This is why I support Hamas

ISRAEL HAS MURDERED THE PALESTINIANS’ NELSON MANDELA. I hope you will share this, so people in the West can get to know who Ismail Haniyeh was, and the utter tragedy of what Israel has done.

Hamas’ top leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in the easier days back in 2007: Elected Prime Minister of Palestine he had to flee from the post, there was a civil war going on, and Israel had assembled a total blockade around Gaza.

With Haniyeh, the hope of peace in the Middle East in any near future may have died also. Hamas has offered peace with Israel since 1988, but the Western world has refused to see it. Hamas’ top leader, Ismail Haniyeh, has continued to work for peace with Israel since 2006. That is why he has been on the absolute top of Israels hitlist. Now he is murdered. The following text is written before 31.7.

Highlights:

• Hamas has accepted the two state solution since 1988, and offered peace with Israel numerous times - the latest being now and always. Israel rejects every time

• Hamas is a democratic party, that won the only democratic election that has ever been held in Palestine, in 2006

• Israel and the US did not accept their win, and pressured Fatah to topple Hamas

• Resistance to illegal occupation is a human right, and Israels occupation is illegal

• Haniyeh has stated that Hamas’ fight is against the occupation, and when that ends, the resistance will also

• Palestinians are the only ones who can determine who will govern them in a future free and independent state

• Israel as an illegal occupier can not claim self defence to maintain the illegal occupation

• We in the west, who have openly accepted and abetted Israels illegal occupation, killing, landgrab and brutal oppression for decades, are to blame for October 7 - not Hamas or any other representative of the occupied population

An illegitime goal

Israels expressed goal with the war on Gaza is to «exterminate» Hamas. It is an impossible, but also an immoral and unacceptable goal. The hope for peace needs a more nuanced image of Hamas to be allowed to surface. Israels continued demonisation of Hamas is killing thousands of Palestinian civilians, and wounding hundreds of thousands of innocent people – mostly children.

Now there is a world of new people reacting strongly to Israels warfare against Gaza and the Palestinians. Many are taking to the streets and get engaged for the first time. Both the young and the young at heart are called The Gaza Generation - what define them is their aha-realisation. They can never un-understand what they have discovered, that Israel is the aggressive, powerful occupier who have portraid itself as the victim for decades, and got the world to believe it. Now they know that the Palestinians are the occupied, oppressed and deeply suffering people. And the Gaza Generation’s response is: “It is unfair!”

I have felt that for more than 30 years, and written about it as long. And I want to tell you, that equally unfair is the demonization of Hamas. For all of you who support the Palestinians right to peace and freedom: you can also of your whole heart and mind support Hamas’ fight for freedom for the Palestinian people, because it’s the right thing to do. Most of what you have heard and read is not true.

Hamas are not terrorists, they are a resistance movement with freedom fighters. They are also a democratic party, elected to power by a majority of the Palestinian people in 2006.

Their right to resist, also with arms, is protected by international law. Israel’s wars against Palestine are not. “Israel has a right to defend itself” is a power-statement, and totally untrue: No occupier can claim self defence to maintain a state of illegal occupation. When you discuss the war, you should feel convinced by facts that it is your right to also support Hamas, and say it out loud. Israel’s goal of removing Hamas from power and destroy their ability to resist is wrong, and it has only one consequence: the killing of thousands of more innocent children in Gaza. This report is for you.

Israel killed the Hamas-leader’s children

April 10 this year Israel again attacked a refugee camp in Gaza. This time they killed three sons of Hamas’ top chief, Ismail Haniyeh. They also killed five of his grandchildren.

Why is the West not shaken up when Israel does something so beyond all decency?

To kill the children and grandchildren of your opponent is so low that it’s beyond comprehension. And still – there is no outrage in any Western press. That may be because our image of Hamas is so totally shaped by Israel, and also, that we don’t know who Ismail Haniyeh is. He is the only Prime Minister of Palestine elected by the people, in the only election Israel has ever permitted. He lives in Doha in Qatar, and he is probably available, for all media – both arabic and international. Still we never see him interviewed on TV in the West. The last time in English was on Euronews, 16 years ago.

Netanyahu and his crowd we see all the time – even in news media who are against the ongoing Israeli genocide. When it comes to Hamas, there is a total lack of balance in the press. The Turkish Anadolu Agency had an interview with Haniyeh when he was in Istanbul in April this year, for a meeting with president Erdogan. In the interview, Haniyeh said that it was the first time since October 7 that he was interviewed by international media. At the same time, he wanted to thank the Turkish people for their compassion:

“Haniyeh expressed his gratitude to the Turkish people for holding funeral prayers in absentia in more than 30 cities for his killed children and grandchildren”.

This is very surprising for a Norwegian to read, because we think we have a free press. And a single Turkish article may prove that what we receive in our media is totally through an Israeli and US perspective. When Turkish people hold funeral prayers for the Hamas-leader’s children in 30 cities, it paints a picture of how very far away we in the West are from seeing the Middle East in general, and Hamas in particular, from a different angle.  

Israel attacked Haniyehs sons and grandchildren while negotiations for a ceasefire were underway. He gave a statement shortly after, that Israel killing his family would not deter Hamas from continuing on the path to peace or change their position:

“The blood of my children is not more valuable than the blood of the children of the Palestinian people … All the martyrs of Palestine are my children”, said the elected Prime Minister.

On June 11 the Security Council backed president Biden’s new plan. Hamas made one statement after the other that they were positive to the plan. Antony Blinken said on June 13 that Hamas had some changes that were workable, others that were not. He also said that Netanyahu accepted the plan, which was a blatant lie in face of the whole world. Hamas had basically just one thing they wanted to be specified: that Israel pulling out their forces, also would mean to withdraw from the border between Gaza and Egypt.

This amendment would determine whether the plan was real or not - because in reality it would mean an end to the blocade. The plan wasn’t real, and everybody knows it. After that, Israel killed Haniyehs sister, and nine of her closest family members. Again Haniyeh said that Hamas would not be deterred from the peace-talks.

If there was any decency in the most powerful states in the West, they would stop this charade of pretending that any ceasefire agreement will come out of negotiations with Israel. Netanyahu does not want peace. The next step after a ceasefire would be a peace-agreement, which in turn would mean for Israel to accept the establishment of a Palestinian state. They would then have to pull all military forces out of the occupied territories. That is totally out of the question for Netanyahu.

But Western journalists just repeated Blinken’s words like parrots: “Netanyahu has accepted the ceasefire, and Hamas has not”.

No balance whatsoever

The ideal of balance in our local media is fulfilled when they report the suffering of the people in Gaza, and then also give a voice to those who support Israel. We then discuss and argue whether we are for or against the war. But we never discuss if we are for or against Hamas – we are all supposed to be against Hamas.

Our media have eaten Israels story raw; Hamas are pure evil, they have only one goal, and that is to obliterate Israel, they want to kill as many jews as they can, and by the way: they are also religious islamic crazypeople like ISIS and Al Qaida and keep their own people crushed under heel. On October 7, they also revealed that they are gruesome monsters. Therefore we must understand and accept that they must be defeated, and never be allowed to have a position of power again after the war. So we should assume that the top boss of Hamas must be the worst terrorist of them all.

Demonization of this scale is the one factor that always precedes genocide. We should therefore recognize demonization and expose it. Hamas is neither ISIS, Al Qaida or Taliban. The terror-listing of Hamas is due to only one thing: they have promised to resist Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, and they will never give up until the occupation is over.

Israel is using the resistance as an excuse to continue the occupation, and we should totally reject it.

Resistance is a human right

The UN has stated that it is a human right to resist occupation with all means, also armed resistance. The UN General Assembly states in Resolution 38-17 of 1983:

                    2.      Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for their independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle;

That is why the UN don’t regard Hamas as terrorists - they are freedom fighters.

So what does it mean to support Hamas? Does it also mean to support war crimes? The answer is - nobody in their right mind support war crimes. But this is also a fact: There is no way that any suppressed people can fight against an overwhelmingly powerful occupying state, and always act in accordance with the law. If we condemn freedom fighters for breaking the rules of war, and retract support because of it, then we have obliterated the right to resist. To resist without fault is an impossible demand to comply with for the oppressed. It is not at all impossible for the sophisticated occupier to avoid bombing children, but Israel does - daily. And so far no state or organization has demanded that they stop - and meant it.

The state of Israel is accepted by everybody

What we need to do, is to support the resistance as long as it is directed against the occupation. And it is. Israels propaganda is that Hamas fights to kill jews. They also claim to be surrounded by Arab states that want to see the state of Israel destroyed - because they are jews.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Israeli state with the 1967 borders is not threatened by anyone – not Hamas, and no-one else - not even Iran. Hamas recognized the two-state solution as early as 1988 – a year after they were established. 57 islamic countries have offered relations with Israel, if they withdrew from Palestine. Iran signed the offer in 2003.

What nobody accepts is Israel’s plan to expand its state by annexing all of Palestine. That is - it is only accepted by the zionists, who by definition are those who support Israel’s aggressive taking of Palestinian land. Apart from in Israel, most of these are in the United States. In the islamic states, they want the peace that comes with the end of Israels occupation. “Surrounded by enemies» is therefore just rhetoric. Everybody in the Middle East wants peace – except Israel.

Hamas is the only thing that stands between Israel and their goal of taking over all of Palestine. Hamas’ rival Fatah gave up all resistance under the Oslo Accords in 1993, in return for being permitted by Israel to govern bits and pieces of the occupied West Bank. Fatah’s peaceful submission has not brought the Palestinians a single step closer to peace and an independent state in 30 years. So Hamas is fighting for freedom for all the Palestinian people - in Gaza, in the West Bank, in East Jerusalem - and for the large number of Palestinian refugees abroad.

Hamas’ democratic party

In 2005 Hamas established their democratic party, Change and Reform, with Ismail Haniyeh as leader. In January 2006 Hamas won the first and only parliamentary election that has ever been held in Palestine. Israel and the US okay’d it - that one time.

Hamas won with a clear majority – 72 of 132 seats. Ismail Haniyeh became the first Prime Minister in Palestine, elected by the people. Hamas took office in the Parliament in Ramallah on the West Bank, and Haniyeh invited their rival Fatah – who had lost the election – to govern with them.

One of the first things Haniyeh did, was to offer peace with the Israelis. Or – he said it in these words: Hamas recognizes their own state with the borders of 1967. President Jimmy Carter has tried to explain this to Western journalists many times: you can’t ask an occupied people to acknowledge their occupier – when the occupation is ongoing. Israels demand for recognizion from Hamas is a diversion, since it’s an impossible ask. Carter always said that Hamas offers a longtime ceasefire, of ten to twenty years. If that would result in peace, recognizion would come in due time. And for that matter - Israel has never recognized Palestine. So for Israel to demand recognizion from the Palestinians, is just a power-play.

Haniyeh’s peace offerings

In the spring of 2006, Israel rejected Haniyeh’s offer of peace. Or more precisely: they never answered. He then sent a letter to president George W. Bush with the same offer of peace, and recognizion of the Palestinian state with the borders of 1967. This equals a total acceptance of the state on the other side of those borders. Both the US and Israel exclaimed to the world that Hamas didn’t recognize Israels right to exist. It was a blatant lie.

Israel instead made it impossible for Haniyeh to govern. Israel got full support from the US in destroying a democracy. They sanctioned the Palestinians, and got the Western world to join them in cutting off all aid. Israel closed off all finances going into Palestine, including all the taxes paid by the Palestinians living in the occupied territories. These incomes were exclusively the property of the Palestinian government, so it was nothing else than a robbery in broad daylight by Israel. And the Western world condoned it, and followed up with sanctions of their own. President Jimmy Carter has written in his books that it may be the first time in history that the world sanctioned the occupied, and not even voiced a protest against the occupier.

What the world knows today, in July 2024, is that Hamas is not an easy pushover, and has never been. So the Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in 2006 tried with all means – or rather without any means - to keep the society going. The Israeli plan was that the Palestinians should be so angry with their impossible living-conditions that they would turn against Hamas. It didn’t work. It doesn’t work today either. The Palestinians know all to well who is making life impossible for them. It is not Hamas.

Haniyeh kept on trying, governing and peace-offering. With the help of the Egyptians, Hamas had plans to make a big splash of the news that they accepted the two state solution – since nobody had seen through the Israeli propaganda in the months since the election in January 2006. Coming out of Egypt, the statement would be heard. It was to be announced from Kairo in July.

Israel made sure that the announcement never happended.

The electees were arrested

On the night of June 29th, Israel made a short process. Israeli forces rolled into the West Bank and arrested 64 of the elected representatives from Hamas. Those who were not at home had to escape and go into hiding. Haniyeh was one of them.

Israel then started a war against Lebanon on 12th July, that took all the attention that the world press could muster.

I was in Palestine in those days. We didn’t read about the arrests, as they pretty much went below the radar in the Western press – the Guardian being an exception. Together with the Norwegian Palestine Committeee, we went to Ramallah to meet Hamas representatives. There we met the House Speaker from Hamas, Dr. Aziz Dweik. He had not been arrested, but we heard about all the others. A short time after we got home, in August, we read that he also got arrested. His crime, like his collegues, was to be a member of Hamas’ political party, that Israel had allowed to run for office. Nobody had expected them to win. When they won, they were fair game for Israel.

The Speaker of the Hamas Parliament in Palestine, Dr. Aziz Dweik, in his office in Ramallah, 17th of July in 2006. A few weeks later he was also arrested and put in an Israeli prison – for being a Hamas-member. (Photo: Marianne Bergvall)

In the power vacuum that occurred after the arrests, Fatah took the reigns in the West Bank. Hamas, who had been elected to rule all of Palestine, managed to remain in power only in Gaza. A civil war broke out between Hamas and Fatah, who wanted to topple Hamas and seize power also in Gaza.

US-backed civil war

It has since become public knowledge that it was actually the US that was behind the civil war, by pressuring Fatah to attack Hamas. This came to light in an outstanding newsreport by the pricewinning journalist David Rose. Jerusalem Post later reported that the US trained and armed the Fatah fighters.

The fighting went on for months. In 2007 it was over, when Hamas managed to throw Fatah out of Gaza. The result was that Israel imposed a total blockade around Gaza.

In a new round of phoney peace-efforts, Israel and the US demanded that the Palestinians created a united government. Israel would talk peace only with a united governmental body. They probably saw this as an impossible demand, since the two parties were in a civil war against eachother.

But Haniyeh surprised them all. Initiated by the king of Saudi Arabia, he met with Fatah-leader Mahmoud Abbas. And a united government was agreed upon.

Norway was the first country in the world to accept the unity government in 2007, and was the first country to go to Gaza and visit Prime Minister Haniyeh on an official state visit. Norway also started the flow of financial aid again to the Palestinians. But Israel and the US, who demanded the unity government, did not accept it. Instead of calling Israel and the US on their bluff, none of the other Western countries accepted the unity government, since Israel and the US didn’t. So the attempt failed.

Israel and the US destroyed the first and only democratic government in Palestine. But for all true democrats, Ismail Haniyeh should be acknowledged as the only elected Prime Minister the Palestinians have ever had.

The blockade of Gaza

For 17 years, Israel has exposed Gaza to unbeliavable sufferings, and four aggressive wars, the first in 2008. Israels bombings have left thousands of children wounded, maimed, homeless, orphans – many without arms and legs – long before October 7. Haniyeh has governed Gaza under a blockade without any comparison in the history of human existence. Hamas has provided for kindergardens, schools, universities, care for the elderly. They have found new families for thousands of children (12.000 orphans in 2011 – Sara Roy, Harvard). They have established mental health care for thousands of children torn to pieces with anxiety.

The most difficult job of all is when the doctors have finished patching up the bombed children: In the every day life of the little one-year old girl who has no mother or father, and no hands. She reaches the stubs of her arms up in the air, and hopes that there is someone there that will lift her up and take care of her. A Norwegian Prio report from 2010 about the public services under Hamas in Gaza concludes:

«It is a miracle that the health sector functions in spite of the blockade».

It may be a miracle. It may also be Hamas and Ismail Haniyeh. That they have performed an incredible society effort.

In 2017, Ismail Haniyeh was elected to the highest posititon in Hamas. That was also when the much scorned charter was changed, so that Hamas now also on paper confirms that it recognizes the borders of 1967 between the two countries.

Why did October 7 happen?

If the Hamas-chief is such a moderate guy, then why did October 7 happen? It has taken a long time to get an answer to that question, since no Western media has made an effort to interview Hamas’ top leaders with an actual interest in hearing what they have to say. That is, until now, when Drop Site News has entered the media world, and Jeremy Scahill is asking the questions. And he’s getting quite a lot of answers - from representatives in the Hamas Political Bureau.

In short, the attack had to come, and it came when it had to - it couldn’t have come at any later moment in time. The occupation was more brutal than ever. The blockade of Gaza were killing people. The Palestinian cause was forgotten by the world. Netanyahu held up a map in the UN on September 21, two weeks before - showing “The new Middle East” - where there was no Palestine. The Abraham Accords were proceeding so that Saudi Arabia would be the next country to enter into friendship with Israel. If Saudi-Arabia had done that, without any expectation of Israel ending the occupation in return - it would have been the final straw that broke the donkeys back. The hope of a Palestinian state would have ended for good.

Netanyahu showed a map over The New Middle East in the United Nations General Assembly on September 21, 2023. In it, Palestine was erased from existence.

In addition to these very understandable arguments that Scahill lists, I can add the number of people killed and wounded since the blockade, in Gaza and in the West Bank - up until that day. OCHAs statistics show a very clear tale. Between 2008 and to 6th October 2023:

6.417 killed and 153.340 wounded Palestinians.

310 killed and 6.350 wounded Israelis.

At what number would it be obvious to everybody that the pressure was impossible to endure any longer, and that a response was inevitable? At 200.000 wounded? At 300.000 wounded? 153 thousand wounded, more than half of them children, is an enormous number. A blowback was long overdue, and it burst at 153.000 wounded.

What happened on October 7?

What actually happened that day, will come to light when the Israeli war on Gaza ends, the borders are opened and thorough investigations can take place. Hamas gives their own explanation of October 7 in their statement «Our Narrative», published January 21. In their words they sought to attack military camps and take Israeli soldiers as hostages, to pressure Israel to exchange a large number of Palestinian prisoners.

They also state that their fighters did not target civilians, and when civilians were hit, it was accidently in crossfire. They claim that many Israeli civilians were also killed with intent by the occupation forces. This allegation has been proved to be true later: The Israeli Hannibal Doctrine is the policy that «a dead Israeli hostage is better than a live Israeli hostage». Israeli news medias have confirmed that Israeli forces were ordered to kill their own.

Hamas also states that a lot went wrong that day, and attribute that to the fact that the Israeli defence system collapsed momentarily, and thereby chaos emerged in the border areas.

The historian Rashid Khalid tells Scahill that he believes that the collapse must have come as a surprise to Hamas:

«I don't think they expected thousands and thousands of Gazans to come out of this prison that Israel has created and kidnap individual Israelis».

The intention to capture Israeli soldiers makes sense and is credible, based on Hamas’ previous experiences. By October 7, thousands of Palestinians were locked up in Israeli prisons, without law and judgement – also children. In 2011, Israel released 1027 Palestinians for one Israeli soldier. Hamas may understandably have thought that the capture of ten or twenty Israeli soldiers – fifty would be plenty - could have resulted in the release of almost all Palestinians from Israeli prisons.

Member of Hamas Political Bureau, Ghazi Hamad, tells Scahill that they were all surprised that day, and that they never intented to take civilian hostages. On the contrary, he said that they worked hard to collect all the hostages who were held by different people and groups, and just a few days after October 7 called on Israeli mediators to release them. Ghazi Hamad has for years been in close contact with the Israeli negotiator Gershon Baskin, and Baskin confirms this: ‘

«From day four of the war, I was talking to Hamas already about a deal for the women, the children, the elderly and the wounded».

Baskin goes on to say that Hamas was not prepared for holding civilian hostages, and wanted to let them go.

Israel kills children with intent

Scahill reports that Israel refused, and have instead been using the hostages as justification for the bombing and starvation of Gaza.

Netyanyahu says Israel won’t stop bombing Gaza until all the hostages are released. Bombing all parts of Gaza indiscriminately won’t achieve that - it is rather the safest way for Israel to kill all of the hostages. Netanyahus expressed goal is to destroy Hamas’ capability to resist, and therefore he says Israel’s primary target is Hamas’ leaders and fighters. That is a miserable lie. Israel has the most advanced military equipment the world has ever seen, and they don’t make mistakes. When they hit thousands of children, it is because they want to. Israels primary target is precisely who they hit - the civilians. If it wasn’t, they wouldn’t have bombed so many thousands of children. They wouldn’t have starved the whole civil population.

Western governments still supply Israel with bombs and jetfuel and all the rest they need to keep a fullscale genocide going – for the purpose of releasing the hostages? It’s all such a shame. The children who didn’t get killed by a bomb are not the lucky ones. Palestinian little children are now reported to die of heart attack – caused by acute fear in the bomb explotions. Israel has dropped more bombs in Gaza in nine months than the total of bombs dropped in the Second World War. The West has collectively lost their minds to support it. The world is in desperate need for the new voices to be heard.

We should support the resistance

To this day the Western medias keep repeating “October 7, 1100 killed, 240 hostages” - like we have never heard it before. We have heard it. We know it. Now it’s time for the nuances. That doesn’t mean that we support what happened that day. It means that we support the Palestinians fight for their independence - with the means that they have.

Hamas is of the impression that armed resistance is the only way to realize the dream of a sovereign, independent state. And they are right, of course. There is an alternative and peaceful way to the same, and that is for the most powerful countries in the world to demand that Israel ends the occupation. And put pressure behind its words.

In this world of hypocracy, that has never happened, of course. The total lack of support for the Palestinians through decades has left only Hamas, and a couple of other smaller groups, to fight for the freedom of the people. And for that, they are labelled as terrorists by the powerful Western states.

If the West doesn’t demand that Israel withdraws from the occupied territories, that fight will rightfully never end. The West has never done anything for the occupation to end, and for that, we are to blame for October 7 - not Hamas. If we keep on doing nothing in the middle of a genocide and Israel-made famine, we are as guilty as Israel for the genocide.

Leading voices, like president Jimmy Carter, has long explained that a peace without Hamas is not possible. Thorvald Stoltenberg, former Norwegian foreign minister, said in 2011 that a lasting peace is only possible with Hamas onboard. Hamas’ political party, with their many voters, cannot be «exterminated» - not even if Israel continues the full scale genocide. Hamas is an idea,- it can not be wiped out.

In January this year, Haniyeh once again proposed an unity government. On July 23, in Beijing, Fatah and Hamas, as well as 12 other Palestinian groups, agreed to form an interim government and rule jointly, until free elections can be held in a free country. The hope is that the world will support the unity efforts this time – even if Israel and the US don’t.

Today the two-state solution is on the table as never before. But the Palestinians’ right to an independent, sovereign state, also means the people’s right to vote for the parties of their choice. It is up to the people to decide who they want to lead the country. Not Israel, not the US or any other power has the right to determine who gets to rule in Palestine after the war. It is up to the people if they want Hamas to be part of establishing a brand new state, in the reconstruction of Gaza, and in the healing of the people. The newest polls show that the people’s support has not diminished.

But the Palestinians will never experience peace and their own state until the West puts power behind their words. It seemed impossible that that could happen, before October 7, but now it seems more real than ever.

Israel refuses to listen, and must be stopped – even if it means to put friendship on hold. The people who are governing Israel now, are not our friends. Today we need to demand courage and honesty of our leaders. Leading politicians in the West know that Hamas with Ismail Haniyeh at the helm wishes what most of us support: A just and lasting peace, with two sovereign, independent states, living side by side, with secure borders between the two countries. Hamas must be recognized as a legitimate resistance movement as well as a democratic party – and the Palestinian people’s choice.