No, I Do NOT Condemn Hamas

The ubiquitous question supporters of Israel ask supporters of Palestinians’ liberation from Israel’s colonial military occupation is “Do you condemn Hamas?” Here is why my response to that is "No!"

The military action that armed Palestinians engaged in on Oct. 7, Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, was condemned by Israel and its Western allies, including supposed “progressives” such Bernie Sanders, as an “unprovoked terrorist attack” that Israel “had the right to defend itself” against, and the ubiquitous question supporters of Israel ask supporters of Palestinians’ liberation from Israel’s colonial military occupation is “Do you condemn Hamas?” [Or “Do you condemn October 7?”] My answer to that question is unequivocally: “No, I do not condemn Hamas, nor do I condemn the Oct. 7 uprising led by Hamas’ armed wing (and participated in by many other armed Palestinian groups).” I have many criticisms of Hamas, and I think there are aspects of the Oct. 7 operation that can legitimately be criticized, but on the whole, I think that it and most other acts of armed resistance by the Palestinians to Israel’s military occupation over the years are justified.

Indeed, Palestinians, like other groups of people under military occupation, have the right under international law to resist that occupation, including the right to engage in armed resistance: UN General Assembly resolution 37/43 affirms “the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.” China recently backed the right of Palestinians to engage in armed resistance against Israeli occupation of their land; one of its foreign ministry staff, Ma Xinmin, stated during the International Court of Justice’s recent public hearings regarding South Africa’s genocide case against Israel that “Palestinian people’s use of force to resist foreign oppression and complete the establishment of an independent state is [an] inalienable right.”

Many myths have been promoted about the Oct. 7 uprising. Supporters of Israel’s brutal regime, such as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, have called it an “unprovoked terrorist attack” and/or claimed that it violated a ceasefire agreement that existed prior to Oct. 7. But no such ceasefire existed. Even in the days immediately preceding Oct. 7, Israel attacked and killed Palestinians. Prior to Oct. 7, 2023 was the deadliest year on record in the West Bank, where Hamas barely existed (the West Bank is governed by the Palestinian Authority, a corrupt organization that does Israel’s bidding), and overall Israel killed several hundred Palestinians between January and early October. I don’t imagine I need to tell readers of this blog how brutal Israel’s 76-year occupation of Palestine has been; massacres of civilians, torture, arbitrary detention of individuals not charged with any crime, demolitions of homes, expulsion of millions of Palestinians from their land or from Palestine altogether—all that and more has been part and parcel of Palestinians’ experience ever since (and even before) 1948.

There were also various claims about atrocities by Palestinians on Oct. 7, such as that they beheaded 40 babies (when in fact only one baby died on Oct. 7, and wasn’t beheaded) or that they engaged in mass rape, that have been conclusively debunked, and many of the purveyors of these claims have been exposed as fraudsters. To be sure, there were unarmed civilians killed by Palestinian fighters on Oct. 7; some may have been deliberate (for instance, a video clip published in a December New York Times article showed Palestinian fighters killing three civilians who arrived at Kibbutz Be’eri by car), and those acts should be condemned. Similarly, although the taking of (military) prisoners of war can be justified in some cases, particularly in this instance where it was a means of gaining leverage to secure the release of thousands of Palestinians illegally detained in Israeli prisons, it is certainly reasonable to criticize the taking of civilians as prisoners, which is illegal under international law.

But armed resistance to Israel’s military occupation is not only justifiable under international law, but necessary. Peaceful protest does not deter bullies like Israel. Palestinians have engaged in nonviolent resistance to Israeli brutality on many occasions, to no avail. In the 2018-2019 Great March of Return, tens of thousands of unarmed Gaza residents approached the fence separating Gaza from Israel in protest of their imprisonment within Gaza and the brutal siege Israel imposed on Gaza (limiting the import of basic necessities, including food). From the very outset, Israeli snipers gunned down members of the crowd, ultimately killing more than 200 and injuring approximately 8000. The international sympathy that the protesters hoped would be evoked by the Israeli military’s brutality never materialized to any significant degree.

In fact, aside from Israel’s attack on Gaza in May 2021 and the events surrounding it, the conflict in Palestine was largely off the world’s radar over the past few years. Several Arab countries had normalized relations with Israel, and Saudi Arabia was on the verge of doing so. The pace of expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank, dispossessing Palestinians there of their land, had picked up considerably. Israel was holding thousands of Palestinians as political prisoners in Israeli jails, where they were subjected to brutal treatment including torture and, often, sexual assault or abuse. Gaza had been under a brutal siege (limited supplies of basic necessities, including food) for 17 years, making it challenging for Palestinians in Gaza to even survive, let alone enjoy an adequate standard of living. The operation that Gaza-based armed groups undertook, Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, gets its name from the many violent attacks on worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem by police, the IDF, and Jewish settlers that have taken place in recent years.

So, Palestinian armed groups had to act. And they were well-prepared to do so, having developed an extensive tunnel network that enabled them to freely move around in Gaza without much risk from Israeli bombing, created a considerable supply of indigenously made weaponry, and planned and trained for the operation for over a year as well as had significant combat experience during the many previous Israeli invasions of Gaza. Moreover, despite the decline in public attention to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the conditions in the world had become more favorable: US political, economic, and military hegemony have declined considerably, Western military resources were considerably depleted by the Ukraine conflict, and potential military allies such as Hezbollah and Yemen had grown significantly in strength. So the Palestinians chose the right moment to act, and their brilliantly planned operation to attack Israel’s military encirclement of Gaza was successful well beyond their expectations, decimating Israeli bases and military installations in the area and capturing scores of military personnel (including some high-ranking officers) who could be used as bargaining chips to secure the release of Palestinians.

And while it is true that Israel’s response was to initiate a genocidal bloodbath whose scale (considering the small size of Gaza) has no precedent in the 21^st century, unfortunately this is how colonial regimes (France in Algeria and Vietnam, the UK in India, etc.) have typically responded when there is a serious challenge to their rule—yet the reign of colonial regimes has come to an end, and with the unprecedented global upsurge in political awareness of and support for the Palestinian struggle, it will come to an end in Palestine as well.