The philosophy of Hamas in the writings of Yahya Sinwar
Yahya Sinwar, leader of the Palestinian Hamas movement, at a rally in Gaza City on 24 May 2021
Mondoweiss introduces the article by Haneen Odetallah on 3 July 2024:
The following was originally published in Arabic in Babelwad, titled “The Philosophy of Hamas: Politics and Existence According to Yahya Sinwar,” by Haneen Odetallah. The author uses Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s novel, “Thorns and Carnations,” as a lens through which the mindset of the contemporary resistance can be analyzed, delving into themes of self-reliance, sacrifice, and security awareness. Odetallah explores how these concepts are ingrained in individuals to foster political ascendancy and collective liberation, illustrating the strategic and existential dimensions of resistance and providing a unique perspective on the ideological framework of the resistance.
“We must enter Sinwar’s mind” is the slogan of the current phase in the “Israeli” media, which continues to broadcast loud condemnations after Yahya Sinwar, the head of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in Gaza, carried out the greatest military-intelligence deception in their entity’s history. Sinwar surprised them in a battle named “Al-Aqsa Flood,” but its real headline is that of Palestinian prisoners, to whom Sinwar has remained loyal — being a former prisoner himself who was liberated in a prisoner swap called the “Loyalty of the Free” deal.
Sinwar spent 23 years of his life in prison, including four years in solitary confinement, but he did not waste any of those years. He learned Hebrew and everything he could about his enemy, even formulating and executing a long-term intelligence plan from behind bars, which at the time was far-reaching. Sinwar studied and thought extensively, and he also wrote. Although we need not “enter Sinwar’s mind,” I believe that we, too, should at least “get to know his thinking,” to use a less intrusive expression.
But what might be easier than “entering Sinwar’s mind” is to read the writings he undertook after years of isolation, contemplation, and study.
In 2004, after a complex and protracted operation that required great effort and the recruitment of many prisoners, Yahya Sinwar, then a prisoner, published his novel, Thorns and Carnations, or “Thorns of Carnations,” as the writer intended. The novel deals with a thread from the story of the Palestinian struggle in the historical era between 1967 and the Al-Aqsa Intifada of the early 2000s, and the emergence of the Islamic movement in the Palestinian resistance — specifically the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas — against its social, political, and cultural background.