.
Police found a gold bar weighing one kilogram and hundreds of thousands of shekels and dollars. This raises the obvious question of where the money came from and for what purpose. One thing is for sure, call him what you want, Haniyeh, like the rest of the Hamas leadership is far from being “a poor Palestinian.”
As far as Hamas is concerned, terrorism pays.