Begun January 2025 | 1,600 words | Contents
Seeing defiant Hamas fighters on TV during the January 2025 hostage releases, I wondered if, given the havoc Hamas has provoked, Gazan people still supported them. Amazingly, some did.
Contents
Introduction
What do Gazans think of Hamas?
Hamas hoped to spark regional war
Donald Chump’s Nazi plan for Gaza
The future for Gaza and Hamas
Addendum:
Western support for Hamas
Amazingly, some Gazans still support Hamas
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Introduction
The horror
We western liberals looked on in horror as the news broke of the brutal October 2023 attack by Hamas. We continued looking on in horror and frustration as news of the even more brutal Israeli war on Gaza rolled on.
Our frustration was due to the powerlessness of the international community. The so-called United Nations (with its veto-hampered Security Council) was more toothless than usual as its US paymaster continued to give unconditional support to Israel and the lawless IDF – the Israel ‘Defense’ Forces.
Some western support for the Palestinian cause shaded into misplaced support for Hamas. (See below.) That didn’t help.
In November 2024 the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu. The court accused Netanyahu of war crimes and crimes against humanity:
ICC charges against Netanyahu
War crimes
- Starvation as a method of warfare
- Intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population
Crimes against humanity
- Murder
- Persecution
- Other inhumane acts
The Israeli military used those criminal tactics to destroy Gaza whilst trying to destroy Hamas. But, as shown in the January 2025 hostage release videos, Hamas wasn’t destroyed – they were still there.
Hamas was still there – and making a point of looking in charge. But given their deliberate provocation of Israel’s destructive response, I wondered: what did battered Gazan civilians really think of Hamas?
Amazingly, some Gazans still support Hamas
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What do Gazans think of Hamas?
Open criticism
Video of hostages being released by Hamas fighters
19 January 2025 | Forbes
In videos of hostages being released during the ceasefire that began in January 2025, the Hamas fighters in charge displayed a defiant and confident ebullience.
That display suggested buoyant support for Hamas in Gaza – or a cowed population. Gazan civilians were reportedly cowed – as might be expected under the rule of Hamas’s ultra-sharia political-Islamist government.
In the 2006 election in Gaza, Hamas won against the more moderate Fatah by 37 to 32 percent. International observers said the election was ‘open and fairly contested’.
However, an electoral system described as ‘skewed’ meant Fatah got no seats. A unity government was formed but in 2007 it collapsed when Hamas ousted Fatah by force and imposed authoritarian rule.
(The US and the EU, considering Hamas to be a terrorist organisation, didn’t accept the 2006 election result. A 2021 election due in Gaza and the West Bank was postponed indefinitely by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.)
A June 2024 US Foreign Affairs article by security expert Audrey Cronin said:
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Hamas rules Gaza through oppression, using arrests and torture to suppress dissent. Gazans widely loathe its internal General Security Service, which surveils and keeps files on people, stamps out protests, intimidates journalists, and tracks people accused of “immoral acts”.
As for popular support for Hamas in Gaza, it was sinking rather than buoyant. A September 2024 poll found that although 39 percent of Gazans still supported Hamas, that had fallen in three months from 64 percent.
A July 2024 UK BBC News article said:
Open criticism of Hamas has been growing in Gaza, both on the streets and online. Some have publicly criticised Hamas for hiding the hostages in apartments near a busy marketplace, or for firing rockets from civilian areas.
The BBC article quoted an educated Gazan man speaking angrily on video about the Hamas leadership:
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I am an academic doctor. I had a good life, but we have a filthy leadership. They got used to our bloodshed, may God curse them. They are scum! We could have avoided this attack.
Quote from a video (apparently no longer available) of a man, his face and clothes covered with blood, speaking outside a hospital filled with hundreds of casualties after an Israeli operation to free hostages from central Gaza.
A senior Hamas government employee, who asked to remain anonymous, told the BBC the Hamas attack was a ‘crazy, uncalculated leap’. He said:
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The Hamas government prepared well for the attack militarily, but it neglected the home front. They did not build any safe shelters for people; they did not reserve enough food, fuel and medical supplies.
The BBC article concluded:
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Criticism of Hamas is growing sharper, and long-buried divisions over Hamas rule in Gaza are becoming clear. Out of the destruction left by Israel’s battle with Hamas, a new war is emerging: a battle for control of public opinion within Gaza itself.
Amazingly, some Gazans still support Hamas
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Hamas hoped to spark regional war
Daft as a brush
What did Hamas think would happen when they launched their October 2023 attack?
The attack – a brutal assault on a lightly defended peacenik kibbutz – wasn’t, as might be thought, an unplanned outburst. Despite the assault’s shambolic execution, training and planning had been going on for weeks. So what was the purpose?
The attack by Hamas was apparently intended to spark regional war. A Hamas spokesman said the attack was intended to provoke a strong Israeli response and a consequent regional war against Israel.
The regional war didn’t happen – and had no chance of happening. Middle Eastern Muslim countries may support Palestinian resistance groups with money, weapons and training, but they have no interest in waging war against Israel, the US-backed regional superpower.
In fact some regional Muslim countries, including well-armed Saudi Arabia, had been busy establishing diplomatic links with Israel.
Was the Hamas leadership – perhaps made gullible by ideology – misled by callous regional partners into believing the attack would result in war? Did Hamas expect Palestinian victory, with Gazan deaths being glorious martyrdom?
Did Hamas think embeding themselves amonst Gazan civilians would deter Israeli aggression?
Whatever their thinking, Hamas’s childish strategy – poking the angry Zionist bear and then hiding amongst civilians – inevitably caused Gazans to suffer mass death, injury, destruction and displacement for – as Hamas should have realised – an unachievable end.
In spite of that, a December 2023 poll found only 19 percent of Gazans blamed Hamas for their post-attack suffering. That showed a stubborn loyalty – but Gazans deserved better.
Amazingly, some Gazans still support Hamas
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Donald Chump’s Nazi plan for Gaza
Insane in the brain
It could be said the Hamas attack succeeded in raising the profile of Gaza and the wider Palestinian cause – but raised it to what end? There was still no prospect of Israel being persuaded to accept a two-state solution or to end its aggressive settler expansion.
Also, unfortunately for Gaza, its raised profile caught the eye of rampaging newly re-elected US president Donald Chump.
Within weeks of his January 2025 inauguration, Chump announced an insane Nazi plan for Gaza. The US would take control and ownership of Gaza, deport the people and turn it into a Middle Eastern Mar-a-Lago.
Chump embroidered the plan, but his team got the original idea from a July 2024 paper given them by rightwing economist Joseph Pelzman. (Apparently Pelzman offered it to team Biden first, but – understandably – they didn’t want it.)
Prof Pelzman’s highly detailed but quite bonkers paper said – in summary – that reconstructing Gaza would be too costly and the only solution was to remove the people, level the ground and start from scratch. He specified a tourist seafront. Chump the real estate moron must have loved that.
Pelzman said the country carrying out his plan should be granted a 50-year lease. Typically, Chump took that to mean the US should assume ownership of Gaza.
Anyone hoping Chump has a tiny spark of sanity or conscience should watch his gobsmacking Nazi-propaganda-style AI-generated Chump Gaza video. He clearly hasn’t got a spark of anything worthwhile.
To be fair to Chump (even a narcissistic sociopath deserves that), his bullying style apparently brought about the Gazan ceasefire and hostage releases that began in January 2025.
But that ceasefire was an incidental silver lining to Chump’s deliberate cloud of confusion and crisis. Chump talks cheesily about wanting peace, but his real concern is to ensure he and his felllow-billionaires can continue profiteering from crisis.
(Candidate Chump promised to ‘drain the Washington swamp’, but he and his parasitical class – served, ironically, by ‘swamp’ lobbyists – are actually draining the economy, hollowing it out to enhance their obscene wealth.)
Ceasefire update | March 2025
To keep power, Benjamin Netenyahu, Israeli premier and wanted war criminal, reneged on the second part of the ceasefire agreement, in which all hostages were to be be freed and all Israeli forces were to leave. Instead, the mass death and destruction resumed. Idiot Chump colluded with Netenyahu’s return to war. Reuters reported that after a White House meeting with released Israeli hostages on 5 March Chump posted:
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I am sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job, not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say. Also, to the People of Gaza: A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold Hostages. If you do, you are DEAD! Make a SMART decision. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW, OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER!
My bolding (Chump’s caps!)
Most of the ‘people of Gaza’ – distiguished by Chump’s ‘also’ from Hamas – had nothing to do with the holding of hostages. Threatening civilians with death is a war crime.
Amazingly, some Gazans still support Hamas
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The future for Gaza and Hamas
Better leadership
Donald Chump and his new pal, rightwing Israeli premier and wanted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, would presumably have to drop their fantasy Nazi ethnic-clearance ‘Riviera’ plan for Gaza.
In which case, if and when the Israeli military left Gaza, a caretaker government could supervise reconstruction – and would need to implement elections.
Hamas’s stupid strategy inevitably brought nothing but death and destruction to the people of Gaza. Gazans deserve better leadership – one that pursues the Palestinian cause but also protects civilians.
Despite its show of defiance in the hostage videos, Hamas seemed a spent force. Whether at the hands of the avenging Israeli military or a dissatisfied Gazan electorate, Hamas’s days in power were surely numbered.
Amazingly, some Gazans still support Hamas
Contents 🔼
Addendum
Western support for Hamas
Terror error
As well as still having some support in Gaza, Hamas had some support in the liberal west, where righteous support for the Palestinian cause sometimes shaded into misplaced support for the Islamist group.
Here in the UK, for instance:
- In a 2009 speech, Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020, gullibly described Hamas as:
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…an organisation that is dedicated towards the good of the Palestinian people and bringing about long-term peace and social justice and political justice in the whole region
- Ismail Patel, zealous Muslim founder of UK political-Islamist campaign group Friends of Al-Aqsa (listed as an extremist group by the UK government in March 2024) has made speeches at UK Palestine demonstrations unconditionally praising Hamas for standing up to Israel.
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In 2024, foolish Leicester Muslim campaigner Majid Freeman was charged with the terrorism offence of supporting Hamas online. (In 2021, the political and military wings of Hamas were proscribed as a single terrorist organisation by the UK.)
Hamas’s extremism and recklessness harmed the Palestinian cause. However, some international supporters of that cause continued to support Hamas as a legitimate response to Israeli oppression.
Such misguided support would no doubt encourage Hamas as it clung to power.
The End
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