Since the Battle of Al-Aqsa Flood, Israeli cries to crush Hamas have escalated, and they have been joined by calls from major Western powers for the necessity of ending Hamas’ rule in the Gaza Strip and removing it from the circle of influence in Palestinian decision-making.
This was accompanied by a global campaign that demonized Hamas and accused it of terrorism, seeing it as an obstacle to achieving peace and stability in the Middle East – and the matter was not without the presence of effective Arab and regional powers that were fed up with Hamas – and a cause of spoiling its foreign relations and its security and development strategies. This was not hidden by Arab leaders and officials who spoke behind closed doors with Western leaders, or with figures who revealed this in the media, such as: Dennis Ross and Thomas Friedman.
A world without “Hamas”.
So, these people see that Hamas is the problem, that its head is in demand, and that the gateway to stability in the region is to eliminate Hamas!
Let us deal with the hypothesis of getting rid of Hamas calmly and in an objective framework. Let those who mobilized the world and the media against Hamas answer our simple questions.
Hamas emerged as a movement in 1987, about forty years after the decision to partition Palestine, the 1948 war, and the establishment of the Israeli entity. What did lovers of peace and stability do for forty years to give the Palestinians their rights, end the Israeli occupation, and implement United Nations resolutions?! Was Hamas the obstacle and the problem?!
Thirty years after the Oslo Accords signed in 1993 – in which the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization hoped to establish an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip within five years – who obstructed the implementation of the agreement? Who destroyed the settlement process? Who destroyed the two-state solution? Who turned the Oslo experience and the settlement process into a disaster for the Palestinian people?! Isn’t it the Israeli side that doubled the number of settlers, confiscated lands, Judaized holy sites, and transformed the Palestinian Authority into a functional security entity that serves the occupation?
More than twenty years after the Arab (Saudi) initiative, wasn’t it the Israeli occupation that ignored and thwarted it, and caused it to be put on the shelf, if not the trash?!
Assuming that there had been no Hamas throughout the past period, would the Israelis have given the Palestinians a fully sovereign state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip? Or is the problem in the essence of Zionist ideology, and the ruling Israeli decision-making mentality that rejects this?!
For example, during the period 2/25-3/3/1996, Hamas carried out several operations; In retaliation for the martyrdom of Yahya Ayyash, it shook the Israeli entity. The major Western powers, the Israeli entity, the Palestinian Authority, and a number of Arab countries and countries of the world hastened to hold an international conference that they called: “The Peacemakers Conference” on March 13, 1996 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. To support the settlement process and fight “terrorism”.
The Palestinian Authority, in cooperation with the Israeli occupation and the United States – and using all means of oppression and brutality – launched a brutal campaign against Hamas in an attempt to eradicate everything related to the Islamic resistance movement.
In practice, the authorities did not leave stone unturned, and were able to dismantle most, if not all, of the resistance cells. They succeeded to a large extent in striking Hamas’ organizational structure and stifling its popular base.
so what?! During the next four years, the matter settled for the authority, and it and its “nine” security services were responsible for meeting Israeli demands and achieving the targeted “quality standards.” But the Israeli occupation did nothing but pursue Judaization and settlement programs, and use the settlement process as a cover to penetrate the Arab and Islamic region and normalize relations with it, and the matter culminated in the failure of the second Camp David negotiations in July 2000.
The question that imposes itself: That period was – in practice – a “world without enthusiasm,” so why was the promised peace settlement not achieved?
This is why Yasser Arafat lost any hope of achieving the dream of the Palestinian state that he sought. This frustration played a key role in pushing Arafat to support the Al-Aqsa Intifada that broke out in September 2000, and even Fatah elements participated in it, both popularly and militarily.
As for the second result, it is that within a very short time, Hamas regained its health and advanced to lead the armed resistance and gain unprecedented public support. It was crowned with a landslide victory in the 2006 Legislative Council elections.
The attempt to create a “world without Hamas” was repeated by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah since 2007 and for many years in the West Bank. Hamas suffered (and is still suffering) from the oppression of the Authority, (and with it Israeli oppression and American expertise), its persecution, the closing of its institutions, and the attacks on its buildings. Organization, what was the result after 16 years?!
The result is that Hamas is the most popular faction in the West Bank, or at least the main faction competing with Fatah! Otherwise, why did the Fatah leadership evade the elections and rearrange the Palestinian house in the spring of 2021, and is still evading it until now?! Even in the Gaza Strip, the exhausting siege and fighting five devastating wars over 16 years have only made Hamas stronger and more popular!!
Therefore, the question directed to the Israeli occupation: If the West Bank is under your direct and indirect occupation, and you have failed over 36 years to uproot Hamas, even with a Palestinian partner with you, and it is still at the height of its popularity; What do you expect, assuming that you were able to reoccupy the Gaza Strip?! Why insist on “trying the tested”? And to “reinvent the wheel”?!
The will of the occupation…or the will of the people?!
There is an obvious question that arises: Does “a world without Hamas” reflect the will of the occupation and its allies, or the will of the Palestinian people?!
Therefore, do the Israeli occupation and its allies have the right to guardianship over the Palestinian people? Do they have the right to impose their own criteria for the Palestinian people to choose their representatives and leadership? What is this degree of impudence and arrogance for the enemy to decide the form and characteristics of the leadership of a people who are victims of the occupation?!
The second obvious question: Why do the Western world, Arab normalizers, and their allies seek to adapt the situation in Palestine in accordance with the desires and standards of the occupation, and in a way that is comfortable for “Israel”? Instead of striving, in accordance with hundreds of international resolutions and the axioms of peoples’ rights to self-determination, to adapt the situation in favor of ending the occupation and exerting all pressures on it to force it to do so?!
Therefore, the survival of the Israeli occupation – as a “state above the law”, so that its occupation is secured and its continued subjugation of another people is ensured – is an anomaly that must go away.
Therefore, if the Palestinian people choose Hamas – in a free expression of their will – what is correct is to respect the will of the people, not the will of the occupation. Hamas ruled the Gaza Strip according to the Palestinian majority that elected it, and it did not come with the permission of “Israel” or America, nor with their approval, so that it would stay if they were satisfied or go if they were angry. This is not their business.
Realistic indicators
Indicators show that more than 75 days after the brutal, devastating Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, Hamas’s popularity is still high and rising, and the Palestinian incubator is still rallying around it inside and outside Palestine. The method of massacres and massacres has deepened the desire of the Palestinian people for revenge and to make more sacrifices to end the occupation.
That is, the crazy Israeli desire to reach a “world without Hamas” only made Hamas stronger, and even raised its value on the Palestinian, Arab, Islamic, and global levels as a resistance and liberation movement. At a time when the ugly face of the occupation was revealed more and more.
The latest opinion polls – issued by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research on 12/13/2023 – show an increase in Hamas’s popularity, more convergence around the resistance line, and the presence of an overwhelming majority demanding Abbas’s resignation.
Moreover, perhaps if there had been a referendum on the most popular faction or party in the Arab and Islamic world, Hamas would have won with a comfortable majority, and attained a position that no Palestinian faction, party, or Arab or Islamic leader could dream of. Perhaps “Abu Ubaida” – whose name we do not know or the shape of his face – received much higher votes than many of the leaders and presidents whose names are announced in the media day and night!
Hamas and the international community
If the world were without enthusiasm, would it be better for the international community to support the Palestinian cause?!
In fact, an objective study of the course of the world’s interaction with the Palestine issue – its top spot on the international agenda, and the high percentage of votes for it since the establishment of Hamas until now (1987-2023) – indicates that whenever there is resistance, an atmosphere of uprising, confrontation with the occupation, and the rise of Hamas’ role, the This percentage increases in the vote of the United Nations and its institutions, and in the official and popular interaction of the world.
The more the settlement movement takes control and imposes a state of “calm,” the more international interest, support, and voting rates in the United Nations decline. The Israeli side exploited this for more settlement and Judaization towards closing the Palestinian issue, and imposing its perceptions that erase the rights of the Palestinian people to their land and sanctities. Specialized researchers such as Dr. Walid Abdel Hay.
Hamas and “terrorism”
Several Western countries accuse Hamas of “terrorism” and killing civilians, and therefore see the need to remove it from international legitimacy. As for the Palestinian people, Arabs, and Muslims, Hamas is a moderate, open Islamic movement, a national liberation movement, and its existence is linked to confronting Zionist terrorism and ending the occupation.
Trying to crush and neutralize Hamas will not end the essence of the idea of liberation, as it is a sacred and inherent right of every people who have dignity and seek to determine their own destiny. Accusing Hamas of terrorism is merely a tool to prevent any legitimate resistance action against the occupation.
As for the issue of targeting civilians, perhaps there is no room to discuss it here, but from a historical perspective it is sufficient to point out that Hamas has sought since its establishment to focus on military targets, and it had previously, after the massacre of the Ibrahimi Mosque carried out by a Zionist in 1994, offered to the occupation to avoid killing civilians. But the occupation ignored this and continued its massacres.
For your information, documented statistics indicate that the occupation killed more than 11 thousand Palestinians, the overwhelming majority of them civilians, in the period since the year 2000, until just before the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation on October 7 last year. The whole world is now witness to the Zionist massacres in the Gaza Strip. Let us first talk about “Zionist terrorism.”
Moderate Islamic civilizational thought is the most powerful, profound and broad school in Palestine and the Arab and Islamic world. Palestine, with its great religious status and heritage, occupies a central place in the conscience and heart of every Arab and Muslim.
This school – even if Hamas is struck – can reproduce a more powerful and widespread movement. This is something that its owners believe is linked to a just battle worth sacrificing and dying for. It is also linked to the status of Palestine and not necessarily to the presence of Hamas. It is an ideology entrenched in Palestinian society and the nation, and it is foolish to ignore it and insist on going against the movement of history after thirty years of British colonialism, 75 years of Zionist colonialism, and using mechanisms that have proven to fail.
The clear result of this discussion is that those who talk about a world without Hamas do not only mean Hamas itself, but rather they target the resistance of the Palestinian people and their living and free forces. They want it to be a world that imposes a suitable environment for the continuation of the occupation, injustice, and oppression of the Palestinian people… and they want a Palestinian people without a will, a people that dances. To the tune of the occupation, a people without nails or teeth; Which will not happen!!
Instead, the global effort must focus on creating a world without colonialism… a world without occupation… a world without an aggressive, colonial, expansionist, replacementist Zionist project… a world that respects the free will of peoples… and focuses on putting pressure on “Israel”, not on fighters from For their freedom, a world that stops evading the entitlement that will happen, sooner or later, which is the liberation of Palestine and the end of the occupation.
