Hamas and the Palestinians

 Hamas rules over Gaza since 2007 in a dictatorial way using all means to exercise absolute power. It is extremely tyrannical governmental power. Yet as in any case of power the attitudes and reactions towards Hamas are variable and include the whole scale of possibilities - as well inside as outside Gaza (the latter is specially troubling). Let me deal with this complicated issue in few points:

1. Elections. Israel unilaterally left Gaza in August 2005 (20 years ago) dismantling settlements and leaving Gaza to self-government by Palestinians not without supplying them - together with the USA, the EU, Netherlands and few others in  all necessities. I have written about it few times and will write again soon in another part of Gaza history. Israel hoped for the government to be held by PA led by Abbas as more moderate, but Gazans, tired by corruption of the Palestinian Authority, decided to try Hamas, who won 2006 elections (still a fact many so called pro-Palestinian activists indicate today as a base for they power). The first elections to Palestinian Legislative Counsel were held in 1996 during the peace process based on Oslo Accords. The elections were to be held every 4 years, yet in turbulent rest of 1990s and years of second intifada they were not held. In 2004 Arafat (who did not want to organize another elections) died and in 2005 Israel withdrew from Gaza. American President George W. Bush had pushed for Palestinian elections, in part as an outgrowth of his administration’s ideological zeal for spreading democracy in the Middle East through whatever means necessary. Originally the elections were to take place in July 2005 but dew to disengagement they were pushed to early 2006. Palestinian Legislative Counsel has 132 seats in total. In the elections of 2006 Hamas won 74 seats and Fatah only 45 which surprised everyone to some extent and confused American authorities (designated terrorist organization winning elections pushed for by Americans posed some problems, as you may guess). Yet in a poll conducted by Near East Consulting on 15 February 2006 on voters participating in the 2006 PA elections revealed the following responses to major concerns: 

Support for a Peace Agreement with Israel: 79.5% in support; 15.5% in opposition

Should Hamas change its policies regarding Israel: Yes – 75.2%; No – 24.8%

Under Hamas corruption will decrease: Yes – 78.1%; No – 21.9%

Under Hamas internal security will improve: Yes – 67.8%; No – 32.2% 

 As you see the reasons behind the outcome had to do more with disenchantment with Fatah than with true craving for Hamas with its extremist ideology. 

2. Taking of power. As a consequence of 2006 elections Hamas created in February 2006 a government without Fatah. Conditions on the ground deteriorated almost immediately, as Fatah did not take defeat easily. Fatah-Hamas tensions were expressed in a significant deterioration of law and order, and incidents of open violence between the two groups led to dozens of deaths, particularly in the Gaza Strip. Israelis had nothing to do with, until unrest after capturing Gilat Shalit and smuggling him to Gaza in June 2006. As a consequence the movement between Gaza and West Bank was radically restricted for Hamas leaders. In February 2007 Hamas and Fatah agreed for coalition and national unity government, however it did not live long. In June 2007 there was Gaza civil war between Fatah and Hamas (known as battle for Gaza). The war took only 5 days but it was bloody. First Hamas threw a Fatah member from the top of 15-story building, then Fatah killed the imam of main city mosque and threw Hamas militant from the top of 12-story building. In total at least 161 persons were killed and Hamas took completely over the power in Gaza. Human Rights Watch stated in its report that Fatah and Hamas fighters targeted and killed people not involved in hostilities, and engaged in gun battles near and even inside hospitals. The accusations also included public executions of captives and political opponents, throwing prisoners off high-rise apartment buildings, and shooting from a jeep marked with press insignia. PA retained a government in the West Bank (without Hamas). The bloody coup provoked Israeli and Egyptian blockade of Gaza as both countries designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. The blockade is legal under international law terms, however it was always pointed at by anti-Israeli activists as a reason for resistance (nobody questioned the same means imposed by Egypt).

 

 

In 

 

 Above pictures from 2007 Gaza take over by Hamas and the joy showed by its supporters.

 

3. Hamas rule. While at first some in Gaza were overjoyed many were later disillusioned. Hamas never again held another elections and its rule over Gaza was total. It controls schooling (provided mainly by UNRWA and paid for by international community, yet used by Hamas), international aid, judiciary system or what is left of it (as public executions of those accused of collaboration with Israel without any trial are normal), controls women dresses and family life. Yahya Sinwar, infamous architect of October 7 attack, was accused and sentenced for cruelly murdering such accused Palestinians - without any trial. He was sentenced by Israel in the 1980s to four life terms for offenses that included the killing of two Israeli soldiers and 12 suspected collaborators, a role that earned him the nickname “The Butcher of Khan Younis. For all purposes and with proportions regarded Hamas's regime is similar to the Stalinist or Taliban ones.

Here  is a report from 2015 by Amnesty International, an NGO vehemently critical of Israel to the point of changing the definition of some crimes against humanity as they stand in the law acts to be able to accuse Israel of committing them. The same AI accuses Hamas of massive tortures against fellow Palestinians and putting this score on Israelis. Here is this year's example of Hamas torturing civilian Palestine to death.

4. The use of civilians as human shields.  Not only in this but also in previous wars Hamas used and uses civilians as human shields to either prevent attacks by Israel on the organization or cause such attack to bring about unusually high number of non-militant victims and blame Israel for war crimes. The NATO Strategic Communications Center for the years 2008-2014 analyzed and published a report showing such a use of civilians by Hamas. In the report the enumerated most common activities described as shielding by civilians include: 

- firing rockets, artillery, and mortars from or in proximity to heavily populated civilian areas, often from or near facilities which should be protected according to the Geneva Convention (e.g. schools, hospitals, or mosques); 

-  locating military or security-related infrastructures such as HQs, bases, armouries, access routes, lathes, or defensive positions within or in proximity to civilian areas;

- protecting terrorists’ houses and military facilities, or rescuing terrorists who were besieged or warned by the IDF;

- combating the IDF from or in proximity to residential and commercial areas, including using civilians for intelligence gathering missions.

 In the eyes of Gazans, such as Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, Palestinian activist living in the US, very critical of Israeli government (no wonder) but equaly critical of Hamas, who keeps educating how in reality the life in the Strip looks like, writes: "

on Hamas tactics in Gaza:

Please, just die for the cause! It is official: Hamas’s strategy in Gaza City, which is experiencing the beginning of a ground invasion by the Israeli military, is to use the entire population as human shields to cause casualties and stop the Israeli military’s advance. This has been promoted by Hamas mouthpieces, activists, and journalists all over social media and Telegram, whereby they are telling civilians not to evacuate and remain in Gaza City even if the Israeli military issues evacuation orders, urging them to be part of the “existential fight” for the Strip.

A year and a half ago, I wrote about how in the early days of the war, Hamas both directly and indirectly prevented hundreds of thousands of Gazans from evacuating the north, causing thousands of unnecessary civilian casualties, and shared firsthand testimonies from Gazans who were shot at by gunmen affiliated with the terror group while attempting to flee.

Disturbingly, members of Hamas and sympathetic clerics kept citing an Islamic war-fighting doctrine from Surat Al Anfal in the Quran, Ayah 15 and 16, that prohibits turning one’s back to the enemy when facing them on the battlefield. One man told me that his brother was pressured by his Hamas neighbors to stay in Gaza with his family and children. They referenced these Quranic verses over and over and threatened severe consequences now and “on Judgment Day” if he were to flee the incoming IDF invasion. Imagine how many more lives could have been saved had Hamas not used its Islamist ideology to force Gaza’s population into an untenable situation.

The fascist death cult must not be able to repeat this strategy once again; all journalists, activists, humanitarians, and those who can, must do everything to expose this heinous strategy of Hamas and ensure that evacuation orders and information are disseminated widely and that safe corridors for civilians are identified and marked so that Palestinians in the Strip do not needlessly lose their lives on behalf of a Jihadi terrorist outfit whose sole strategy is to cause pressure on Israel through civilian casualties."

 

At the same time one has to remember the celebration in Gaza in the wake of October 7 atrocities. I do not say that everyone was rejoicing the horrible terror attack, but the public display of taken hostages and bodies of victims, when people were seen spitting on living and dead (as Shani Louk's body) or morbid body return ceremonies organized. 

 

However as seen through the eyes of some Palestinians many have had enough of Hamas and certainly living under Hamas rule is equal to living under oppressive, dictatorial force. How come than, that so many in the West try to white wash this terrorist organization, never caring about civilian Palestinians, not allowing them freedom of choice of how to live, at whom to vote, if to support peace process etc. Using them as objects to protect terrorist. And yet some see in them some romantic warrior figures. I must admit it is sickening, for me (coming from Eastern Europe) in a similar way to the cult of Che Guevara - a murderer of hundreds, including many children - as some kind of mass hero.

Francesca Albanese, the UN official, is one of singularly prominent Antisemitic voices treating civilian Palestinians, just as Hamas, simply as collateral damage and usuful tool in fighting Israel.

 

Lets give one more time voice to Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib:

 

“Hamas is wonderful”: Francesca Albanese, a UN official who has become the ‘darling’ of the “pro-Palestine” community, is degrading herself, the UN, human rights, and all that is reasonable by promoting Hamas as a mere political entity, which is just “misunderstood.” This UN official went out of her way to be accommodating for Hamas’s terror narrative and claimed that the organization built schools and was merely an ‘administrative body’ when in fact nothing in Gaza after the 2005 withdrawal of Israeli settlements was built by the Muslim Brotherhood offshoot.

Worse, she repeats the horrific out-of-touch narrative that is ironically stated by many anti-Palestinian voices, which is that the terror group was ‘elected’ by Palestinians and is therefore somehow legitimate nearly twenty years after the infamous 2006 elections. Hamas’s initial start began with establishing local, small-scale clinics, welfare, and educational facilities for a narrow constituency. This has been blown out of proportion by clueless academics and ignorant “experts” who want to paint Hamas as a social phenomenon as much as it is a terrorist and militant one.

What Albanese says is demonstrative of why large parts of the UN are no longer respected on the global stage. This is why human rights are no longer respected as a field, given that numerous organizations and agencies are only interested in Israeli violations of human rights of the Palestinian people, not the horrendous actions of a terror army that is ISIS-like in its disregard for basic human rights principles. This is why UNRWA is no longer trusted because it allowed itself to be penetrated and used by Hamas and terrorist operatives in Gaza instead of standing up and refusing to be a tool in the organization’s arsenal.

This is why large swaths of the so-called ‘human rights community’ are a joke because they have run cover for Hamas, and refused to speak out against the group’s torture, shooting, executions, abuses, and transgressions in Gaza because they chose to be activists instead of actual human rights professionals, and because they chose to be tools in their anti-Israel activities instead of being focused on a bigger and holier mission that knows no boundaries.

Bourgeois Western leftists who have never experienced life under Islamist, terrorist, and authoritarian regimes are not credible spokespersons for human rights and shouldn’t be taken seriously when pretending to know what they’re talking about. Francesca Albanese is merely a representation of a much wider symptom. She and hordes of activists and voices like hers must be shunned, confronted, and isolated to pursue a pragmatic pathway forward.

Free Palestine from the “pro-Palestine” industrial complex; free Gaza from Hamas; free Palestinians from Western activists; free Gazans from the “pro-resistance” types; free Gazans from pro-Hamas voices."