Crushing Hamas? Origins and Expansion of the Islamic Resistance Movement in Lebanon

This article details the Hamas movement’s origins in Lebanon following the 1992 deportation of 415 members of Hamas (and Islamic Jihad) to the no-man’s land between Lebanon and Israel known as the Field of Flowers (Marj Al-Zuhour). This made possible the first contact between Hamas and the Lebanese branch of the Islamic Brotherhood (Jamaa al-Islamiyah), leading to the movement's rapid growth. In the years since, Hamas built a complex organization rivaling that of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), with Beirut offices and representatives in the country’s refugee camps. Born and bred in the refugee camps, the Hamas leaders’ outlook is more pragmatic and less ideological than commonly acknowledged. The paper shows why Hamas cannot be crushed or uprooted, with the claim to statehood, the “right of return” and the rejection of imposed solutions emblematic of Naji al-Ali’s iconic character Handala personifying the Palestinian people and symbol of Palestinian nationalism and resistance. The Israeli onslaught on Gaza takes aim at Hamas, but its ideas and claims will endure. Reflected on the role of poetry in consolidating the movement, Hamas is deeply ingrained in the social and political life of Palestine. It embodies ideas that can neither be eviscerated nor erased by military might or the destruction of Gaza, where “spaciocide” has turned a genocidal onslaught on its people to end the prospects for a “two-state solution”.