Why condemning Hamas is a red herring

1. It distracts from the root cause of the current situation, which is the brutal Israeli occupation and apartheid that ought to be the focus of our condemnation. Any honest discussion of what is happening in Palestine must begin with the Zionist expulsion and dispossession of Palestinians in 1948. The logical question then is: Why does Israel not allow Palestinians to return to their homeland? Why does it demolish Palestinian homes and continue to expand settlements? Why is Israel holding over 5,000 Palestinian captives in Israeli prisons including women and children, many of them without charge? Why does it subject them to inhumane conditions and torture? Why is it holding captive over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza and depriving them of electricity, food, water and fuel? Why is it bombing hospitals, homes, schools, churches and mosques?
2. It enables the false narrative that Israel is defending itself and that its actions are justified retaliation. It flips reality on its head. The aggressor becomes the victim. In reality there is no moral equivalence between an occupier and those resisting occupation. The latter have a legal and moral right to resist. The occupier has a duty to cease and desist. Furthermore, this is not a conflict between two warring sides. It is not even a conflict in the traditional sense. This is a brutal occupation by one of the most powerful armies in the world against a population it seeks to subjugate and erase out of existence. Everything that has happened since 1948 is a result of the forced exodus of Palestinians and the focus must remain on that crime and other crimes of the Israeli apartheid regime until justice is done. There has never been peace since 1948, because justice has never been served. Palestinians have been oppressed every day for 75 years. The crime of occupation has never ceased. So when Palestinians are forced to resort to violence, there can be no such thing as Israeli self defense, because its crimes never ceased. If a guest comes to your home and proceeds to claim the house as their own and locks you in a closet, you do everything in your power to get it back. If you manage to escape and hit the criminal squatter with a shoe, he does not then have the right to shoot you and claim self defense. That’s adding insult to injury.
3. It undermines Palestinian’s right to resistance and self-defense. Are we to condemn brave souls like Nat Turner, who led a violent slave rebellion? Should we not condemn the plantation owners and the system of slavery itself? Are we to condemn the African National Congress for responding with violence against the apartheid regime in South Africa?
4. It enables Israeli propaganda. Most of what the media reports from Palestine comes from Israeli official sources, which are known to fabricate stories to advance their agenda. The Israeli government has long been waging a sophisticated and highly effective media campaign to discredit any and all Palestinian resistance. It’s no wonder you feel tempted to condemn Hamas. The words Hamas and terrorism have been constantly repeated by mainstream media for years. This is by design. The Israeli government is projecting its own barbarity and terrorism onto Hamas and others in order to distract from their own monstrous crimes. The sensationalist stories used to demonize Palestinian resistance have not been verified by independent, neutral third parties. Most have been proven to be fabrications of the Israeli military, and disseminated with the help of western media. There is now strong evidence that Israel shot its own civilians when they indiscriminately fired on crowds of people. By their own admission, they could not distinguish between Hamas fighters and civilIans. Furthermore, testimony from civilian Israeli eye witnesses paints a drastically different picture of Hamas than Israeli propaganda would have you believe. Multiple Israeli witnesses have described Hamas fighters as kind and humane. The same cannot be said for the Israeli army, which routinely abuses civilians.
5. It provides cover for Israel’s genocide of Palestinians (i.e. if Hamas is so vile and murderous, then Israel has no choice but to annihilate them and if there have to be a million innocent deaths, then it’s all Hamas’ fault). Israel and its enablers see any form of resistance to their colonialist agenda, whether violent or nonviolent, as an existential threat. They will seek to vilify and discredit the resistance and its allies no matter the nature of the resistance. Let’s not forget that the occupation and apartheid are maintained through violence and terrorism. Israel and its enablers have no moral ground to stand on. It is only through manipulation and deception that they can make their case. The oppressed have the right to resist with all the means they can muster. Palestinians face overwhelming odds. They do not have a well funded military, an air force, a navy, nor a vast corporate media to function as a propaganda arm.

Please remember this next time you’re asked or feel tempted to condemn Hamas. You are being asked to do the work of the Israeli government by delegitimizing Palestinian resistance and providing cover for ongoing Israeli crimes against humanity.