Eliminating Hamas: A Strategy That May Backfire
Following the horrific October 7 attacks, 'Hamas must be destroyed' became the war's rallying cry. Can Hamas truly be destroyed?
What is Hamas?
The Islamic Resistance Movement, commonly known as "Hamas", is a Palestinian nationalist Islamist political and military organization that has been effectively controlling and governing Gaza since 2007.
Hamas, despite starting out as a charity organization in Gaza, quickly grew to be a political and military juggernaut and one of the central players in Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While its initial focus was to provide social services to Palestinians struggling under the weight of the Israeli occupation, it quickly evolved into a militant organization with the goal of resisting Israeli control and advocating for the establishment of an Islamic state in historic Palestine. The group began carrying out armed attacks against Israeli military and civilian targets.
Sadly, despite their alleged mission of defending Palestinians, Hamas militants have been responsible for countless executions and acts of torture against their own people, not to mention the civil war they instigated against other Palestinian factions.
Is Hamas Popular in Gaza?
Hamas is just a power-hungry organization that succeeded in the following two strategies:
- Brutally oppressing the people of Gaza and controlling all resources, thus becoming the most powerful entity for the 2 million people living there
- Capitalizing on the anger, frustration and poverty of Gazans suffering under the Israeli blockade, while presenting itself as the only hope and salvation
The common question of "why don't Gazans overthrow Hamas" typically points to a basic lack of understanding of this common dynamic and how effective the two strategies described above have been.
Days before the October 7 attacks, a survey conducted by the nonpartisan research network Arab Barometer showed that only about 23% of respondents said they have a "great deal or quite a lot of trust in Hamas", and more than 52% had no trust at all in Hamas.
Can Hamas Truly Be Destroyed?
The short answer is "no". Here's why.
As described earlier, one of Hamas's main source of power is the deep trauma, anger, and desperation that has pervaded Gaza for the last two decades. Many of their recruits are either young men trying to provide food for their families, or young men who experienced violence or death of a loved one, or both.
If Hamas is the embodiment of that anger and desperation, it is no coincidence that after every major flare up, their popularity and power increases. And after this all-out conflict that has destroyed most of Gaza, one can only deduce that their popularity is at an all-time high.
Hamas is not a physical entity that can be destroyed by killing its members and blowing up their command centers. It is a perverse ideology that grew out of years of conflict and occupation, and thrived on oppression, hopelessness and lack of opportunity.
How to Effectively Eliminate Hamas
The only way to eliminate Hamas is to counter the conditions that have made them popular and effective in the first place:
- Put an immediate end to the violence that keeps traumatizing generations of Palestinians who will grow up wanting to avenge the horrors that they continue to live through
- Improve the utterly miserable conditions of life in Gaza and Palestinian communities
- Provide access to basic services like food, shelter, and healthcare
- Remove the blockade that has choked the lives of millions of people in Gaza
- Help strengthen the Palestinian economy and civic institutions, as a way to lay the foundation for self-governance
Those are not easy solutions that can be implemented overnight, and sadly, the Israeli policies of the last two decades have been in complete opposition of every item listed above.
As the world watches this conflict hit rock-bottom, it might be time to re-evaluate certain assumptions and realize that this is simply no longer sustainable. Something different needs to be done, and done immediately.
this is simply no longer sustainable