The enemy of the Palestinian people
Tom Rogan
Figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry are unreliable. Still, independent assessments of the Hamas–Israel war put Gazan civilian casualties in the multiple thousands. As Israel understandably continues its military response to the Oct. 7 atrocities that took 1,200 lives, including around 850 civilians, civilians in Gaza need humanitarian aid.
The problem?
It’s twofold.
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First off, Hamas’s political agenda is utterly incompatible with Palestinian emancipation. Hamas is dedicated by charter, ideology, and organizational culture to the destruction of Israel. This genocidal intent isn’t a peripheral adjunct to Hamas’s “resistance” narrative. It is the terrorist group’s centering raison d’être. Hence the group’s logo includes a map of the entirety of Israel, colored in green (a play to narratives of Islamic beauty/holiness), and the image of a sword-enshrined Dome of the Rock mosque. This is a statement of intent to impose Shariah across the entirety of Israel.
In other words, Hamas openly advertises its absolute commitment to a distinctly, non-Jewish inclusive, Islamic fundamentalist one-state solution. This absolutist agenda distinguishes the group from other Palestinian terrorist groups, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The problem for the Palestinian people is that Hamas’s stance is utterly incompatible with their righteous aspiration of a two-state solution.
No nation can be expected, after all, to pursue even the prospect of meaningful long-term negotiations with an entity that exists to eliminate said nation. This concern takes on an especially emotive context for Israel, being that Hamas’s de facto mission statement is the prosecution of a second Holocaust. The credibility of that emotion as a calculus for Israeli policy was brutally underlined by the Oct. 7 attacks. The treatment of innocent civilian women and children testifies to the hatred that motivated those carrying out these attacks. But the attacks also underlined Hamas’s desire to carry out atrocities even in moments of relative peace with Israel. In turn, where short-term negotiations between Israel and Hamas are possible, Hamas’s political power, at least in its current form, is a fundamental obstruction to a two-state solution.
That takes us to the second factor. Underlining the existential nature of this conflict, Israel faces the daunting challenge of balancing real civilian humanitarian needs in Gaza with the need to resist an intractable foe. This concern is complicated by the long-standing Hamas tradition of leveraging aid at the expense of Gazan civilians.
There has been controversy over the evidence offered against some specific people accused of aid diversion. Still, Hamas’s record of aid diversion and corruption is undeniable. While much of Gaza’s approximately 2 million-strong population lives in poverty, most Hamas leaders live like kings. The group’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh is known to frequent five-star hotels in Qatar, and other Hamas leaders maintain fat bellies and luxurious accommodations in Lebanon and Turkey. They benefit from extensive commercial investments that do not fit Islamic rectitude.
U.S. officials have suggested there has been no evidence found of significant Hamas aid diversion during the present conflict. But the means of effectively monitoring aid diversion are limited. Hamas, after all, dominates information flows from Gaza.
We do know that Hamas has repeatedly seized U.N. food and fuel stockpiles in the past. Considering that Gaza’s fuel supply is rarely, if ever, commensurate with the needs of its civilian population, Hamas’s actions are highly destructive and immiserate the people it governs and, supposedly, serves. The terrorist group also imposes a range of punitive taxes on Gaza’s population. These include significant taxes on goods smuggled through Hamas tunnels at the Gaza-Egypt border. Applying to higher-end white goods and also basic staples such as food supplies, the taxes hurt an impoverished population that can ill afford them. That Hamas imposes these taxes regardless of civilian suffering shows how completely it rules in its own interests at the expense of Gaza’s people.
The taxes certainly aren’t funding a modern utilities program. Take Hamas’s wanton mismanagement of the territory’s water and power supplies. Extensive reporting from the Times of Israel documents this state of affairs. Israel has traditionally provided about 9% of Gaza’s water and roughly half its electricity. At the same time, however, Hamas stockpiles fuel for military needs, preventing its use by civilians. It has utterly neglected the maintenance of water supplies from the key Gaza Coastal Aquifer Basin. The consequence is a systemic shortage of clean water and long-standing bad health for Gazans.
It is clear, then, why Hamas has prospered as Gazans have suffered. Members of the Hamas club always come first and Gazans always last. The group views all civilian activity outside its own interests as a threat.
As we’ve seen during this war, Hamas fighters will happily shoot Gazans who attempt to leave conflict zones in response to Israeli evacuation warnings. This brutality shows that Hamas sees Gazans as existing only as human shields and political cannon fodder for international sympathy. Hamas’s perverse political understanding of the value of civilian life explains why it has consistently launched attacks on Israel and then welcomed the predictable Israeli aid restrictions that follow. It retains the tunnels to Egypt and stockpiles to provide for its own interests during such crackdowns. And it views Gaza’s suffering as a key lever to raise its international standing at Israel’s expense.
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What happens when Gazans complain? With nothing like an independent judiciary existing in Gaza, Hamas simply threatens civilians to keep them in line. Its monopoly of force also allows Hamas to operate like the Mafia. In 2016, for example, during a brief 24-hour opening of Egypt’s border with Gaza, it demanded $3,000 from anyone who wanted to cross the border. Palestinian journalists also face reprisals for reporting on Hamas corruption. In 2019, a young journalist was sentenced to prison after she exposed endemic corruption at the health ministry. Hamas has also violently attacked journalists who have covered protests against its rule. This constraint of independent media is designed to ensure Hamas’s absolute control over both Gazans and the broader political discourse. It reflects the group’s authoritarian nature and selfish regard only for its warped ideology.
We should be under no illusions that Hamas cares for Gazan suffering, except as something desirable. Gazans are taught daily that Israel is their enemy. But the real enemy is the corps of thugs governing them.