Sheldon Richman on the Lavon affair

The Israeli government had earlier tried to prevent a warming of U.S.-Egyptian relations by having saboteurs bomb American offices in Cairo in 1954, an episode that became known as the Lavon Affair.  When Egypt uncovered the operation, Israel accused Nasser of fabricating the plot.  Two of the 13 men arrested were hanged, and their hangings were used as a pretext for Israel's February 1955 attack on Gaza.  Six years later, the Israeli government's complicity was confirmed.

~ Sheldon Richman, "'Ancient History': U.S. Conduct in the Middle East Since World War II and the Folly of Intervention," Cato Institute, August 16, 1991, p. 9

Defense Minister Pinchas Lavon, left, and
IDF Chief of the General Staff Moshe Dayan
 on February 8, 1953

Andrew Higgins on the roots of Hamas

Hamas traces its roots back to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group set up in Egypt in 1928.  The Brotherhood believed that the woes of the Arab world spring from a lack of Islamic devotion.  Its slogan: "Islam is the solution.  The Quran is our constitution."  Its philosophy today underpins modern, and often militantly intolerant, political Islam from Algeria to Indonesia. 

After the 1948 establishment of Israel, the Brotherhood recruited a few followers in Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza and elsewhere, but secular activists came to dominate the Palestinian nationalist movement. 

At the time, Gaza was ruled by Egypt.  The country's then-president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, was a secular nationalist who brutally repressed the Brotherhood.  In 1967, Nasser suffered a crushing defeat when Israel triumphed in the six-day war.  Israel took control of Gaza and also the West Bank.

"We were all stunned," says Palestinian writer and Hamas supporter Azzam Tamimi.  He was at school at the time in Kuwait and says he became close to a classmate named Khaled Mashaal, now Hamas's Damascus-based political chief.  "The Arab defeat provided the Brotherhood with a big opportunity," says Mr. Tamimi. 

In Gaza, Israel hunted down members of Fatah and other secular PLO factions, but it dropped harsh restrictions imposed on Islamic activists by the territory's previous Egyptian rulers.  Fatah, set up in 1964, was the backbone of the PLO, which was responsible for hijackings, bombings and other violence against Israel.  Arab states in 1974 declared the PLO the "sole legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people world-wide. 

The Muslim Brotherhood, led in Gaza by Sheikh Yassin, was free to spread its message openly.  In addition to launching various charity projects, Sheikh Yassin collected money to reprint the writings of Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian member of the Brotherhood who, before his execution by President Nasser, advocated global jihad.  He is now seen as one of the founding ideologues of militant political Islam.

~ Andrew Higgins, "How Israel Helped Spawn Hamas," The Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2009

Sheikh Yassin