Ethno Nationalist Terrorism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Ethno Nationalist Terrorism - Essay Example ionalist movement, which Arab states tried to obstruct; the growing conflict between Israel and the Arab countries over water development plans and other issues; and the increasing importance of the Palestine issue in inter-Arab political affairs.2 The PLO immediately became the ground for numerous nationalist campaigns, which were more and more oriented toward attaining autonomy of political activity from the Arab states, besides the major aspiration to liberate Palestine and guarantee the return of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees.3 After the war of 1967, and the accompanying damage to the reputation of Arab states, supervision of the PLO was taken over by autonomous Palestinian political organizations with a more revolutionary agenda than that of the original organizers. These groups have governed the PLO from then on. Fatah, which means ‘conquest’ or ‘liberation’, is the biggest group within the PLO, and the Syrian division headed by Yasir Arafat.4 It became increasingly radical as Israel continuously achieved military success, and more uncompromising about returning territories seized from the Arabs. Even more radical factions formed within the PLO, such as the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Black September. These factions argued that the best way to force Israel to hand back the occupied territories was through terrorist activities.5 The Islamic Resistance Movement, or, Hamas, was the offspring of the intifada, which signified the onset of the real political resurgence of the Islamic forces in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Hamas was established in 1987 as a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, a political and religious group formed in 1928 in Egypt.6 The primary objective of Hamas is to build an Islamic state in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. This objective merges Palestinian national aspiration and Islamist principles. Their ideology is precise on this issue: â€Å"Hamas regards nationalism as part and parcel of