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Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad Hardcover – May 1, 2006
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This important book provides the most fully researched assessment of Hamas ever written. Matthew Levitt, a counterterrorism expert with extensive field experience in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, draws aside the veil of legitimacy behind which Hamas hides. He presents concrete, detailed evidence from an extensive array of international intelligence materials, including recently declassified CIA, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security reports.
Levitt demolishes the notion that Hamas’ military, political, and social wings are distinct from one another and catalogues the alarming extent to which the organization’s political and social welfare leaders support terror. He exposes Hamas as a unitary organization committed to a militant Islamist ideology, urges the international community to take heed, and offers well-considered ideas for countering the significant threat Hamas poses.
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherYale University Press
- Publication dateMay 1, 2006
- Dimensions6.13 x 1.19 x 9.25 inches
- ISBN-100300110537
- ISBN-13978-0300110531
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
(Daniel Benjamin)
"In a compelling and authoritative manner, Matthew Levitt masterfully demonstrates that the charitable and social components of Hamas cannot be separated from its true terrorist nature."—Dennis M. Lormel, former chief of the Terrorist Financing Operations Section at the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(Dennis M. Lormel)
“Far and away the best thing on this subject I’ve ever seen; well-written, careful, professional, fascinating.”—R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence
(R. James Woolsey)
“A timely assessment of one of the world’s most prolific terrorist organizations. . . . Impeccably researched and compellingly presented.”—Publishers Weekly
(Publishers Weekly)
About the Author
Matthew Levitt is Senior Fellow and Director of the Stein Program on Terrorism, Intelligence and Policy at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
From The Washington Post
In those days, the Palestinian Authority was on to Hamas, eager to prove to Israel that it was fighting terror. But after the Islamists' surprise victory in the Palestinians' January 2006 parliamentary elections, Hamas is the Palestinian Authority -- a development that makes Matthew Levitt's revealing study both incredibly relevant and somewhat behind the times.
Ziyada crops up in Levitt's book (in an account drawn from news reports about the jihadist boy wonder) as one example of Hamas's propensity for cynical exploitation. Levitt's point is that Hamas uses its religious, social welfare, educational and political structures not only to curry popular favor among Palestinians but also to propagate its murderous agenda -- and sometimes to provide logistical and financial support for what he calls Hamas's "overarching apparatus of terror." Therefore, argues Levitt, a former FBI analyst now working on terrorism-finance issues at the Treasury Department, no distinction can or should be made between Hamas's various wings; the group's political and charitable arms are mere fronts for its bombers.
For those pundits, academics, outside do-gooders or policymakers still wavering on how best to deal with Hamas, Levitt provides a thoroughly documented exposure of the organization's dark side. (Be warned: The detail is sometimes impressive, sometimes mind-numbing and repetitive.) Extensive research -- based on declassified intelligence documents, court records, media reports, academic studies and interviews conducted by the author, mostly with unnamed security sources rather than with Hamas operatives themselves -- throws up some intriguing tidbits. For instance, Levitt reports that three members of the cell responsible for the 2002 Passover eve bombing of the Park Hotel in Netanya, a watershed attack, belonged to a singing troupe that went around the West Bank lauding Hamas's actions. One bomber, he adds, dropped out at the last minute, having come down with a cold.
Much of Hamas, though, reads like a long policy paper -- which it essentially is, having been written while Levitt was working at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. As such, it offers policy recommendations on how to neutralize Hamas, such as cutting off all the organization's funding and channeling more international aid via moderate or secular Palestinian elements. Levitt also points to one mind-twister for American policymakers: Hamas's desire to preserve its fundraising network inside the United States has so far helped dissuade the organization from directly attacking U.S. targets; a U.S. crackdown on the group's stateside money trail could make Hamas less restrained.
At this point, the book starts to feel dated. A crackdown on Hamas's funding might have helped when the group was filling the gap between a notoriously corrupt, Fatah-dominated Palestinian administration and a largely impoverished Palestinian population. But now that Hamas has taken over the government, the parameters have changed.
Hamas's ascension to power has brought a host of new confounding problems. For example, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the routed Fatah faction, made a deal with his Hamas rivals last year, promising them a political role in his regime in return for a ceasefire. Both parties so far have stuck to the bargain, but if Hamas is starved out of government as the result of an international economic boycott, we can assume that there will be more Park Hotels. What's more, given local pride in the democratic process that brought Hamas to power in the first place, anti-Western sentiment would only increase among the ever-poorer Palestinians if the world drummed the Islamists out of office.
I do not know what happened to Musa Ziyada; back in 1995, having narrowly been saved from blowing himself apart along with as many Israelis as possible, he told me that he wanted to be a doctor when he grew up. Meanwhile, Ziyada's former patrons in Hamas have gone from running free clinics in the Gaza Strip to taking over the Palestinian Ministry of Health and from training toddlers in local kindergartens for martyrdom to managing the Ministry of Education. Levitt's rich study does not take that startling rise to power into account -- and therefore offers no practical solutions for it. Of course, he is hardly to blame for that: By all accounts, Hamas was as shocked by its success at the ballot box as everybody else. Desperate to receive international aid yet determined to stick to its guns, Hamas, it seems, had not really thought through the possibility either.
Reviewed by Isabel Kershner
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
Product details
- Publisher : Yale University Press; First Edition (May 1, 2006)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0300110537
- ISBN-13 : 978-0300110531
- Item Weight : 1.42 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.13 x 1.19 x 9.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #498,224 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #413 in Coping with Suicide Grief
- #1,487 in Middle East History
- #2,841 in Political Science (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Matthew Levitt is a senior fellow and director of The Washington Institute's Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. From 2005 to early 2007, he served as deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In that capacity, he served both as a senior official within the department's terrorism and financial intelligence branch and as deputy chief of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, one of sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies coordinated under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. During his tenure at Treasury, Dr. Levitt played a central role in efforts to protect the U.S. financial system from abuse and to deny terrorists, weapons proliferators, and other rogue actors the ability to finance threats to U.S. national security. In 2008-2009, he served as a State Department counterterrorism adviser to the special envoy for Middle East regional security (SEMERS), General James L. Jones.
Previously, he served as a counterterrorism intelligence analyst at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), where he provided tactical and strategic analytical support for counterterrorism operations, focusing on fundraising and logistical support networks for Middle Eastern terrorist groups. During his FBI service, Dr. Levitt participated as a team member in a number of crisis situations, including the terrorist threat surrounding the turn of the millennium and the September 11 attacks. He has earned numerous awards and commendations for his government service at both the FBI and the Treasury Department.
Dr. Levitt holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Yeshiva University, as well as a master's degree in law and diplomacy and a doctorate from Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He was a graduate research fellow at Harvard Law School's Program on Negotiation and has taught at both Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Levitt has served as an expert witness in several criminal and civil cases, lectured on international terrorism on behalf of the Departments of State, Justice, Defense, and Homeland Security, consulted for various U.S. government agencies and private industry, and testified before the Senate and House on matters relating to international terrorism. He has held fellowships with the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the Homeland Security Policy Institute at the George Washington University, is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves as a member of the international advisory board for both the Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Israel and the International Centre for Political Violence & Terrorism Research in Singapore.
Dr. Levitt has written extensively on terrorism, countering violent extremism, illicit finance and sanctions, the Middle East, and Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, with articles appearing in peer-reviewed journals, policy magazines, and the press, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and numerous other publications. He is also a frequent guest on the national and international media, and the author of several books and monographs, including Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad (Yale University Press, 2006); Negotiating Under Fire: Preserving Peace Talks in the Face of Terror Attacks (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008); and most recently, Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God (Georgetown University Press), all available here on amazon.
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- Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2014A highly detailed account of Hamas's activities, especially in building grass-roots support for its Jihad against Israel. He also has meticulously detailed its enablers in the West, like the Council on American Islamic Affairs, and other "civil rights" organisatoins that are in face Jihadi front groups. I'm quite surprised that CAIR has no lawsuit against the author yet, seeing as how these groups use "lawfare" to silence their critics.
A highly recommended read, all in all.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2008This book is structurally, organizationally and its content is irrevocably flawed. This book has some good information in it and it will certainly make the reader think, but the flaws are just too much for me. Poor structure and no organization plus the author does not do an adequate job fully and completely covering the topic is why I had to give this book a poor rating.
First off the book follows no linear chronological time line whatsoever. Instead the book jumps around constantly. The book has no semblance of continuity at all. The author can start out a paragraph discussing something from the 90s then jump to the 21 century then next thing you know you're back in the late 80s.The author very easily could have structured this book in a way that would have followed Hamas from its preconception to conception all the way to the present but the author does not do this, and so the reader must suffer the consequences. This lack of structure makes the book a very cumbersome read to say the least.
Next the author reuses paragraphs throughout the book. I counted at least three times the author repeated verbatim a paragraph he had previously used earlier in the book. This to me seemed lazy for a book that was obviously heavily researched and was years in the making. I don't know if it was poor editing or poor writing but it simply contributed to my overall dislike of this book.
Next the author throws numbers at the reader but he never gives them a context or organizes them in such a way as to give the reader a clear picture of what all these numbers mean. The amounts of money that the author throws at the reader range from a few hundred dollars to well over a hundred million dollars, and with the author not providing the reader with any tables or graphs or simply organizing the numbers in a single chapter so the reader can actually see all the numbers in one place and really get a true concept of what they actually mean. This work screams out for tables or graphs or anything remotely resembling structure for these numbers, but yet the author does not provide the reader with anything like structure so the numbers take on an arbitrary character that has no meaning to the reader.
Not only that but sometimes the numbers themselves are contradictory like on page 54 where the author gives an estimate of Hamas' annual budget at between 30-90 million dollars. First off that is a huge gap, but what's more is on page 191 the author uses a source that says that certain Saudi contributions for a two year period, 2000-2 gave 133 million dollars. That means they gave a little over 65 million a year for those two years which would be in excess of 2/3 of Hamas' budget. The problem is that the author also asserts that the Holy Land Foundation for the Relief and Development, a Hamas front, had a total revenue of 13 million dollars for the year 2000. Next the author estimates that the Iranian level of contributions for the year 2000 would be somewhere in the range of between 20-50 million dollars. If the reader then does some rudimentary calculations they will find that the low end estimate of Hamas' budget is worthless and apparently the high end is extremely low since if from only three sources Hamas received in excess of their 90 million cap the amount of the other donations from around the world would certainly have pushed their budget well over a 100 million dollars. This is only one instance in a book that is filled with similar inconsistencies. The reader will have a hard time distinguishing between which numbers are arbitrary and which ones should be focused upon.
Next this book really has little to do with Hamas as a whole but instead is a work devoted singularly to the Hamas leadership and its financing. The author does not devote even a single chapter to the grassroots level activists or the charity workers or organizations. The fact is that Hamas has many facets and if the author wants to posit the idea that all these contribute to the terror organization that is fine, but that study is incomplete if the author does not even write about the other aspects of this organization. The fact is that there has to be a reason so many relatively, secularist Palestinians have turned to Hamas, and there has to be a reason why so many nations and people around the world have apparently been duped by this organization. There has to be real, good, altruistic people within this organization or it would have never received the support it has achieved internally or externally, but the author treats his subject as if it is a monolith and the work suffers terribly for it. The author only speaks to the leadership and the terror apparatus, and I repeat that if the author wishes to assert the claim that the charitable is tied to the militant that is fine but that does not mean the author can completely ignore the charitable aspect of his subject and still have a truly whole work on this topic.
Next the author treats the subject as if it operates in a vacuum when the reality is that Israel and the PA, along with many other factors, are major causes for the popularity and success of Hamas. Now I understand that the author wished to limit this work and focus on Hamas but how can any study of Hamas truly be a complete and accurate work if it says nothing at all about the relationship between these other entities. The fact is that Hamas owes its rise to the incompetence and corruption of the PA and the occupation and heavy handedness of Israel, and how any author can feel as though they have adequately covered a subject as complex as Hamas without even adding a single chapter devoted to the affect of these two is beyond me. Now some may disagree as to the level of responsibility that should be meted out to either the PA or Israel but that certainly doesn't mean the topic shouldn't be raised.
All in all there is some very good information in this book, and it has certainly made me look at this organization in a different light. With that said this work is a very incomplete book that, in my opinion, has some glaring omissions and huge problems. Usually whenever a book forces me to rethink my previously held beliefs I automatically give that book a good rating but I cannot do that with this work. The structure was just too lousy, the lack of organization or tables for the financing chapters and the lack of discussion concerning outside factors was too much for me to ignore. I guess all I can say is venture at your own risk.
- Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2007Did anyone at Yale University Press actually review this manuscript? Or does the Washington Institute for Near East Peace send junk to YUP and say here publish this? Matthew Levitt's book is a series of amateur disasters: exclusive reliance on highly suspect evidence, misrepresentation of some of the sources, primitive arguments which do not address any debate, poorly written, and apparently no one at Yale checked his citations or Arabic transliterations because they are hilariously bad. Levitt practices the kind of social science found only inside the beltway. It helps explain why the American government consistently pursues destructive policies in the Middle East. Here is how it goes: start with your conclusion first, select evidence that fits conclusion, glorify the evidence because it was classified at one point, and for god's sake conclude with policy.
Levitt wants to justify the status quo policy isolating the Palestinian government headed by HAMAS, albeit with an insane twist. To do this, he first backtracks by creating a debate in the academic literature that does not exist. Levitt wants the reader to believe that academics and experts "continue to subscribe to the shallow argument that terrorist groups maintain distinct social, political, and militant wings." (p.6) Who argues this? No cite is ever given. Against this straw man, Levitt advances his own myth; HAMAS is an unchanging monolith. Once we buy this then HAMAS is either completely bad or completely good (can't shade monoliths). Guess which one Levitt chooses? And then it's just a skip to conclude no negotiation with HAMAS, rather we need to replace it.
Levitt seems uninformed that scholars view HAMAS and similar organizations (Tamil Tigers, ANC, etc.) as having interrelated parts. Levitt himself endorses this view: "HAMAS is composed of three interrelated wings." (p.9) There is no argument about the separation of wings; rather there is investigation into these groups' social, political, and economic sources of power. What are the constraints and opportunities which HAMAS operates under? What are the costs and the benefits to violence? Answers to these questions are the foundation of a realistic policy. Levitt ignores this and the wider work on Islamist groups (Clark Islam, Charity, and Activism: Middle-Class Networks and Social Welfare in Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen (Indiana Series in Middle East Studies), Schwedler Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen, Wiktorowicz Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach (Indiana Series in Middle East Studies), Gerges The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (Cambridge Middle East Studies), etc) because to do so would not support his policy goal.
Levitt claims his book, "employs evidence that is qualitatively and quantitatively unmatched on the subject" and "makes use of previously undisclosed intelligence material" all "supplemented by open source materials and extensive personal interviews..." (p.7). Really? Let's consider Levitt as a researcher and his evidence. In writing a book on HAMAS, an organization made up of Palestinians living primarily in Gaza and the West Bank, one might assume the researcher knows something of these areas. Does Levitt speak or read Arabic at any level? Has Levitt ever lived, studied, or conducted research in the societies about which he writes? I would wager that we could drop Matthew in the middle of Ramallah and he could not find a falafel stand.
What about the intelligence studies? Most of the selective intelligence sources come from Israeli and US government sources. Is it possible that these sources might not be forthright? Where Levitt claims he uses extensive international intelligence and supposedly pro-Arab sources (48-50) he actually only cites one unavailable 2002 report from Canada, one 2004 Dutch report, an undocumented assertion that Jordanian intelligence agrees with him, and one interview with a Romanian intelligence official (p.306). That's it.
The problem here is selection bias. How do we know these intelligence analysts and analyses are representative? What do other analyses that Levitt did not see or share conclude? What about cross contamination between Israeli reports and American conclusions? Most odious, Levitt passes on what Palestinian prisoners tell their Israeli captors as an unbiased source of data. His use of supposedly primary source Palestinian intelligence documents held by the creepily named, Center for Special Studies is doubly troubling. This Israeli NGO (?) has documents seized by the IDF during its attack on Palestinian urban areas in 2002. Conclusions Levitt draws from this material are dubious because there is no chain of evidence. To be clear, the issue is not whether munitions were found in this or that place but if all we have is anecdote after anecdote from unverified documents one must ask how wide spread is the phenomena under investigation? How many of the thousands of Palestinian hospitals, clinics, schools, and mosques are HAMAS controlled and how many of these are linked to the stories in this book?
The interviews are the worse of all. A quick count came up with 10 interviews, only 4 attributed, and all but one were government officials. Levitt even bait and switches his sources. On page 247, he gives us direct quotes from a convicted HAMAS commander and this is sourced (ftn38) to "Author Interview with Israeli intelligence officials..." Where is the data from these interviews and why are they unnamed? This is lazy research, borderline unethical, and certainly not worthy of a university publisher. There is no use of the extensive Palestinian public opinion polling. There are no interviews with Jordanian or Palestinian analysts, political opponents of HAMAS, or even HAMAS spokesmen. If you think Israeli and US government sources are questionable, how truthful do you think unelected officials of an unelected monarchy in Jordan would be? There are no interviews with NGO personnel or even with Israeli academics, like say Mishal and Sela The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence, And Coexistence. What in the hell was Levitt doing in Israel during the fall and summer 2004 that limited him to 10 unrecorded interviews?
Levitt's simplified image of HAMAS distorts the actual challenges faced and leads to crazy policy reasoning like this: if HAMAS is an indistinguishable monolith bent on evil and it is fed by its control over social welfare institutions, then we must cut off all humanitarian aid to those institutions. Next, we simply fund and create a new welfare infrastructure. That's right, in 2006 someone in Washington actually published a book suggesting we take the Iraqi nation building adventure on tour. Yipee, C.P.A. Jenin here we come! Maybe the up side is that we would get Israeli help this time.
Pete W. Moore
Top reviews from other countries
- Mr. Duncan MacfarlaneReviewed in the United Kingdom on November 20, 2007
3.0 out of 5 stars Well written and fully sourced - but many sources dubious
This book has strengths and weaknesses. It's strengths are that its well written, clearly laid out, includes some historical background and sources all the claims made in it - so readers can check the source of each for themselves in the notes at the end of the book.
One weakness is that its sources are often of dubious reliability. For instance common sources include the IDF (Israeli military) which routinely makes claims disproven by independent investigators such as Human Rights Watch and the United Nations. Another is 'Israeli Intelligence Officials' for which the same problems exist. The Israeli government and military are also keen to suggest Hamas might target the US with terrorist attacks in order to ensure US aid against Hamas - and that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are mere pawns of Iran for the same reason.
Levitt seems to show no awareness of these problems.
American officials are also quoted as a source - yet the Bush administration has been proven to have lied repeatedly to persuade Americans and the world to support war on Iraq - and so cannot be considered a reliable source on Israel-Palestine or Iran - or the connections between the two.
Articles by the American journalist Judith Miller are also used as sources often - despite Miller's history of reproducing dubious Bush administration claims as if they were fact.
The overall effect is to create a circular sourcing in which Levitt quotes the Bush administration and Israeli government and intelligence agencies (or Miller using the same sources) and then its likely the US and Israeli governments will quote Levitt's book as evidence that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are just pawns of Iran and have planned attacks on the US (a claim which runs counter to Hamas' entire history and which no other sources support).
I'm not saying don't read this book. It's easy to read, almost certainly includes some of the truth and worth reading. I'm just saying check the numbered sources as you read it to see what the source for each claim is - and read other books which are less hostile to Hamas as well for balance (such as the Palestinian scholar Khaled Hroub's books).
- MccReviewed in the United Kingdom on March 31, 2014
1.0 out of 5 stars Wildly biased
This is more of an angry tirade than the serious book it pretends to be. Read Beverley Milton-Edwards instead if you want to find out about Hamas.