ABSTRACT
To understand what motivates and drives Hamas, both as an Islamist movement and as a national liberation movement, it is necessary to appreciate its conceptualisation of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and its relationship with Israel’s own state-building efforts. This chapter explores and account for shifts in Hamas’s political behaviour concerning its relationship with Israel. The first half begins with a brief examination of the legal criteria for being recognised as a state. It then analyses Hamas’s justifications for its qualified and evolving opposition to the Peace Process and to negotiating with Israel. It also examines Hamas’s reaction to Fatah’s own strategy concerning the Peace Process to explain the reasons for Hamas’s opposition. The second half then analyses the ideological underpinnings of Israel’s occupation through an analysis of Zionist ideology and Israel’s understanding of how to deal with the ‘Palestinian Question.’ It then provides a conceptual framework for understanding the function of Israel’s occupation before concluding with an analysis of Israel’s occupation in operation. The chapter aims to demonstrate what Palestinians in the OPT are routinely faced with, and why the occupation is such a clarion call for Palestinian resistance.
