In fact, there has not been a year since its founding that Hamas has been at peace with Israel, or even contemplated peace. Hamas typically attacks Israel through its military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassem Brigades. Their attacks against Israelis in Gaza continued steadily until 2005. That is when Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip as part of an effort to create a “two-state” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the absence of a permanent peace agreement.1 In fact, there has not been a year since its founding that Hamas has been at peace with Israel, or even contemplated peace. After Hamas took over Gaza in 2006, the Brigades “transformed from an underground guerrilla organization into a uniformed military force designed to protect Gaza from outside attack.”2 In 2009, the International Crisis Group3 estimated the Brigades had between 7,000 and 10,000 full-time members, with more than 20,000 members in reserve.4 However, rather than protect Gaza from outside attack, Hamas’s main military tactic since taking over Gaza “has been an increased firing of rockets and mortars from the territory”
