ABSTRACT

If the ‘cassette weapon’ has been a mainstay of the Iranian revolution, the bayan [leaflet] is the strongest weapon in the Palestinian intifada; it was the revolution of ‘Bayanat’.

Introduction This chapter focuses on the inception period of Hamas’s media strategy. In this examination, I will contextualise Hamas’s media in the first Palestinian intifada (1987-1993). As part of this discussion I will shed light on the origins of Hamas’s first media institution, jihaz ali’lam, [the Hamas media apparatus]. The establishment of jihaz al’ilam, the strict secrecy of its circumstances, its rudimentary media infrastructure, and its challenges in the first intifada will be examined in this chapter. This chapter will also look at the priorities of the Hamas media in terms of target audiences and objectives. I shall argue that the muqawamah discourse was the main characteristic of Hamas’s media message during the whole period of the first intifada. This discourse took three ‘shapes’: the Jihadi resistance dimension, the socio-economic dimension, and the educational dimension. This chapter will examine the original texts of Hamas’s media during the first intifada, mainly Hamas’s Bayanat [leaflets] and then secondarily the graffiti messages. The data gathered from the Hamas media leaders who worked during the entire period will be used to support the sources which I shall examine in this chapter.