The Islamic Movement and Palestine:
From Hassan al-Banna to the Eve of the Intifada

Five key ideasFlip the cards

Jews and Zionists: an early distinction

The author notes that much Islamist literature, until fairly recently, did not clearly distinguish between Jews as Jews and those of them committing aggression in Palestine. But al-Banna drew a clear distinction early on: Jews are People of the Book with rights in Islamic law, and fighting is only against those who seized the land and committed aggression. He said so before the Anglo-American Committee (March 1946):

“There is no doubt that we feel deep pain at the plight of the Jews, but that does not mean they should be given justice through injustice to the Arabs, or that their suffering be lifted by destroying and attacking others.”

Al-Banna rejected the Balfour Declaration and the partition plan (Peel Commission, 1937), and adopted the demands of the Palestinian national movement: a complete halt to immigration, release of prisoners, and full independence for an Arab Muslim Palestine in which Jews would be treated as minorities. He saw the real problem as Britain, which had brought the project.

The official Egyptian position was passive: Prime Minister Muhammad Mahmoud said he was “prime minister of Egypt, not of Palestine” (1938), and the Egyptian consul in Jerusalem invited Zionist leaders to the King’s birthday parties while the revolt raged.

The Brotherhood in PalestineFrom the 1935 visit to more than 20 branches

Their capacity should not be exaggerated, the author says: they were new on the scene, with limited means, and supporters of Hajj Amin, al-Banna’s personal friend; but they represented “a conscious, self-sacrificing jihadi current.”

Choose a country

“The fida’iyyin fight with a faith stronger than ours… they want to be martyred and we want to build a nation. We have tried fighting them and they inflicted heavy losses on us, so we try as far as possible to avoid engaging them.”

The price

Crossing the armistice linesAccording to Israeli statistics and Benny Morris’s study

The Brotherhood’s secret organization in GazaEarly 1950s

The Brotherhood was the strongest political force in the Gaza Strip (1949–1956). Kamel al-Sharif rebuilt a resistance network from El-Arish, and the Strip was divided into three zones: Gaza under Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad), Khan Yunis under Khairi al-Agha, and Rafah under Muhammad Yusuf al-Najjar. Yasser Arafat was trained by Brotherhood instructors at Cairo University. The author believes their operations helped defeat the plan to resettle refugees in Sinai. The organization weakened after Nasser’s crackdown on the Brotherhood (1954) and the emigration of its cadres to the Gulf.

How was Fatah born?Drag the slider

The PLO and the factionsTap each faction

Founded by Ahmad al-Shuqairi with Egyptian backing at the first National Council in Jerusalem (28 May 1964), attended by 422 representatives; its charter: armed struggle to liberate all Palestine. The Brotherhood played almost no role in it, preoccupied with surviving persecution.

Fida’i action at its peakAverage operations per month

Then the clashes of September 1970 and July 1971 drove the resistance out of Jordan to Lebanon, where the civil war (1975) drained it, and the 1982 invasion destroyed most of its infrastructure, strengthening the PLO’s “realist” current.

The Sheikhs’ Camps (1968–1970)

The first organized Islamic jihadi participation after 1967: camps set up by the Brotherhood in Jordan under Fatah’s umbrella, with Fatah providing arms and supplies and the Brotherhood free to train and select. Some 250–300 men of various Arab nationalities trained there, 7 bases were set up, and 11–13 were killed. Among those who trained there was Abdullah Azzam. The camps ended when fida’i bases in Jordan were closed in 1970.

Building the baseThe 1970s and 1980s