Superpowers, Terror, and a New Global Order
Although Hamas’s recent “narrative” document mentions China and Russia only once, their “spirit”—more accurately, the world order they promote—hangs over the text, and over the fact that such a document is produced and circulated at all. The point is not that Beijing or Moscow directed Hamas or shares any responsibility for its violence. They do not. The point is subtler: Hamas is trying to locate its cause inside a broader global argument about legitimacy, power, and Western credibility—an argument that China and Russia have been advancing with growing confidence.
Read that way, the document is less a post-hoc justification for a single attack than a bid for a legitimate place in an international system of geopolitical uncertainty. It speaks in the idiom of decolonization, “global justice,” and legal accountability. It assumes an audience far beyond Gaza and the Arab world—Western campuses, international NGOs, courts, journalists, and non-aligned governments. Armed groups have always sought political cover; what is new is the scale and accessibility of the platforms available, and the degree to which the liberal order’s own language can be used against it.
This is the larger story. On one side are major powers working to accelerate a shift toward a more multipolar arena—one in which Western preferences no longer define “the international community.” On the other are violent non-state actors that commit crimes and then attempt to narrate them as resistance, hoping that global fragmentation and mistrust of the West will dull the moral and political consequences. These are radically different categories of actors, operating with radically different instruments. But the overlap in discourse matters, because legitimacy—who is believed, who is condemned, and who is shielded—has become a central currency of power.
Superpowers Shaping a New Global Arena
China and Russia are not identical, but their diplomacy increasingly converges around a few themes: the West is hypocritical; US leadership is destabilizing; international institutions are captured by Western interests; and the “Global South” deserves a stronger voice. In the context of Gaza, both countries have emphasized ceasefires, humanitarian concerns, and the centrality of the UN system—while simultaneously using the crisis to illustrate Western double standards.
For Moscow, the strategic logic is relatively direct. Russia benefits when US bandwidth, unity among US allies, and the moral authority of the Western camp are strained. The Gaza war offers precisely that. It also allows Russia to present itself as a champion of “anti-colonial” positions and to cultivate partners across the Middle East and beyond. This does not mean Russia endorses Hamas’s methods; it means Russia is comfortable exploiting a conflict that highlights divisions within the West and between the West and much of the developing world.
Beijing’s approach is more cautious and brand-sensitive, but the direction is similar. China wants to be seen as a responsible great power that supports international law, stability, and development. Yet it also wants to lead a coalition of states dissatisfied with Western dominance. Gaza provides a stage on which China can condemn civilian suffering, signal support for Palestinian statehood, and imply that Washington’s alignment choices undermine the West’s claim to universal norms. In doing so, Beijing reinforces its wider message: a rules-based order run by the West is not genuinely rules-based.
These positions are not merely rhetorical. In a multipolar environment, UN votes, legal fora, public diplomacy, and information operations become more consequential. When major powers treat legitimacy as contested terrain rather than shared ground, the stigma attached to certain actors and actions weakens. Not because atrocities become acceptable, but because the international system becomes less capable of producing unified political consequences.
Terrorist Narratives in a Multipolar World
Hamas’s document reads like an effort to convert brutality into political capital by speaking the language of global norms. It frames Hamas as a national liberation movement rather than a terrorist organization. It leans heavily on claims of occupation, oppression, and collective punishment. It seeks to recast October 7 as an inflection point in an anti-colonial struggle, not an act of mass murder.
A particularly telling feature is the document’s legal and quasi-legal posture. It gestures toward international courts and categories—war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide—aiming to place Israel (and by extension the West) in the dock of world opinion. This is not simply propaganda for local consumption. It is an attempt to enlist international legal discourse as a strategic tool: delegitimization through “lawfare,” amplified by activism, media ecosystems, and social platforms.
The document also performs denial and inversion. It challenges widely reported allegations about Hamas’s conduct and emphasizes Israeli military actions as the central moral fact of the war. Again, the purpose is not to persuade skeptics in Israel; it is to shape the beliefs of distant audiences who receive the conflict through mediated narratives, and who often interpret global politics through the lens of structural injustice.
Here is where the broader geopolitical context becomes operationally relevant. When Russia and China argue—each for its own reasons—that Western claims to moral authority are selective and self-serving, they lower the barrier for Hamas to claim the same. Hamas is not borrowing a policy platform from Beijing or Moscow; it is borrowing a frame: the West is not an impartial judge, and therefore Western condemnation is politically motivated rather than morally grounded.
This matters because Hamas’s battlefield is not only physical. It is also reputational and institutional. The organization seeks a world in which it cannot be isolated—where it remains a political fact that external actors must accommodate. To that end, it must be legible and resonant to international audiences. The multipolar moment, and the erosion of consensus around basic narratives, makes that project easier.
A New Global Caution
The danger is that as great-power rivalry intensifies, the liberal order’s normative infrastructure becomes another arena of competition rather than a shared set of constraints. When legal institutions, human rights language, and humanitarian arguments are treated primarily as instruments of geopolitical positioning, violent actors can exploit the resulting cynicism. The more international legitimacy becomes a zero-sum contest, the more space opens for extremists to hide behind the politics of grievance.
For Western policymakers, the implication is uncomfortable. Counterterrorism and deterrence remain necessary, but they are insufficient. The struggle is also about credibility: whether liberal democracies can demonstrate that their commitments to civilian protection, accountability, and law apply consistently, not only when convenient. If they cannot, they cede the narrative ground on which groups like Hamas are trying to stand.
This is the “spirit” that hangs over Hamas’s document. It is a text written for a world in which the West’s monopoly on defining legitimacy is gone; where major powers challenge Western narratives as a matter of strategy; and where non-state actors attempt to convert that strategic challenge into moral permission. A multipolar order will not automatically produce more justice or more stability. It will produce more contested meaning—and in that environment, the fight over narrative becomes inseparable from the fight over power.
