Summary: Reading Time: 10 minutesIn <a href="http://www.theendofhistory.net/most_recent/complete-balanced-guide-israeli-palestinian-conflict-chapter-19-al-aqsa-intifada/">my last post we looked at the return of violence between Israel and the Palestinians</a> after the failure of the peace process in the 1990s. Today we look at the missed opportunity to end this violence with democracy in Palestine and how that democratic option was turned away when Israel and the US refused to work with Hamas.<br> <br> By 2005 tensions between Israel and Palestine in the course of the al Aqsa intifada had descended into a siege like status.<br> <br> Israel was building a 20 foot wall around the Palestinian settlements and holding the Palestinians at bay, civilian and militants alike, with checkpoints and harsh controls over what remained of their infrastructure. Much of the occupied territory had become a sort of prison under Israeli rule during the second intifada.<br> <br> <br> Hamas meanwhile was rising as the new representative of the Palestinians after Fatah had been discredited and disempowered during the course of the second intifada. This newer version of Hamas had two fronts, a social front and a militant front. The militant front included bombings on Israeli civilians and rocket firings into Israeli settlements. The social front was where they were gaining the most inroads, filling the gaps in Palestinian life that had been created by the harsh Israeli control tactics.<br> <br> Hamas was keeping the people from starving and being annihilated. In exchange, the Palestinian people were putting more and more of their trust and dependence into Hamas.<br> <br> Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Hamas<br> <br> We first saw the Muslim Brotherhood in this story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict way back in the <a href="http://www.theendofhistory.net/most_recent/complete-balanced-guide-israeli-palestinian-conflict-chapter-8-1948-arab-israeli-war/">1948 Arab Israeli War</a>. Prior to the last few years the Muslim Brotherhood was a vague piece of Middle Eastern history that very few knew about or recognized unless middle east studies happened to be your specialty. That all changed with the so called Arab Spring when the Muslim Brotherhood came to power for a short while in Egypt.<br> <br> That is the modern story. Their original claim to fame was the bravery and devotion they displayed for the Palestinian and Arab cause in the 1948 Arab Israeli War. Their fighters were distinguished in contrast to of the Arab nations’ armies who seemed less organized and less committed to the struggle. After 1948 the Muslim Brotherhood retreated back to their home base in Egypt. They became an underground organization throughout the 50s and 60s when Gamal Nasser saw them as a threat to his own power.<br> <br> In the 1960s however, there arose a Palestinian member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Yassin was born in Palestine. In 1948 he lived through the humiliating defeat against Israel and the loss of his home. He and his family were forced to a refugee camp in Gaza. At age 12 he was injured in a soccer accident and paralyzed for life ultimately being confined to a wheel chair.<br> <br> For a refugee in Gaza this was not a promising start to life and it was far from the more comfortable middleclass lifestyle he had been born into before the 1948 war. He finished his schooling and then moved to Cairo where he continued the life of a scholar. He was soon focusing his studies on a more militant interpretation of Islamic law and the Koran.<br> <br> Living in Cairo with these interests and during this time period it was inevitable that he would eventually come in contact with the Muslim Brotherhood. Yassin became a member of the Muslim Brotherhood but doing this put him at odds and conflict with Egypt’s ruler Gamal Abdel Nasser. In an effort to keep out of harm’s way regardin...
