- One of the reasons Hamas has been at the center of debate since Oct. 7 is Israel's desire to sweep the massacres it has committed in Palestine behind a veil of war
- The way to prevent further loss of life in Palestine and Israel is not by condemning Hamas, but by ending decades of Israeli attacks and occupation, because condemning Hamas has not been enough to make Israel abandon its policy of occupation and genocide.
The writer is a political scientist.
ISTANBUL
Israel has been bombing Gaza for a month. However, beginning the discussion with Hamas' Oct. 7 raid is highly misleading. Neither the occupation nor the collective punishment of Palestinians began with the Hamas raid. Furthermore, the events from Oct. 7 to the present more closely resemble a massacre perpetrated by one of the world's most advanced armies against Palestinian civilians than an "Israel-Hamas war." The number of Palestinians killed since Oct. 7 has exceeded 10,000. According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza and humanitarian aid organizations still able to gather information from the region, 40% of those killed in the Israeli attacks are children. UNICEF reports that more than 4,000 children have been killed in Israeli attacks.
In other words, Israel is taking the life of one Palestinian child every 10 minutes. According to UNICEF spokesperson James Elder, Gaza has become a graveyard for children. Besides children, a significant portion of civilian casualties have been women and the elderly. In the images that have come out of Gaza over the past four weeks, we have been witnessing the collective punishment of Palestinians, rather than a war. Yet, commentators who go on Western media outlets to share their views and findings on the ongoing genocide by Israel are frequently interrupted with the question, "Do you condemn Hamas?" But who is this Hamas? Is it a terrorist organization as viewed by Western capitals, or is it the legitimate defense force of a nation whose lands are under Israeli occupation, driven from their homes and their fields and subjected to massacres for over 70 years?
What is Hamas?
To understand Hamas, one must first understand the Palestinian state. Palestine is not just the name of a community and a geographical region in which they live; it is also a nation-state. Out of the 193 states represented in the UN General Assembly, 139 recognize Palestine as a state. Türkiye is also among the states that recognize the State of Palestine. However, Palestinian territory has been under Israeli occupation for 75 years, and about half of its population was expelled from their lands in 1948. The lands, houses, and gardens of those who remained were gradually seized and given to Israeli settlers. In the West Bank, Palestinians were pushed into smaller and smaller areas by checkpoints and walls. Many of the past exiles and massacres have remained unrecorded. But thanks to smartphones and social media, we can now watch footage of Jewish settlers showing up on Palestinians' doorsteps with their belongings, saying, "Your house is now mine," and throwing the real owners out into the street.
The situation in Gaza is different. In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza, which now resembles a concentration camp. In Gaza, where Israel has destroyed the health and education infrastructure and forced people into poverty, infant mortality is 10 times that of Israel even in normal times. For adults, the average life expectancy is 10 years shorter than that of Israelis. Access to food and medical supplies is difficult in Gaza, and Israel constantly bombs hospitals and ambulances, killing doctors and nurses. Hamas is the armed resistance organization of the people who have been confined to such a region. But the term "organization" is not enough to describe this entity. Hamas functions in Gaza as the defense force, the army of the Palestinian state, albeit an occupied state. It has governed Gaza after winning elections in 2006.
Emergence of Hamas
To go further back, the Palestinian cause was first largely championed by neighboring Arab countries until the 1980s and then, increasingly, by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Hamas emerged much later, with the first intifada that started in 1987. The main factors that birthed Hamas were the inability of Arab states over time to carry their interest in Palestine beyond words, the increasing estrangement many Islamically more sensitive Palestinians felt toward the ideologically secular and socialist PLO, and their belief that the group’s actions were insufficient in resolving the Palestinian issue, and most fundamentally, the fact that the ongoing occupation and massacres in Palestine had become unbearable. Hamas, which joined the Palestinian resistance with the Intifada (1987-1993), increased its influence, especially in Gaza. In the 2006 elections, Hamas won the support of 45% of Palestinian voters and came out ahead of Fatah, the political party of the PLO. As a result of clashes with Fatah that erupted after the elections, the West Bank remained under Fatah rule, while Gaza has been run by Hamas since 2007. From this perspective, Hamas is both Gaza’s government and its army. Of course, this is an army without tanks, jets, or warships. While Hamas defends Palestinian lands against the Israeli occupation with rockets extremely limited in effect, Israel is able to flatten neighborhoods and camps with thousands of tons of bombs in on Gaza's sliver of territory ranging from 6 to 12 kilometers in width. When the conflict between the two sides escalates, Israel can inflict dozens of times the number of casualties on Palestinians that it suffers in Hamas attacks. Israel, which killed 532 Palestinian children in the summer of 2014, a year of intense bombardment, holds a serious asymmetry of violence in this respect.
Oct. 7 and aftermath
On Oct. 7, Hamas managed to be the side that did more damage in this asymmetry if only for one day. Besides rocket strikes, Hamas in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7 infiltrated Israel with more than 2,000 militants and stormed numerous military bases and posts. Having penetrated up to 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) inside the border, Hamas captured over 200 (now 242) Israeli soldiers and civilians. Seemingly invulnerable and invincible with its Iron Dome air defense system, Mossad intelligence agency, and army enlisting all adults, men, and women, Israel had not suffered such a loss since the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Naturally, Hamas' Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was a jolt not only to Israel but the entire world and put the group squarely at the center of global debates.
But one of the reasons why Hamas has been at the center of the debate since Oct. 7 is Israel's desire to sweep the massacres it has committed in Palestine behind a veil of war. It is true that Hamas launched a shock attack against Israel on Oct. 7, but the violence since Oct. 7 is not a war between Israel and Hamas. Israel has been bombing schools, mosques, hospitals, refugee camps in the Gaza Strip for four weeks. Those who did not vote for Hamas in 2006, even those who were not born at the time, are legitimate targets in Israel's eyes. For Israel, it is natural to kill Palestinian children, whom Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant considers "human animals" and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "children of darkness." That is why it has been unable to understand the outcry against its decades-long massacres coming from the streets, if not from the capitals, in the West.
Israel is not used to being questioned about its freedom to commit massacres in Gaza, which it uses as a shooting range and a slaughterhouse for "human animals." That's why Israel and other actors who want to cover up this massacre are constantly trying to turn the issue into a debate between Hamas and terrorism. So it is useful to clarify once again. Hamas is not a terrorist organization. In fact, apart from a minority group of some Western capitals, no country considers Hamas a terrorist organization. Latin America from Mexico to Argentina, the African continent from Morocco to South Africa, the countries of Asia from Russia to China, the Islamic world from the Arab to Turkish states, and even European nations like Norway and Switzerland do not consider Hamas a terrorist organization. In the eyes of most countries across the world, Hamas is the defense force of an occupied country, the defense force of the Palestinian state whose population is being systematically murdered even while being trapped between walls, an army without planes or tanks. Like any army, Hamas is subject to the laws of war and should be criticized when it violates the limits of legitimate defense and causes civilian casualties. But those who do not see the schools and hospitals that have been bombed for years, who do not see the hundreds of Palestinian children killed every day in the weeks of bombardment, and who reduce the issue to Hamas' Oct. 7 raid are looking for terrorism in the wrong place. The way to prevent further loss of life in Palestine and Israel is not a condemnation of Hamas, but an end to decades of Israeli attacks and occupation. Because condemning Hamas has not been enough to make Israel abandon its policy of occupation and genocide.
*Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu.
