From the archive, 1988: Hamas founder Sheikh Yassin interviewed

Ahmed Yassin is an unlikely leader. Twisted awkwardly in a rusting wheelchair, his tiny body racked by a fit of coughing, he explains quietly why, in the name of Islam, the Palestinians must maintain their armed struggle against Israel.

Despite his frail appearance, Sheikh Yassin speaks with an authority based on unshakeable faith. “If we want a Palestinian state we must have Palestinian land,” he insists. “There is no point in making a state on paper. Our state will be Islamic.”

Nine months into the uprising in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, the crippled sheikh and others like him represent a powerful opposition to those who seek to translate the sacrifices of the intifada into concrete political gains.

As the PLO abroad agonises over whether to declare Palestinian independence unilaterally, form a government-in-exile, or amend the movement’s covenant, Muslim radicals in the occupied territories are making it clear that they oppose any concessions.

Sheikh Yassin is the spiritual leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement, which was born and bred in the squalor and misery of Gaza and encouraged – or at least ignored – by the Israelis, until they realised belatedly it would not supplant the PLO.

The movement, known by its Arabic acronym as Hamas, has been active since the intifada erupted here last December. Occasionally it has challenged the mainstream, PLO-backed United National Leadership of the Uprising and called for its own strike days and protests.

In recent weeks, however, as the PLO has faced up to the challenge of matching months of sustained unrest with politically imaginative ideas, Hamas has become firmer in its views, raising the old spectre of divisions within the Palestinian ranks at a time when the need for unity has become a byword.

Leaflet number 25 issued by the United Leadership this week condemned Hamas for “serving the enemy”. Independent strike calls were described as “an imposition of authority on the street by force”.

Hamas’ ideas are influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood organisations in Jordan and Egypt. Its activists in the occupied territories have been blamed in the past for attacking left-wing, PLO-backed institutions.

Secularism, democracy and other planks of PLO ideology are utterly alien. Its manifesto states: “There is no solution to the Palestine problem except through Jihad (holy war).”

The Hamas manifesto approvingly quotes the notorious antisemitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and warns of Israeli plans to conquer Arab and Muslim lands “from the Nile to the Euphrates”.

Sheikh Yassin is slightly more guarded, but there is no mistaking his vision of the future: “It is not enough to have a state in the West Bank and Gaza,” he argues. “The best solution is to let all – Christians, Jews and Muslims – live in Palestine, in an Islamic state.”

Allah, he believes, is on his movement’s side. “When oppression increases,” the sheikh explains in his elegant, classical Arabic, “people start looking for God.”

Not all religious Muslims follow Hamas. The smaller Islamic Jihad organisation works with the United National Leadership, a relationship nurtured by the PLO military leader, Abu Jihad, until he was assassinated by Israeli commandos in Tunis last April.

Hamas has no clear strategic programme, argues a bearded Jihad leader who asks to remain anonymous for fear of another spell in the Israelis’ desert prison camp, Ansar III. “I am a religious man, but the PLO is still my representative. Jihad sees the Palestine problem as the main issue confronting the world Islamic movement. Hamas sees it as just another Islamic issue, like Afghanistan or the Philippines.”

Many Palestinians expect the fissure opened by the fundamentalists to widen. A loss of national unity is feared by those who appreciate the gains made by the intifada. “When the consensus is not strong, the fundamentalists can gain,” warns Mehdi Abed-Hadi, an East Jerusalem academic.

“If a historical change does not take place soon, everything will shift towards more violence. Then they will have the upper hand.”