HAMAS: The Quest for Power

by Beverley Milton-Edwards, Stephen Farrell

Overview

Declared a terrorist menace yet voted into government in a free election, Hamas then used its Gaza power base to launch cross-border attacks that scorched Israel and transformed the dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. How did a small Palestinian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood grow to challenge long-established rivals such as the PLO? Who supports Hamas and what is its agenda? How powerful has it become and how strong will it remain?

With decades of combined experience researching and reporting from the occupied West Bank and Gaza, Jerusalem, and around the Middle East, Beverley Milton-Edwards and Stephen Farrell gained unrivalled access to Hamas. Drawing on years of frontline reporting and interviews with members of the group’s founding generation and their successors who now lead it, they trace Hamas’ path to the shocking attacks of 07 October 2023 and their devastating aftermath.  Its critics believe Hamas must be ousted to reach a solution to the Middle East conflict. Hamas’s supporters believe it is the solution. Nobody now believes it can be ignored.

Based on their landmark 2010 study which has been thoroughly revised and updated, this book brings the story of Hamas up to the present and will be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the Middle East today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781509564941
Publisher:	Polity Press
Publication date:	06/24/2024
Sold by:	JOHN WILEY & SONS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	340
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Beverley Milton-Edwards is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Middle East Centre for Global Affairs. She was Professor of Politics at Queen’s University Belfast.

Stephen Farrell is a journalist with Reuters news agency. He was previously Jerusalem bureau chief for Reuters and The Times and both a foreign correspondent and video journalist for the New York Times.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements vi

Map 1 1947 UN Partition plan xi

Map 2 Gaza pre-disengagement, May 2005 xii

Map 3 Gaza post-disengagement, November 2005 xiii

1 We Deal with Allah Directly 1

2 In the Path of al-Qassam 18

3 Sowing 31

4 The First Intifada 52

5 Oslo and 'Vain Endeavours' 68

6 The Second Intifada 85

7 The Qassam Brigades 110

8 The Martyr Syndrome 134

9 Harvesting 157

10 Women 182

11 A House Divided 208

12 Bullet and Ballot 230

13 Hamastan 260

14 Inferno 282

Chronology 310

Notes 318

Index 342

Editorial Reviews

If there is one book to read on Hamas, this is it: readable, rigorously researched and balanced, essential for the specialist and general reader alike.”
Jason Burke, international security correspondent, The Guardian

“Hamasby Beverley Milton Edwards, a leading academic expert in Islamic politics and Stephen Farrell, an outstanding journalist with deep experience of the Middle East, is at once scholarly and the most readable on its subject. Now fully updated to the present, this superbly written and unflinchingly objective book is an absolute must read for anyone who wants to understand the roots and background of the organisation which profoundly traumatised Israel on October 7 2023 as well as of the catastrophe still unfolding in Gaza.”
Donald Macintyre, Author of Gaza: Preparing for Dawn

“A deeply reported, insightful and up to date analysis of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas. The authors craft a persuasive account of how this religiously inspired, nationalist group has used both politics and violence to advance its cause. They assess the origins and impact of the latest devastating war in Gaza and explain why an independent Palestinian state remains so elusive. A vital study of a highly influential political actor.”
Rory McCarthy, Durham University

“Beverley Milton-Edwards and Stephen Farrell's thoroughly revised and newly updated landmark study of Hamas is a riveting, first-hand, insightful and, at times, provocative analysis of the history of Hamas and Israeli politics and policies. It is an outstanding book that should – must - be read.”
John Esposito, Georgetown University

“Hamas remains one of the main Islamist organizations of the Arab world whose status, voice and influence far exceed its current base in the Gaza Strip. As Milton-Edwards and Farrell expertly show in their outstanding analysis of Hamas, the rest of the world ignores it at its peril.”
Anoush Ehteshami, Durham University

“This detailed and meticulously researched account of Hamas’s development since its establishment in the late 1980s should be required reading for anyone engaging with the Gaza issue. Understanding the causes of, and the form taken by, the movement’s incursion into Israel on 7 October 2023 is not possible without the sound historical perspective provided by this book."
Tim Niblock, University of Exeter

“In this carefully calibrated analysis,  Milton-Edwards and Farrell have again produced thego-to guide to a movement whose very essence cuts to the core of the Palestine-Israel conflict.” 
Clive Jones, Durham University

“compelling… the authors sensitively tiptoe through contrasting and highly charged narratives, balancing allegations and facts.”
The Observer

“a thorough examination of Hamas … offers an invaluable insight into the perspective of the movement”
Irish Times

From the Publisher