Riding the Hamas Express
For many on the global left, Hamas still appears as the natural expression of Palestinian resistance — a movement born from oppression and directed toward liberation. Many Palestinians themselves embraced it, fully aware of its charter and its rejection of coexistence, because it echoed their own longing to reclaim the land in full. This was not a misunderstanding; it was a choice.
They chose Hamas because Fatah had come to embody corruption, failed negotiations, and defeat. Oslo had raised hopes but delivered checkpoints and settlements, and the Palestinian Authority was seen as living in luxury while ordinary families struggled. By contrast, Hamas presented itself as clean, uncompromising, and close to the people. Its members were in the neighborhoods, running schools, clinics, and charities, making themselves visible where Fatah had vanished. In the 2006 elections, this gave them not just credibility but power, and many Palestinians consciously opted for the movement that promised no compromise, only total liberation.
Yet Hamas was never solely Palestinian. From its earliest days it was nurtured, financed, and legitimized by multiple hands: Iran with weapons and training, Qatar and others in the Muslim world with money and political support, and even voices in the West who, in good faith, lent moral cover in the name of justice for Palestinians. Israel itself, in the 1980s, tolerated and indirectly helped Hamas grow as a counterweight to Fatah. Together, these forces laid the tracks for a bullet train that looked like resistance but was always heading toward another destination — not statehood, not dignity, but perpetual war. And the tragedy is that many still cheer the train without asking where it leads.
If Hamas’ goal were only resistance to Israeli military presence, why does its charter call for global jihad and not just the liberation of Gaza?
Why did it vow to destroy the Jewish state even after Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005?
If the first station is fighting Israel, what is the next station when Hamas openly declares solidarity with Islamist movements worldwide?
Why does it invest in propaganda in universities in Europe and America if its cause were only local?
If a political group in your own country said, “We don’t just want to resist an occupation; we want to replace your entire system with our ideology,” would you still call them a resistance or something else?
If someone boards a train that advertises “local defense,” but the driver says the destination is “world revolution,” what would you call that trip?
Why does Hamas target civilians deliberately if its purpose were self-defense?
Why does it persecute Palestinians who oppose it — journalists, women activists, even Gazans who seek peace?
And finally: do you believe a movement that sacrifices its own people, silences dissent, and openly declares that its end goal is a global intifada is truly fighting for liberation of the Palestinian people — or using the Palestinians as a pretext for a global war?
Real solidarity does not confuse a people with the militia that exploits them. If you stand on the left, the test is universal: non-combatant immunity, pluralism, accountability. Ends do not launder means; means prefigure ends. A movement that defines itself by annihilation, silences its own, and treats civilians as instruments is not liberation — it is vanguardism without brakes. To fuse “Palestinian cause” with Hamas is to abandon Palestinians to an endless war staged for regional patrons and cheered by distant sympathizers. The ethical task is to separate a just claim from an unjust vehicle: to pull the emergency brake on the bullet train and help lay tracks toward institutions that can negotiate, build, be audited, and make life possible for both peoples.
Ask yourself one final question: would you accept these methods in your own city — on your own children’s street? If not, don’t export them to Palestinians and call it justice.