What it means that Hamas is trying to position itself as a Palestinian liberation movement

Yahya Sinwar chairs a meeting with leaders of Palestinian factions at his office in Gaza City, 13 April 2022

Ayelett Shani interviews Yaniv Ronen in Haaretz on 10 October 2024:

Please tell us about yourself.

I have a doctorate in Middle East history, and I was formerly a researcher in the Knesset’s Research and Information Center. I did vocational retraining related to environmental quality and sustainability, and afterward established and managed a sustainability and environmental quality unit in the Givatayim municipality [a Tel Aviv suburb]. Since then I’ve been trying to combine my area of specialization with a sustainability approach, in part through the Forum for Regional Thinking [within the Van Leer Jerusalem Foundation think tank].

We’ll talk today about your interpretation of a document titled “Our Narrative… Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” which Hamas published this past January and is effectively their version of what happened on October 7.

The document is intended to justify them and their behavior – to their people, to their partners in the Arab world and in particular to the West. The attention to the West is evident both in the document’s language and in the fact that it was published in English on the same day or on the day after it appeared in Arabic.

Is that unusual?

Yes, if we look at the significant or seminal documents that Hamas has published until now. Hamas’ covenant, from 1988, was never translated into English. In 2017 they published a policy document that is an amendment to their charter, and it too did not appear in English. “Our Narrative” is the first to come out in English.

And we can learn from it about how Hamas would like to brand and position itself vis-à-vis its intended audiences in the West.

They use contemporary language. Their attitude toward Israel as [an example of] settler colonialism is part of the most up-to-date academic-intellectual discourse. As a historian of Palestinian nationalism, I am familiar only with an attitude toward Israel as colonialist. Their use of the term “settler colonialism” means that someone there is very much attuned to the contemporary discourse in American universities.

Please explain.

In colonialism, there is what’s known as the “metropole” – the “mother” state – and the colony. The mother country dominates the colony remotely. Settler colonialism is something different. The idea is that the settlers from the mother country who arrive in the new world develop an identity of their own and see themselves as a superior culture, as superior to the place they’re in and to the people who live there. Today there is quite broad agreement in Western academia that Zionism, or the State of Israel, fits this model. That is disputed in Israel, of course.

Who wrote the document? It is credited to the “Hamas Media Office.” Can we assume that whoever wrote it was based comfortably in the organization’s political bureau, in Qatar, and not in Gaza?

Hamas is a very complex movement. Multifaceted, as the great [Israeli] expert on Hamas Shaul Mishal terms it. They play on this matter of multiple faces, on displaying a different face depending on what they’re after. The body that leads the movement today is the political bureau, which is based abroad, and its establishment as such is effectively a lesson that Hamas learned from the tough oppression that Israel wielded against them in the 1990s. Israel actually almost succeeded in suppressing Hamas completely, until Moussa Abu Marzouk was able to rehabilitate it. He arrived from the United States with suitcases of money.

A recurrent motif.

Totally. Abu Marzouk used the money to get the movement back on its feet, and he understood that it would be best to have a leadership abroad as well. He established the political bureau. Its head was Khaled Meshal, followed by Ismail Haniyeh, and today Yahya Sinwar.

What does it actually signify that Sinwar is today head of the political bureau? Does it mean the welding together of the military and political wings?

It’s too soon to say; in my view, it’s shaping up that way.

A political bureau connotes wallowing in comfort in Qatar, to surround oneself with status symbols, sending the kids to elite universities.

The very fact that Sinwar was chosen as head of the political bureau is a declaration: We are all part of the struggle. Perhaps also an implicit critique of the decadent life in Qatar. I am convinced that the political bureau approved the document. I’m certain that Sinwar or someone on his behalf went over it meticulously. It was approved. They made sure that it represents what they wanted to convey. There are no surprises in the document; the same things were articulated by Meshal in an interview. These are their stands on issues.

In terms of the style, the linguistic choices and so forth, the document seems to have been written by a number of people. There’s some odd phraseology in it, and incompatibilities between headings and content. I ran it through an AI program, and asked whether it was written by way of AI, and got a negative reply.

I absolutely didn’t feel that I was reading a text of artificial intelligence. Just the opposite: I felt that I was reading a text written by people who have a structured worldview, clear aims, a perception of what they want to achieve and how [to do that].

Let’s start with the choice of the word “narrative” – a surprising choice. A narrative, of all things? I would have expected that they would call it – I don’t know – “Our Truth,” “Our Essence,” “Our Struggle.”

It’s definitely something new. It’s a word I haven’t encountered in Palestinian texts. When I read the Arabic, I translated the word to myself as “version.” But after they themselves translated it into English, we know for certain that they meant “narrative.” By choosing that word, you’re already attesting about yourself that you’re not objective. It resonates with modern Arabic. “Everyone has a narrative, so do we. We aren’t just another secret or fringe movement. We’re presenting our narrative.”

“We are now informing you what the narrative is.”

Yes, and that narrative is that Hamas is a national liberation movement. Hamas presents itself here as a substitute for the Palestine Liberation Organization – without saying so explicitly, of course. They connect themselves to the Palestinian history of the people that is struggling against the occupation. If in its charter, Hamas presented itself as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the attitude there toward the PLO was similar to what you would show toward an older uncle – on the one hand there is great respect, on the other hand you say, your time has passed – the rules of the game are different now.

The Oslo Accords thrust the PLO’s top ranks into the Palestinian Authority, and since then its strength and importance have declined. It still has branches and a network of people on salary, but it has no genuine operational capability. At the same time, the PLO remains the No. 1 symbol of Palestinian nationalism and the Palestinian struggle. Hamas will never come out against it openly, and no Palestinian will dare to say that the PLO is no longer relevant, because for them the PLO is mythic.

But when Hamas declares, “We are a national liberation movement,” they are implicitly saying: We are taking the place of the PLO. We are leading the Palestinian struggle for liberation and independence. It’s significant not only in comparison to previous Hamas declarations, but also at the level of what’s happening on the ground. Hamas today is the strongest element in the Palestinian field – not only in the territories but also abroad. They built up a network of operatives and of fundraising that overshadows the PLO. Think about it: They published that document in January.

Deep into Israel’s ground operation.

If I’m not mistaken, at that stage of the fighting, the IDF had already conquered Gaza City and was advancing toward Khan Yunis. Tens of thousands had already been killed. A movement that issues a document like that during the course of such a difficult war, is effectively saying: Folks, we’re not going anywhere.

I don’t understand. How did they make the transformation from an Islamist movement into a national liberation movement? There’s an entire chapter in the document that deals with Palestinian history, which began, in their view, 105 years ago.

They’re not claiming, of course, that they already existed back then, but what they are doing is moving toward the center of the Palestinian arena, presenting themselves as the leadership. There is also sober-eyed observation here. The PLO is gone. The Palestinian Authority is weak. The percentage of support for Abu Mazen [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas], in the latest polls, is almost nil. There is simply no one else.

If in the first document, the PLO was termed “father, brother and close friend,” and the [2017] policy document talks about the need to renew the PLO, in “Our Narrative” there is only one peripheral reference to the PLO. The absence of any reference to the PLO is a continuation of the way Hamas refers to or perceives itself. The moment they carried out such a significant assault – probably the most significant Palestinian armed operation ever – they also have to take responsibility in a way that they connect to Palestinian history. By the way, the PLO’s Palestinian National Charter also starts [its chronology] in 1917 – with the Balfour Declaration. Hamas is connecting here to the Palestinian national root or foundation, and is saying, “Now it’s our turn.”

“Now we’re writing Palestinian history.”

Palestinian history is the history of struggle, and according to their narrative, October 7 constitutes part of that struggle. Or a new stage in the struggle.

What about their connection with the Muslim Brotherhood? It too has disappeared from the document and from the narrative.

In its charter, Hamas still refers to itself as a branch of the Brotherhood, but over the years Hamas has distanced itself from the mother movement and focused on the struggle against Israel. Already in the policy document, Hamas cut itself off from the Muslim Brotherhood. That began as a cynical, self-interested move, because the Egypt of [President, Abdel Fattah al-] Sisi and Saudi Arabia consider the Brotherhood their enemy, and Hamas would like to befriend both of those regimes.

Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin, right, is surrounded by suporters at a demonstration in Gaza City in 2003

In principle, the history of Hamas starts from its break with the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1973, Sheikh [Ahmed] Yassin, who was the head of the Brotherhood’s Gaza branch, established an independent organization called the Islamic Center, which continued the path of the Brotherhood and engaged in civil activity. In 1978 it was granted legal status as an “Ottoman association” [a corporation that works for public purposes] by the Israeli military, because we [Israelis] thought it was preferable for the Palestinians to deal with mosques and social activities and not with national issues.

The eruption of the first intifada, in December 1987, took Yassin and his associates by surprise, because it was led by secular organizations in the territories. Yassin realized that he would have to join the popular struggle. In a meeting he convened, the decision was made to form a movement specifically to take part in the struggle: the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas. In 2017, in the policy document, they declared their breakaway, and in 2024 they continue with the same trend: Once we were like that, today we are different.

They don’t maintain that once they were like that – it’s like the ties with the Muslim Brotherhood never existed. Those ties were also ideological and conceptual, or at least purported to be. So where did it all disappear to?

If you landed yesterday from the moon and had never heard of Hamas, and are given “Our Narrative” to read, you would never know that they had ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. But Hamas is still an Islamist movement, and the ideology of the Brotherhood is quite fluid. The change lies mainly in the emphases: from an Islamic movement that sees Palestine as sacred land that needs to be liberated out of a religious obligation, as it is presented in the charter, to a national liberation movement with religious foundations that aspires to obtain rights for its people, as it comes across in “Our Narrative.”

In that document Hamas, sets forth the reasons that, in its view, led to October 7. The messy situation in Al-Aqsa Mosque, the rise of a far-right government in Israel, the expansion of the settlements and so forth. The list of reasons concludes with them asking, “What did you expect us to do?”

I think that’s an apologetic statement. It’s a response to pressure that they apparently felt, both from the West and from the Arab states – including those that justify the struggle – who said to them, “You lunatics, what did you do, you murdered children.” The reasons they enumerate in the document are familiar and known. They were articulated by [late senior leader Saleh al-Arouri] and Meshal – for example, they were published by Hamas spokespersons and also exist in internal correspondence that the Israel Defense Forces found in the Strip. The change of the status quo in Al-Aqsa caused them stress. Arouri stated explicitly that the confrontation would break out because of the West Bank, not because of Gaza. In addition, they were worried by [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich – by his plan.

Of course. The “decisive plan” of commander in chief Smotrich [which envisions Israel’s annexation of the entire West Bank, and its Palestinian inhabitants being offered a choice between second-class citizenship or exile].

It’s indeed a plan that many Israelis don’t think about much, but when Smotrich, who conceived of it, became a minister with a role in the Defense Ministry, responsible for civilian matters in the West Bank, the Palestinians concluded that it was intended for implementation. The Palestinians are very aware of our internal politics. I read their Telegram channels all the time, and half of what you find there are all kinds of things that were said on current-affairs programs on Israeli television.

Add to that the prospects of Israel’s normalization with Saudi Arabia, and the Saudis making do with a comment like, “It will be necessary to ease things for the Palestinians,” and not making normalization conditional on the establishment of a Palestinian state, and Netanyahu’s previous speech at the United Nations – which they also list among the reasons for October 7 – and you’ll understand why they felt that they had to overturn a table, as it were. To do something, fast, before the door was shut in their face. It has to be said that until August 2023 the Israeli policy conducted by the prime minister – to push the Palestinian issue into a corner, to make it a non-issue – very much succeeded.

Success that led to the worst disaster since the Holocaust.

I’m referring to summer 2023; up until the summer of 2023 it was a success.

We’re now in fall 2024. To call it a success of Netanyahu’s is like praising someone who succeeded in racking up the world’s biggest overdraft until he collapsed, together with the bank.

Historians are educated to observe every phenomenon through the lens of its time and place, and when you observe it from the perspective of the summer of 2023, it was working. It was a line that Netanyahu pursued, and it even led Saudi Arabia to stop making [diplomatic] normalization with Israel conditional on resolution of the [Palestinian] conflict.

Let’s talk about Hamas’ version of events as presented in the document. They maintain that the operation was aimed solely at military targets. The additional goal, as stated, was to avoid violence against women, children and the elderly – which is, they say, a holy Muslim duty. They were determined to avoid harming civilians, and if civilians were harmed, they say, it’s the fault of Israel, which collapsed too fast.

To begin with, it’s obvious that this is a cooked-up, fantasized account, patently untrue. Because we know what happened, and the scale and the intensity of what happened. Our interest [here] is not to expose Hamas’ lies, because this account is aimed mainly at the West, for Western eyes. The way to look at this part is actually to examine what Hamas is saying about itself through this.

It attests to itself as a peace-loving movement, which from the moment of its inception was committed to avoid harming the innocent. Even after the massacre in the Tomb of the Patriarchs [in Hebron in 1994, perpetrated by Baruch Goldstein against Muslim worshippers], Hamas immediately called for an avoidance of violence, and Israel ignored it.

That’s the desire to present itself as a national liberation movement acting as part of a just struggle. A responsible, serious body, faithful to the laws of morality and justice – both of Islam and of the international community. By denying the atrocities, they want both to be legitimized and to differentiate themselves from other terrorist organizations, like ISIS, for example, which boasted about the atrocities it perpetrated.

They demand the intervention of the international community. For it to investigate Israel, and to investigate Hamas as well.

That’s an innovation at several levels. First of all, Hamas effectively agrees to accept the international, Western standards of an international investigation; and, second, they are pushing for external intervention in the conflict.

What do we actually learn from this document? Let’s say we were to place it on an imaginary axis – from 1988, via the policy document in 2017, down to “Our Narrative.” What do we see?

Even if we think that Hamas must be annihilated, and that this document is a façade painted in beautiful but fake colors, it still contains a lot of truth. We see the movement from its establishment as an underground, Islamist body with an aggressive and antisemitic charter in 1988, toward the boycott of the Palestinian elections in 1996, because from their viewpoint the Palestinian Authority is Oslo [because of its participation in the Oslo process], and Oslo constitutes recognition of Israel, and Hamas doesn’t want to be part of that.

By 2006, they were already taking part in the elections. In 2006, they also signed the Prisoners’ Document [of five different Palestinian liberation organizations], which signified recognition of Israel, and in 2007 they signed the Mecca Document, which contains agreement to a state within the 1967 borders. In 2017, then, in the policy document, they severed themselves from the Muslim Brotherhood, and accepted the principles of what was termed the “Palestinian consensus.” And in 2024 they are a national liberation movement that has agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital.

The axis of pragmatism.

You could call it that. If you look at Palestinian history, it can be seen as a development similar to that of the Fatah movement or the PLO. They started with an armed struggle, which supposedly was the only way to liberate Palestine, a very aggressive national charter, then the “phased plan,” followed by declaring a state and recognizing Israel.

Interesting to imagine what they would write if they had published the document today.

The same thing, I would assume. What’s changed between January and today, from their perspective?

In January, they had fewer reasons for optimism. In the meantime, a year has gone by [since October 7]. Israel has not succeeded in bringing about the collapse of Hamas. They are still holding the hostages.

If they were to write it today, perhaps it would be less apologetic. It’s hard to know. Hamas has a tendency to take a stand and stick to it. You can see that clearly in the negotiations for the hostages. I am continuously monitoring them. Their conditions haven’t changed. The day after the last hostages [in the staged prisoner exchange of November 2023] were returned, and Israel resumed fighting, their spokespersons announced via all channels that there would not be another deal without a general cessation of the war. That was at the end of November. Since then we have captured Rafah, Khan Yunis, we split the Strip in two, laid siege, bombed – and they haven’t budged. “Want a deal? Stop the war and withdraw.”

On the other hand, you say that Hamas is a chameleon-type movement, which changes according to its reading of the current situation.

True. For some reason, we expect Hamas to remain what it was 35 years ago, when Ahmed Yassin established it in a room in the Shati refugee camp. That’s not realistic. The world has changed, everything has changed, so why should Hamas stay the same? There’s a developing body here. Israel needs to figure out what it does with this.

In what direction is this body developing? How do you see the document they will issue five years on?

We have no way of knowing. The question is, what will be with Israel? We have a tendency to view what’s happening around us in disconnect from our own behavior. That’s a mistake. When Hamas says they are very stressed by Smotrich’s “decisive plan,” we dismiss it. When they declared that they were apprehensive about an approaching normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, we say, “No way, they’ve always hated Israel.” It’s true, they always hated Israel, they always wanted to strike at us, but the battle plan of October 7 was formulated already after Operation Protective Edge [in Gaza, 2014], and was implemented when it was for a variety of reasons, including our behavior. What Hamas will write about itself in another five years depends on what we do.

The document ends with items requiring action – what needs to happen now. They write that the international community should terminate the occupation, and then the Palestinian public alone will decide who will rule in Gaza. How do you understand that?

That Hamas is connecting itself again to Palestinian history. One of the principles that Yasser Arafat adhered to, and also succeeded with, is the principle known as “independence of Palestinian decisions”: We alone will decide what is good for us. Not the Arab League. Not the United Nations. No one else. When Hamas writes that in their document, they hook up again with the root of the Palestinian struggle and present themselves as the responsible body and the exclusive address.

And if Israel has other plans for the day after, they are making it clear to Israel: “We are the day after.”

That’s just it, there is no Israeli plan for the day after. There may be ideas, documents, directions – no plan. It’s important to say that. In the face of the Israeli non-plan, or in the face of the fantasies or wishful thinking, Hamas is saying, “Only we, the Palestinians, will decide on our fate.” They are in effect saying to Israel: There is no scenario that doesn’t include us. Unfortunately, they’re right.

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