Jim Devine wrote:
> but don't you think that something like Hamas would have been created
> even if Israel hadn't funded it?
> JD
>
This question of inevitability vs. contingency on historical factors... hmmm....
Well, we can look at Islamic Jihad perhaps as what can be attained without the facilitation of Israel.
Islamic Jihad have the military wing, but not the level of social services/religious infrasturcture that Hamas has.
It is almost assured that some form of Islamic resistance force was bound to be created, but one with so wide of a social base with schools, welfare, social services, etc. as Hamas? I think it is pretty up in the air whether something of that magnitude could have been formed without the facilitation of the de facto regional power base (Israel), and especially if the Israelis were hellbent on stamping it out from the beginning.
Perhaps there would still be two Islamic Palestinian forces--Islamic Jihad in its more non-nationalist Pan-Arabic Islam version, and Hamas in its nationalist Muslim Brotherhood style--but they would both probably work in more similar manner to what Islamic Jihad does at present.
This is purely my what if speculation though....