There is no path to peace that does not involve Hamas
Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ political chief in Gaza, attending a festival in solidarity with al-Aqsa mosque at Palestine Stadium in Gaza City, 1 October 2022
Jonathan Kuttab writes in Mondoweisson 16 July 2024:
Even before October 7, the taboo against talking to Hamas allowed the world to ignore the ever growing crisis in Gaza and its people until it blew up in their faces. However, it is a well known truth that you don’t make peace with your friends but with your enemies.
When October 7 occurred, Israel rapidly weaponized the demonization of Hamas, already declared by Israel and the US to be a terrorist group, to justify all its actions in Gaza. This was bolstered by a multitude of false accounts of beheaded babies, burnt pregnant mothers, sexually mutilated bodies, and mass rapes, none of which was proven. Every public discussion of the war had to start with the question: “Do you condemn Hamas?” And if you failed to do so, or if you failed to declare their actions “barbaric” rapidly enough, you were personally attacked and called antisemitic.
Any attempt to objectively discover what happened on that fateful day was compared to Holocaust denial. Hamas certainly undertook considerable violence against civilians, but we must acknowledge that just this week, leading Israeli paper Haaretz finally admitted to Israel’s widespread use of the Hannibal Directive: the killing of its own citizens to prevent capture. The declared objective of eliminating Hamas, not just defeating or neutralizing its fighting force, was the goal, and this became the justification for not only destroying Gaza — its hospitals, universities, markets, housing blocks, and infrastructure — but also for repeated population transfers on a mass scale in pursuit of that impossible objective.
I am not and have never been a supporter or apologist for Hamas. I am a Christian, and Hamas is an avowedly Muslim organization. I am a pacifist, and Hamas believes in armed struggle as the path to liberation. Yet, I know that there is no path to peace that does not involve Hamas, as well as some deeply abominable Israeli Jewish and Zionist organizations and politicians.
Recognizing the need to speak with Hamas does not in any way constitute support for that organization, its objectives, ideology, or tactics. Hamas is a political party, one which also oversaw an entire government structure and all its functions for years, in addition to maintaining an armed resistance force, the Qassam Brigades. The party has an official ideology, but it can also be pragmatic when forced to be.