The Blogs: 4 Lessons from Gazans’ Protests Against Hamas

Early this week, protests spontaneously erupted across Gaza as Hamas’ refusal to release the hostages led Israel to resume military operations in the Strip.

Videos show Palestinians chanting, “Hamas is a terrorist,” “Hamas, get out.” The Assembly of Southern Gaza Clans reportedly issued a call for an intifada against Hamas, “accusing the group of gambling with Palestinians’ lives for its own narrow, self-serving interests.” Other clan leaders in northern Gaza are also calling for protests.

Whether this rapidly growing uprising against Hamas will undermine Hamas’ projection of power over Gaza, there are several critical lessons to extrapolate from these rare scenes.

The West’s “Free Palestine” Movement Hurts Palestinians

The radicalized social justice movements in America are cheering terrorists destroying the very individuals they claim to champion.

Particularly seen on college campuses, supporters are proselytizing on behalf of Hamas by distributing propaganda, wearing Hamas merch, parroting genocidal slogans, and attacking identifiably Jewish individuals.

Western sympathy for Hamas inflames their brutal tactics of hiding under their civilian population to maximize casualties, their atrocious acts committed on October 7^th, and their brutal suppression of dissent.

If the West really cared about justice for Palestinians, it would not support a terrorist group whose methods make martyrs out of the next generation.

Hamas Rejects Liberal Democratic Processes

A fundamental misunderstanding in the West is that Hamas is a legitimate “resistance” group combatting the evil colonialist oppressor: Israel. As its frequent brutalization of the Palestinian population shows, Hamas couldn’t be further from a liberal democratic icon.

Already, Hamas and protestors have clashed in northern Gaza. Despite the lack of free press in Gaza, dozens of instances have been documented since October 7th of Hamas torturing civilians, from kneecapping Palestinians trying to access aid to brutalizing dissidents. Ziad Abu Haya, a Palestinian activist seen on the Saudi Al-Arabiya network in 2024 asking the world to “save us from Hamas,” was later beaten and tortured by Hamas.

Hamas Is Not Fighting To Better Palestinian Lives

Masked behind the neo-Marxist narrative of “oppressor and oppressed,” Hamas is weaponizing Palestinian grievances to fuel their imperialist agenda of regional power. Hamas is an Islamist party that seeks to reinstate the Caliphate, an Islamic form of government that unites political and religious leadership under a head of state. Since the last Caliphate’s dissolution with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, extremist groups across the Middle East have been captured with the dream of reestablishing a Caliphate that will replace non-Islamic government with Sharia law.

However, this vision of a Caliphate does not promise the rights Westerners assume an oppressed resistance movement would entail. The issue for Hamas supporters in the West is that Sharia law has no tolerance for other viewpoints, faiths, or ideologies, particularly women and LGBTQ rights.

There is No Future For Palestinians Under Hamas

Hamas has made their end state crystal clear: the destruction of Israel at the price of the destruction of the Palestinian people. What future awaits a destroyed society? There isn’t one, and Palestinians are waking up. There are many questions: Can Hamas be eradicated? Who would control Gaza instead of Hamas? How can Gazan Palestinians become deradicalized? But there is one certainty: Palestinians cannot remain under the boot of Hamas.