A. KHAZANOV

Doctor of Historical Sciences

American political scientist Khrair Dekmejan counted 175 organizations of" political Islam " in the Middle East, 120 of them have a radical orientation. Among the latter is the Islamic Jihad movement.

In the late 1970s, the Palestinian extremist organization Islamic Jihad (Harakat al-Jihad al-Islami al-Filastini) emerged in Cairo among Palestinian students. The organization was headed by Fathi Shikaki , a former PLO member who became disillusioned with secular Palestinian organizations and joined the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. By the mid-1970s, he also rejected their teaching that "the destruction of Israel will be achieved through internal jihad." ¹

Shikaki hailed the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran as "a model of revolutionary action worthy of emulation." Although several other radical Palestinian Islamic organizations inspired by the Islamic Revolution in Iran have adopted the name Islamic Jihad, only one movement with this name, created by Shikaki, has survived to this day.

This movement has never had the slightest respect for the PLO, considering it a product of the Arab League, and Yasser Arafat - a protege of Egyptian President Nasser. After Sadat's assassination in Cairo in 1981, Shikaki was exiled from Egypt and returned to Gaza, where he formed Islamic Jihad cells.

Khomeini's ideas and emphasis on" action " proved to be much more appealing to young Palestinians than the Muslim Brotherhood's cautious and indecisive strategy. Although members of Islamic Jihad are Sunni, they are impressed by the reverent attitude of Iranian Shiites towards the ideas of jihad and martyrdom. They believe that the Iranian revolution proved that the "Shahid" fighting units, with the help of the holy War, can impose an Islamic order even to those countries that are militarily superior to them. "The Islamic Revolution," said Asad Tamimi, an ideologue of Islamic Jihad, " showed that Islam is the solution these days, and jihad is the most appropriate means. And the heart of Islam's struggle against the West is Palestine. " ²

Shikaki believed that a campaign of effective terrorist attacks against Israel could trigger a popular uprising. After securing funding from Iran, which ended its previous flirtation with the PLO and decided to sponsor close-minded Palestinian revolutionaries (even Sunnis), Shikaki set about creating military formations - the Jerusalem Brigades, which began attacking Israeli soldiers in the mid-1980s. ³

Their most famous operation was in October 1986, when Islamic Jihad militants threw grenades at Israeli recruits at a swearing-in ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, wounding 70 soldiers and killing the father of one soldier.

The spontaneous outbreak of the intifada in Palestine in late 1987 came as a surprise to Israelis, PLO and Jordanians. The PLO tried to take control of the uprising by creating a Joint National Command for this purpose. Arafat invited the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Jihad to join, but they refused.

According to Israeli intelligence agencies, by 1987, the number of members of Islamic Jihad, its supporters and sympathizers was about 4 thousand people.⁴

By mid-1988, Islamic Jihad was in crisis. A wave of arrests swept through the organization's cells, and several of its leaders were jailed. The formation of Hamas, in turn, led to a new split in the Palestinian resistance. Moreover, the Islamic Jihad's organizational structure, which consisted of secret and isolated cells, did not fit well with the Muslim Brotherhood's vast network of mosques, schools, hospitals, and charitable institutions. There was a false impression that Hamas was the military wing of the latter.

In 1988, after spending two years in an Israeli prison for smuggling weapons into Gaza, Shikaki was deported to Lebanon, and the following year established the headquarters of his movement in Damascus. The move allowed Islamic Jihad leaders to get in direct contact with Iranian officials through the Iranian embassies in Damascus and Beirut. Unlike Hamas, which has sought to expand its foreign policy and military infrastructure in various countries, the main forces of Islamic Jihad are almost constantly deployed abroad.-

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They fought in Syria and its dependent Lebanon. Soon, Shikaki fighters began training in Hezbollah camps in Lebanon under the leadership of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and conducted several joint operations with Hezbollah against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon in the early 1990s.

The PLO's agreement to attend the Madrid Peace Conference in October-November 1991 led to new divisions among members of the Palestinian resistance. Islamic Jihad has also split once again.⁵

The Oslo Agreement of 13 September 1993 was unanimously condemned by radical Islamists, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Islamic Jihad leaders issued a special fatwa stating that " any cession of even an inch of Palestinian land can be considered apostasy and betrayal." This led to a new sharp aggravation of relations between Islamic Jihad and the PLO.

Soon, Islamic Jihad published its program, the main provisions of which were as follows::

- Continued jihad against Jews, resistance to the Oslo Accords, and normalization of relations between Israel and the Islamic nation (Muslim Ummah).

- Rejection of any election based on the Oslo Accords.

- Fundamental non-recognition of the PLO, even if it is cleared of "corrupt elements".

- Islam is a way of life, a source of strength and continuation of jihad.⁶

One of the most notable periods of friction between Hamas and Islamic Jihad occurred between 1994 and 1995, although they continued to conduct joint military operations. A public rivalry broke out between them over the decision of Islamic Jihad leaders to create their own social assistance network (shwa)^.7

After the assassination of F. Shikaki in October 1995, Islamic Jihad was able to carry out only one short series of attacks in early 1996, after which their number sharply decreased. The Jerusalem Post wrote:" ... the vacuum in this organization is so deep that today it barely functions. " ⁸

However, with the beginning of the second intifada (Al-Aqsa) in September 2000, Islamic Jihad reasserted itself. Since then, he has claimed responsibility for dozens of terrorist attacks. Including for the explosion that occurred on August 28, 2005 at the central bus station in the Israeli city of Beersheba. The suicide bomber tried to enter the bus with explosives, but he was spooked, and he carried out an explosion near the bus station. As a result of the explosion, at least 50 people were injured in various ways.⁹

In late 2005 and early 2006, Islamic Jihad rejected the idea of a" tandiya " (period of calm) before the Palestinian elections. During this time, 6 terrorist attacks were organized against Israelis, while most Hamas cells did not violate the ceasefire agreement.

Islamic Jihad boycotted the January 2006 parliamentary elections in the PA, in which the Fatah party was defeated by Hamas.¹⁰ One of the leaders of Jihad, Khalid al-Batsh, said at a press conference in Gaza that supporters of his group will not participate in the Hamas-led coalition and do not support the idea of a long truce with Israel.¹¹

On April 17, 2006, a terrorist attack occurred in a restaurant in Tel Aviv, killing 9 people and injuring 60 others. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs ' Brigades and Islamic Jihad groups claimed responsibility for the attack.¹² Abu Ahmed, a spokesman for the Islamic Jihad group, said a few hours after the attack that the "martyrdom operation" was "the first fruit of a newly formed group of terrorists, including 70 male and female suicide bombers, who are ready to carry out terrorist attacks on Israeli territory."

Abu Ahmed spoke out sharply against PNA President Mahmoud Abbas, who condemned the attack. "This is a legitimate attack that complies with all international laws and conventions, as well as religious rules," Ahmed said. "No one can condemn this act of resistance." ¹³ In late January 2007, Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for a Palestinian suicide bombing in the Israeli city of Eilat.¹⁴

On February 12, 2007, the United States announced a reward of $ 5 million. For information leading to the capture of Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Abdullah Mohammed Shallah, whose headquarters are located in Damascus ¹⁵. The next day, Islamic Jihad issued a statement threatening revenge on the United States if anything happened to its leader.¹⁶

Tehran, which is described as the main sponsor of Islamic Jihad, has promised to increase its funding by 70% "to offset the cost of recruiting young Palestinians for suicide operations".¹⁷. According to US intelligence, Tehran began paying Islamic Jihad millions of dollars in cash for each attack against Israel.¹⁸

Thus, the irreconcilable position of the radical Palestinian group "Islamic Jihad" towards Israel and the terrorist actions carried out by it with the financial assistance of Iran, along with the policy of the extremist organization Hamas that came to power in Palestine, leave little chance for a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the foreseeable future.

^{Levitt M.} 1 Hamas. Politics, Charity, and Terrorism. New Haven, London, 2006, p. 25.

² Ibid.

^{Levitt M.} 3 Op. cit, p. 26.

^{Miller J.} 4 God has 99 names. New York, 1997, p. 389 - 390.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Ibid.

^{Levitt M.} 7 Op. cit, p. 27.

⁸ Jerusalem Post, 17.10.1997.

⁹ UralPolit News Service.<url>", 29.08.2005.

¹⁰ Jerusalem Post, 08.02.2006.

¹¹ Ibid.

¹² Haaretz, 18.04.2006.

¹³ Ibid.

¹⁴ Interfax, 30.01.2007.

¹⁵ Radio Liberty, 13.02.2007.

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷ Al-Shark al-Awsat, 08.06.2002.

^{Levitt M.} 18 Op. cit., p. 28.