As a militant Islamic Palestinian national organization, Hamas believes that Israel is illegitimate and should be destroyed through Jihad. Hamas opposes all recognition and negotiation with Israel and opposes PLO/PA leaders who have negotiated and collaborated with Israel from time to time. The Hamas-PA competition severely fragments the Palestinian political community.
Since its inception in 1988, Hamas has been crystal clear about its total opposition to Zionism and Israel. It opposes any kind of negotiations or agreements that recognize Israel as a reality, and its more extreme spokesmen regularly incite or celebrate the killing of Jews.
Jimmy Carter, “The U.S.-Iran Relationship, the Shah’s Downfall, Khomeyni’s Rise to Power, and the Hostage Crisis,” an Emory class presentation, Atlanta, March 24, 1985, recorded and transcribed with permission.
By Yehoshua Porath, 1973 Historian Yehoshua Porath wrote “Social Aspects of the Emergence of the Palestinian Arab National Movement” as a chapter for the book Society and Political Structure in the Arab World, Menachem Milson…
Palestine Liberation Organization seeks Israel’s destruction through armed struggle. It retains this stated policy until December 1988.
Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan’s eulogy in 1956 for an Israeli guard murdered at a kibbutz next to the Gaza Strip affirms absolute requirements for being an Israeli: vigilance, determination, and not to be fooled by hollow claims for peace.
This document was secured at the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem. Less than a year before Hitler invaded Poland, Arab leaders with an interest in Palestine are starkly disappointed that the the German government did not go to war against the Zionists in Palestine. The same leaders give the Zionist national builders high marks for their perseverance against terrorist bands in the Palestinian countryside. They worry that unless Arab states come to the Palestinians’ assistance, Palestine will be lost to the Zionists. A remarkable assessment for Palestinian Arab leaders and their supporters.
March 25, 2019 A rocket destroys a house in Mishmeret, 20 miles north of Tel Aviv, and injures seven people. In response, Israel Defense Forces planes bomb suspected Gaza military locations 12 hours later and…
In response to an overnight barrage of roughly 30 rockets from the Gaza Strip toward Sderot and other Israeli towns near the border, the IDF strikes 80 Gaza targets by air.
November 14, 2012 Ahmed Jabari, the Hamas military chief, is killed in an Israel Defense Forces airstrike on Gaza that marks the start of Operation Pillar of Defense. The strike comes in response to an…
Yitzhak Shamir, Israel’s seventh Prime Minister and staunch advocate for settlements in the West Bank, passes away in Tel Aviv at the age of 96.
Nearly 12,000 rockets are fired from the Gaza Strip into Israeli civilian areas over eight years. On December 27, 2008, Israel responds with Operation Cast Lead.
January 26, 2006 Hamas, the militant Palestinian opposition group, wins 76 of the 132 seats in the Palestinian Authority’s legislature, a groundbreaking power shift. Because Hamas rejects Israel’s existence, the election results present a new…
IDF soldier Gilad Shalit is captured by a group of Palestinian militants and is held hostage for over five years before being exchanged for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners.
Forty-nine participants from 11 countries gather in Haifa for a five-day NATO conference on mass-casualty medical preparedness. The conference is NATO’s first-ever event held in Israel.
August 31, 2004 Bombs explode on a pair of buses 100 yards apart along Beersheba’s main street, Ranger Boulevard, shortly after leaving the central bus station. Sixteen Israelis, one as young as 3 years old,…
January 29, 2004 Israel releases more than 430 Arab prisoners — more than 400 to the Palestinian Authority, 29 to surrounding Arab nations, and one German citizen who worked with Hezbollah to Germany, from where…
A suicide bombing kills 17 Jews and four Arabs and injures some 60 others at Maxim restaurant in Haifa.
August 19, 2003 A suicide bomber kills 23 people and injures more than 130 others by detonating an 11-pound explosive packed with ball bearings on a bus in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Shmuel Hanavi in…
August 7, 2002 The Palestinian Authority Cabinet agrees to a truce deal proposed by Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer to withdraw the Israel Defense Forces from Palestinian-controlled parts of the Gaza Strip and from the…
May 7, 2002 Prime Minister Ariel Sharon flies home to Israel, cutting short a visit to the United States, after a suicide bomber kills 15 Israelis and wounds 55 others in a pool hall in…
April 11, 2002 U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell calls for an immediate West Bank ceasefire during a press conference in Madrid before he flies to Jordan to meet with King Abdullah II the day…
March 31, 2002 Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declares Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat “the enemy of Israel and the enemy of the free world” in an angry, five-minute, mid-Passover address to the nation after…
In September 2000, following the breakdown of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians at Camp David, the Palestinians launch the Second Intifada. Operation Defensive Shield is an Israeli military operation devised to curtail violence associated with the Second Intifada.
