Hamas and the United States: conflicting visions and policies in Palestine from 1987 to 2020

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2021-2-17

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Karakaya, Mustafa

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As the First Intifada broke out in 1987, Hamas and the US appeared as two powerful actors in the Palestinian politics, while the former emerged domestically in opposition to the PLO the latter reasserted itself forcefully as an external power. This thesis aims to explore the question of how the interaction between these two distinct actors with very different objectives and methods have shaped the Palestinian politics. In so doing this thesis examines the conflicting visions and policies of Hamas and the United States regarding Palestine during the period stretching from 1987 to 2020 adopting a chronological narration and uncover the outcomes of this conflict for the Palestinian politics. The thesis argues that, in this period of thirty-three years, Hamas has largely followed a radical, militant and Islamist agenda but also proved many times to be a flexible and pragmatic movement in both its aims and methods, while the US acted as a peace broker between the parties claiming to be impartial, however, in critical junctures it seemed to have sided with Israel. The thesis also demonstrates that this sharp conflict between the visions and policies of Hamas and the US has influenced some developments in the Palestinian politics such as the signing of the Oslo Accords, the violence in the mid-1990s, Hamas’ electoral victory in 2006, the division of power in the Palestinian politics, the failure of the reconciliation attempts between Fatah and Hamas, and the destruction of Gaza by Israel’s operations.

Subject Keywords

Israel, Palestine, The United States, Hamas

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/89664

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats

M. Karakaya, “Hamas and the United States: conflicting visions and policies in Palestine from 1987 to 2020,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2021.