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Objective Overview of Hamas

Council on Foreign Relations 
Thursday, January 8, 2009; 11:27 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/08/AR2009010801937.html

Is Hamas only a terrorist group?
No. In addition to its military wing, the so-called Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigade, Hamas devotes much of its estimated $70-million annual budget to an extensive social services network. Indeed, the extensive social and political work done by Hamas - and its reputation among Palestinians as averse to corruption - partly explain its defeat of the Fatah old guard in the 2006 legislative vote. Hamas funds schools, orphanages, mosques, healthcare clinics, soup kitchens, and sports leagues. "Approximately 90 percent of its work is in social, welfare, cultural, and educational activities," writes the Israeli scholar Reuven Paz. The Palestinian Authority often fails to provide such services, and Hamas's efforts in this area¿as well as a reputation for honesty, in contrast to the many Fatah officials accused of corruption¿help to explain the broad popularity it summoned to defeat Fatah in the PA's recent elections.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/08/AR2009010801937.html

What attacks is Hamas responsible for?
Hamas is believed to have killed more than five hundred people in more than 350 separate terrorist attacks since 1993. Not all Hamas's attacks have been carried out by suicide bombers. The group has also accepted responsibility for assaults using mortars, short-range rockets, and small arms fire. In 1996, Hamas bombings played an important role in undermining the election hopes of Labor Party leader Shimon Peres, who represented the succession to assassinated Oslo Accords signatory, Yitzhak Rabin. (Likud's Benyamin Netnanyahu, who ran against the accords, won instead). Between 2001 and 2003, in particular, Hamas and its comrades of Palestinian Islamic Jihad carried out dozens of such attacks, ultimately leading Israel to begin construction of a barrier between itself and Palestinian regions.

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