The nickname was also mentioned in an interview with Mahmoud Zahar, one of Hamas' leaders, in an interview with Newsweek shortly after the implementation of the disengagement plan. Zahar was asked by reporter Kevin Peraino: "Official Israeli officials warn that after the withdrawal, Gaza will become "Hamastan." To this he replied: "It should be Hamastan. why not? We are not corrupt. We serve the lower classes. We protect our land. It should be Hamastan!”[9]
With the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, the creation of an Islamic mini-state in Gaza has been described by many commentators as "Hamastan" or "Hamas-stan".[10]
Originally, the suffix 'Stan' (land) is from the Persian language, not Arabic, and in general, it is not used in the names of Arab countries. The Arabic-alphabet spelling حماستان is used, though "Hamastan" was not created according to usual patterns of Arabic-language word formation, and is not really Arabic as such.
In this context the Fatah-controlled West Bank has sometimes analogously been called "Fatahland,"[11][12][13][14] a revival of a term originally used in the 1970s to refer to Southern Lebanon.
^Eldar, Akiva (18 June 2007). "Sharon's Dream". Haaretz. If Ariel Sharon were able to hear the news from the Gaza Strip and West Bank, he would call his loyal aide, Dov Weissglas, and say with a big laugh: 'We did it, Dubi.' Sharon is in a coma, but his plan is alive and kicking. Everyone is now talking about the state of Hamastan. In his house, they called it a bantustan, after the South African protectorates designed to perpetuate apartheid.
^Looney, R. (2014). Handbook of US-Middle East Relations. Taylor & Francis. p. 497. ISBN978-1-135-16591-8. Retrieved 2022-01-04. In a way, these policies have not led to the creation of a Palestinian Bantustan but of Palestinian Hamastan
