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  • Published: 12 April 2023
  • ISBN: 9781644211892
  • Imprint: Seven Stories Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 496
  • RRP: $49.99
Categories:

Hamas

From Resistance to Regime



Ten years after its publication in English, this updated version of Hamas provides a new chapter that reflects on the recent developments in the Palestinian struggle including Israel’s most recent assault on Gaza in May 2021.
 
The Palestinian elections of 2006 changed modern Middle Eastern history—as well as changing the perception on the question of Palestine around the world. How, Westerners asked, could a secular people elect a radical Islamist group, one that openly advocated for violent resistance against the Israeli government and its people, to lead them? With incredible detail, Caridi covers the entire history of Hamas from its 1948 origins in Islamic resistance groups through the critical 2006 elections and the 2011 revolutions that rocked the Arab world. Caridi breaks with the tradition of sensationalist journalism to instead tell the story of a movement, caught between the desire to resist its oppressor and occupier and the need to provide support for a refugee people as the sole effective government of a war-torn region embargoed by Israel. 

"Historical survey rather than a polemical view of the problematic Islamist movement that has both sounded the Palestinians’ needs and plagued Israel since the group's founding in 1987.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Truly a great book of reportage and keen analysis.” —Le Monde

When the radical Islamist group Hamas was elected to lead Palestine in 2006, the Western world was shocked. How had the majority of Palestinians come to support an extremist organization and how would the group’s new political power affect the larger Israel/Palestine conflict?

Italian journalist and historian Paola Caridi offers a clear-eyed account of how the conditions in this war-torn region led to the rise of Hamas and an unbiased look at the complex feelings that Palestinians have toward getting behind a government that supports violent resistance. By breaking from the sensationalist journalism surrounding the elections, Caridi is able to tell the story of a movement caught between the desire to resist its oppressor and the need to provide support for a refugee people. Caridi, informed by years of on-the-ground research and interviews with residents of Gaza and leaders of Hamas, covers the history of Gaza from its golden age as a port city to the formal birth and slow militarization of Hamas. This English-language translation brings the reader to present-day Palestine by offering a never-before-seen chapter on Operation Cast Lead, the shocking WikiLeaks disclosures, and the Cairo Revolution.

Hamas paints a picture, with intelligence, dexterity, and heart, of a people trapped in the most historic of political battles and reveals the strange complexities behind the controversy by explaining one of the key players in the search for peace and justice that runs through the central crisis of the Middle East today.

  • Published: 12 April 2023
  • ISBN: 9781644211892
  • Imprint: Seven Stories Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 496
  • RRP: $49.99
Categories: