Photograph Source: Fars Media Corporation – CC BY 4.0
“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.” — Sun Tzu
During the Israeli-Hamas “war” and the complete destruction of Gaza by the IDF, there has been an unfortunate tendency with much of the international left to regard Hamas as revolutionary freedom fighters who are deserving of peoples unwavering support—otherwise they do not understand resistance to colonialism. There are several reasons this is a wrongheaded and inherently suicidal position.
HAMAS ARE REVOLUTIONARIES?
For starters, from a purely tactical standpoint, Hamas must have known that Israel would react with massive destruction in Gaza after the October 7th attacks. Now, some may argue that this was the reason they took hostages and treated them objectively well—certainly better than Israel treats Palestinian prisoners. This humane treatment of captives does not spring from any sort of moral impulse, but was rather part of a public relations strategy. An effective one, at that. Hamas hoped, so the narrative goes, that they would be able to convince Israel to stop any revenge attack against Gaza in exchange for the return of the hostages. There may be some truth in this narrative—after all, Hamas did make an offer for the return of all hostages in exchange for the cessation of hostilities. However, if they truly believed that this strategy would work, after the massacres they inflicted against Israeli civilians and soldiers on October 7th, then they are clearly incompetent at best, but likely simply lacked any concern for the consequences which would be primarily endured by the population of Gaza.
Secondly, we have the strategic aspects of the October 7th attack. The minute Hamas and their friends in Iran decided to launch Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, what they did was show their geopolitical incompetence and played right into the hands of the Americans and Israelis who own a monopoly on violence in the “conflict”. Anyone with any military training, or simply common sense, knows that if your forces are encircled by a power that controls your access to food, water and electricity, and you’re keen on military offensives, then the best way to break out of such encirclement is to pick the single weakest spot, punch through with a sizable chunk of your forces, and then pick an area you are capable of defending. If they had been serious about showing the world that they treat their hostages humanely, then they should have picked one Kibbutz, encircled it, and then live streamed their decent treatment of the civilians inside. They should not have massacred anyone; rather they should have shown the world that they will treat the people under their control with care and compassion. Then they may have been able to negotiate with Israel for a withdrawal of the siege of Gaza, as well as weaken Israeli standing in the region by a significant margin. What Hamas did was pick many different points to attack, spreading their forces incredibly thin, and were then defeated quickly. The massacres they committed only allowed for far greater Israeli retribution than would otherwise have been possible.
Now this should not be understood as an endorsement of such action—violence is almost never justified and rarely effective, as the means of violence are overwhelmingly in the hands of the powerful (with certain exceptions, for example, Nazi Germany needed to be militarily defeated, and the other great powers’ geostrategic interest in defeating them aligned with the moral imperative). It is simply to point out that the leaders of Hamas are either completely incompetent or, more likely, care as little for their own civilian population as elites anywhere else do. In fact, they were most likely well aware that the more destruction was rained upon Gaza, the more money would then flow through their pockets from Iran, as well as from China and Russia through obscured channels. The idea that Hamas will ever be audited is absurd; so of course no one will ever know how much money was spent on military and civilian purposes, and how much simply went into the offshore bank accounts of Hamas’ leadership. While their apex leaders did, in fact, grow up poor—with many hailing from refugee camps in Gaza—they now have much more in common with the millionaires and billionaires controlling adversarial regimes than they do with most all of the people they rule over. Those who are still alive, of course.
Thirdly, as has been openly admitted, and in fact bragged about by Netanyahu, the Israeli state is the primary reason that Hamas is in power. The last election was in 2006; which means that anyone under the age of 36 in Gaza did not participate in that election. Many former heads of Shin Bet and Mossad, as well as former Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, have attested to the hundreds of millions of dollars in cash that Netanyahu has sent to the leaders of Hamas. Again, Netanyahu has not only openly admitted this, he has bragged about it; and earlier this year made a statement in public that he should be thanked for keeping Hamas in power because it prevented a two state solution and in his words: “can you imagine how much worse October 7th would have been if the Palestinians actually had their own state?”
Now, of course any observer should be able to understand that nothing like October 7th would have happened had the Palestinians actually received their own functioning state. So those who are defending Hamas as the glorious resistance are, in fact, glorifying the organization that Netanyahu kept in power in order to prevent the Palestinians from achieving a state of their own.
Lastly, what exactly can be done at this stage? By now, Gaza has been so levelled that reconstruction is going to take precedence over nearly everything else. But a good model for how to move forward can be found in the Good Friday accords, which ended the conflict between the IRA and the British occupying forces. Once the British became serious about achieving peace, they worked with the democratic elements within the IRA and Sinn Fein, offering them incentives of peace and real political participation in exchange for a cessation of hostilities. The accords included a release of prisoners. Some of these people had done horrible things—bombed civilians and so on. But at some point one has to make peace with one’s enemies, despite the hatred that naturally springs from having lost members of your family due to the actions of the other side. If the US and Israel were financially incentivized to maintain peace, and the potential costs of military campaigns too high, then there’s certainly reason to believe they’d opt for a neocolonial relationship in the immediate rather than settler colonialism and genocide as has been practiced with impunity since 1948.
So while it might be necessary to work with members of Hamas in order to achieve peace, we should not delude ourselves into believing that they are a glorious resistance group. They are like any other political and military organization—a greedy group of violent elitists who profit from war and care nothing about the consequences inflicted on the civilians from their own population. The fighters themselves, just like those of most militaries, are people who have lost family members or are doing what they believe is morally correct behavior—defending their land or country, fighting for their supposed freedoms, etc. While this might help us understand their motivations, it makes the ruthless exploitation carried out by the leadership classes even more distasteful. All the more so when a leadership class like that of Hamas knows it can’t win a direct conflict with the Israelis. What are they really fighting for? Freedom for Palestinians or their own interests? How seriously Hamas’ maximal leaders actually believe in Palestinian liberation is anyone’s guess (likely not much) but they are surely kleptocrats keen on getting rich, content with the privileges they possess in real life, and if they’re assassinated or killed in combat by the Israelis, then they believe they’ll be absolved in the afterlife—as Islamic fundamentalists do—or thought of as revolutionary freedom fighters by historical revisionists who are, sadly, more common than serious students of history.
WHAT ELSE COULD HAMAS HAVE DONE?
This is a question asked by many who defend the October 7th attacks as solely legitimate resistance. Even Norman Finkelstein, whose work on the topic is some of the most important ever written, goes too far in his complete defense of Hamas’ military actions. The answer to what could have been done besides another fruitless military offensive is quite literally just about anything else. Anything that doesn’t result in the annihilation of the civilization whose defense is your supposed entire reason for existing. As mentioned, October 7th has resulted in defacto suicide for the strip as we are currently witnessing a total siege on Gaza rife with kill zones, complete destruction of civilian infrastructure and ethnic cleansing in broad daylight. The war itself is likely to continue until Hamas is driven completely underground as a resistance force or are dislodged from Gaza entirely.
The Americans and Israelis likely want their resistance to endure, and indeed know it’s impossible to completely eradicate a group based on an idea, so that in the event of future threats they can employ the military option yet again and continue assaulting Gaza, as well as the West Bank, rendering Palestine further unlivable for the indigenous population in order to steal more land. The best case scenario, at present, for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank alike is that Hamas willingly lays down arms and allows the Palestinian Authority (PA) to assume control of the strip in conjunction with the West Bank. They cannot win the war and it’s really the only way to ensure Palestine has a future at all with Palestinians not isolated in enclaves with little to no value, a la America’s own indigenous population, or worse.
The US and Israeli governments would both love nothing more than to have other countries accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza, or continue the forever war (Gaza genocide) that’s destined to render the strip entirely unlivable, and in fact already is in many respects, paving the way for future Israeli settlements and annexation into what Zionists call “Greater Israel.” However, if this maximal goal of ethnic cleansing cannot be achieved entirely, then the criminals in Washington and their Israeli mercenaries in occupied Jerusalem will settle for Hamas governance being driven underground or forced out of Gaza, the latter of which has been proposed by the Jordanians.
It’s difficult to imagine Hamas’ leadership accepting this, although this is exactly what a good amount of Gazans view as the only alternative to Israeli imposed massacres and mass murder on an industrial scale as we’ve been witnessing, and Palestinians enduring, for a year and a half now. There have been verified and documented demonstrations across the strip—all throughout the conflict but reaching mainstream media recognition only this week due the size and scale of recent protests—where Gazans are dissenting against Hamas rule and its policies in confronting the Israelis. Gazans have seemingly had enough of military conflict that only brings further death and destruction to their families, livelihood, and civilization.
If Hamas wanted to commit suicide of its governing capabilities, they could have just walked out of Gaza. Instead, they’ve effectively committed mass suicide of their culture without anyone’s permission or consent. Those who wish to engage in deluded fantasies like endless military confrontation having been the only avenue available to Hamas are quite deficient in their analysis which is bereft of intellectual rigor, to say the least. This sentiment is often felt by those attempting to appear the most revolutionary by taking what they perceive to be the most radical position. Even though, in actuality, championing military confrontation is a very popular way to earn points in certain circles. One can only imagine the grin on Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu’s faces when October 7th occurred.
Instead of using the billions of dollars Hamas possessed to gain access to more weaponry for military operations that lead nowhere but further reductions in land for Palestinians, how about they use some of that money to make contact with governments that aren’t friendly with Israel and organize an actual supply flotilla backed by a real power to bring in much needed food, medical supplies, and so on? If the Americans and Israelis object, their hypocrisy is then on display for the entire world to observe, only with far less maiming of children, women and innocents. Why is a complete lack of imagination on the part of Hamas such a moral and ethical flex to some people?
How about also attempting to establish ties with Egyptian anti-government resistance forces and their coalition of supporters? Hamas could have tried working with them in an attempt to prevent their own government from cooperating with the Israelis in their persecution of Palestinians, or at least attempt to disrupt and undermine Egypt’s support of Israel. Hamas could also link their own struggles and resistance to that of ordinary Saudis and Emiratis who don’t care for their kleptocratic and ruthless governments either. Every dictator and monarch in the Middle East knows they’re on thin ice with their civilian populations who are generally extremely in favor of Palestine.
Instead of solely profiting off arms trafficking, real estate investments and funding from friendly regimes like Iran and Turkey, to the point that your leadership has billions of dollars in profit outside Gaza and the military leaders are multimillionaires, how about using some of that money to help aid groups that revolt against their own governments? Hamas could use this leverage to gain influence with such groups and somewhat restrain the Israelis from always acting so aggressively towards Gaza who it knows has little in terms of concrete working relationships abroad outside of Iran, the axis of resistance, and Turkey. Iran itself has been playing this game for years against the Americans and Israelis.
While Hamas doesn’t have the resources, size or clout of a regional power like Iran, they can still work to increase their connectivity within the Middle East and globally. They could have done this by first maintaining military capabilities, then establishing relations with likeminded organizations, in an attempt to build more support, but then refraining from reckless military offensives that only result in more suffering for Palestinians, as well as provide ammunition for the American and Israeli regimes and their massive propaganda apparatus. This approach has worked wonders for the EZLN (Zapatistas) in Chiapas, Mexico who have maintained their control for 30+ years since the uprisings and military attacks in 1994 that secured their autotomy. Their goal is now a more decentralized approach, fostering greater cooperation amongst their base of supporters in the communities, building up international support, and providing strictly defensive operations or deterrence in Chiapas against any attacks from cartels, paramilitaries backed by the Mexican state, etc. Imagine if the EZLN had continued their campaign in 1994 beyond a couple weeks and then engaged in endless military confrontation; they’d be in a far worse spot, as would the indigenous and civilian populations they are in charge of defending.
The most generous conclusion one can reach with what Hamas actually chose to do with its own couple decades running Gaza is that they thought this aggressive and militant approach would work. Although, as mentioned, this still speaks to the kind of strategic incompetence that bars Hamas’ leaders from the right to unilaterally decide the fate of nearly two and a half million people in Gaza; their own people who anyone with half a brain ought to understand by this point they do not care about. For another example of this lack of care for the welfare of their own people, prior to October 7th, Hamas had agreed to let the PA develop Gaza’s natural gas fields in exchange for a portion of the profits during negotiations with the US, Israel and Egypt. Simply put, Hamas’ leaders had decided they would sell their own people out to the Americans and Israelis—who effectively control the PA—in exchange for a cut on the back end. If Hamas were actually led by uncompromising radical revolutionaries who will supposedly not work with evil forces while undermining their own people, then why sell your natural gas fields off to the highest bidder in exchange for the privileges this would have provided? These actions were not in alignment with their professed principles.
Ironically, though, if the preservation of their people and self determination for Palestine were actually their real goals, then this would have been a far better decision to make rather than launching an attack that gave the Israelis pretexts to send Gaza “back to the stone ages.” Make peace in the immediate while letting the Americans and Israelis develop the Palestinians’ own productive forces and modernization of their infrastructure. Building up your society into one capable of exercising its own power and controlling its own resources is really the only way that countries can achieve their own self determination. Letting the PA develop their natural resources in conjunction with the US and Israel certainly wasn’t a perfect option for Hamas, but it was a far more sustainable way to actually ensure Gaza has a future. We all know what the US wants—control of the resources, and they possess the most powerful empire in human history, while their proxy in Israel also has nuclear weapons. Hamas, then, really had two options given the political and military realities:
1. Remain hostile, tied solely to the Iranian empire, militarily confrontational, and allow Israel more room to pursue its genocidal agenda of ethnically cleansing Palestinians and destroying the very fabric of their society.
2. Make peace, allowing the PA to develop their industrial and production capacity, as the US, Israel and Egypt control their resources in the immediate, while maintaining relations with Iran, Turkey and the Axis of Resistance, with the hope of building up their society into one capable of one day exercising proper self determination when the US and Israel aren’t in such an overwhelmingly powerful position.
That’s reality, and reality often doesn’t present you with the absolute most righteous or ideal options. This would have required Hamas’ leaders dropping their personal pride to grease Uncle Sam’s palms in order to preserve their society in the immediate for future generations to have a chance of being able to decide upon when and how they go about achieving proper independence once in a stronger position of doing so. That would be sacrificing for your community, but that isn’t an ideal option to people who have climbed to the apex of power amongst the exploited and now seek their own privileges, power and financial gain. Sacrificing your civilization for own material interests is not revolutionary action and frankly it’s pathetic this has to be explained, especially to those on the left.
HAMAS, ISRAEL AND SELECTIVE OUTRAGE
A final word should be said here about selective outrage. As outlined above, the October 7th attacks were both criminal and, from a military perspective, completely unserious, with consequences for Gazans that were predictable and entirely unacceptable. But you often hear outrage directed only at Hamas—that we need to find and punish the perpetrators, and that we cannot possibly release prisoners who may have committed war crimes. The primary aggressor, on the other hand, never faces justice for their crimes. The IDF is guilty of genocide and has become most akin to a criminal organization. Even those who do not directly participate in war crimes are part of a criminal organization that has a thoroughly genocidal culture and attitude towards Palestinians, as has been attested by many IDF soldiers who have become whistleblowers. In a just world, those individuals who have shot children with sniper rifles or ordered and participated in attacks on schools or hospitals would be held to account; while the leadership would face something like the Nuremberg tribunals. Of course in this world, that is extremely unlikely to ever happen. So the idea that we can’t possibly allow the release of Hamas members, or negotiate with them, is beyond hypocritical when it comes from those who would allow IDF members and leadership who are guilty of far graver war crimes to return to normal civilian life and walk among us as if they had done nothing wrong.
The bulk of Palestinian resistance fighters—the actual fighters of Hamas and other entities—are acting out of anger and a desire for revenge, as the majority of them have lost family members due to Israeli attacks over the last few decades, and all of them have lost the homes and cities they had lived in for generations.
The leadership, however, like political and military elites everywhere, manipulate this pain and anger to fuel an ongoing conflict. They profit from war; they care little for peace. The only way out of this is as outlined above—something like the Good Friday accords that releases prisoners and hostages on both sides, and offers a real incentive to peace, which means real political participation, and in this particular case, would mean a free, independent and sovereign Palestinian state. This means working with the forces in Hamas that are wiling to work in good faith toward a tolerant, democratic society. For now only a two state solution along the 1967 borders seems even remotely achievable, although this would be unlikely to occur until Palestine developed and modernized under US-Israeli-PA rule, but minorities in either state must have equal democratic rights, and the system of apartheid and Jewish-Israeli supremacy must finally be dismantled.
Nonetheless, it is a mistake to glorify Hamas as revolutionaries and offer their violent methods of resistance unwavering support. As outlined above, their military strategy was suicidal and poorly planned, also entailing war crimes against civilians which the leadership must have known would lead to the total destruction of Gaza. Glorifying such an organization, which again, has been in power due to Netanyahu more than anyone else, is not helpful or likely to lead to the goal shared by most leftists—an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, enduring peace, tolerance of ethnic and religious minorities, as well as democracy for Palestinians and Israelis alike.
