OPERATION ROLLING BLUNDER
The World’s Most Moral Resistance Fighters [updated]
Hamas agreed to a ceasefire and hostage trade in May of 2024, but Israel won’t take “Yes” for an answer. Who’s got the moral high ground now?
Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada, Israel, the U.K., and the European Union, although not by most other countries or the United Nations Security Council Committee. This is normal: terrorist designations are rarely unanimous.
No one gets the last word: a terrorist outfit is any armed group that the world’s governing powers fear and despise. Membership rolls are highly fluid. Let’s recall South Africa and the ANC: Nelson Mandela went from terrorist demon to secular saint virtually overnight because the people and institutions running things wanted it that way. South African apartheid was fine until it wasn’t.
Terrorist status is fundamentally a matter of opinion influenced by political and practical considerations. The Houthi movement in Yemen is a recent example: it was classified as terrorist by the Trump administration, no doubt under Saudi pressure, then immediately de-listed by Joe Biden when he took office, although he put them back on in 2023 because they made Bibi Netanyahu cry.
But Hamas…
One could argue that Hamas are terrorists based on their numerous surprise attacks against civilian targets in the past, and I freely recognize that as a valid position. But one could also call them a legitimate guerrilla resistance organization which has in the past committed terrorist acts that no longer define it. The ANC and IRA spring immediately to mind. The French Resistance would not be too great a stretch. Were they terrorists? It depends who you ask.
Almost everyone would agree that, in the absence of a realistic diplomatic solution, armed resistance to foreign occupation is the absolute right of every people, and, further, a moral duty. This is echoed, not quite so strongly, in the 1970 United Nations General Assembly Resolution #2625 (pdf) on national self determination. Most countries acknowledge it, at least perfunctorily, more often opportunistically; but people who have experienced the wrong end of foreign occupation will take this idea of an inherent collective human right to resist quite seriously. And that describes a lot of the world, actually.
So, just how moral are Hamas as they exercise this duty? Let’s consider that question in the context of how moral Israel has been. Let’s compare.
I’ll begin by saying that I wish Hamas had struck military targets exclusively on 7 October 2023. By attacking civilians, and taking civilian hostages, they committed war crimes and acts of terrorism. There is no way around that fact.
However, all of the Israeli hostages released from Hamas custody so far were found physically healthy and emotionally fit. None showed the slightest sign of maltreatment, much less the outright torture that Israel visits on its Palestinian captives.
Israel’s treatment of Arab prisoners has been abominable: rape, torture, starvation, and outright murder. There is no evidence that Hamas has done any such thing, except for an isolated incident on 15 August 2024 where a guard murdered one captive and wounded two others after learning that his two children had been killed in an IDF massacre. Anyone might crack in that situation. And the Hamas leadership denounced the act immediately and publicly. And that’s still fewer Israeli hostages than the IDF is known to have murdered deliberately in mid-December of 2023. [1]
The infamous mass rape and infant mutilation stories from 7 October, attributed to Hamas, have since proved to be a steaming pile of hasbara. Not one instance has been verified objectively. It appears likely that Israel murdered more Israeli civilians than Hamas, by shelling the kibbutzim with tank fire and hosing down music festival goers to prevent their capture, according to the Hannibal doctrine.
Hypocrisy
The world’s most moral army, as we’ve heard it called, has since turned every inch of Gaza into a free fire zone with unforgivable numbers of civilian casualties. It has bombed every school, hospital, and mosque, plus most residential buildings. It bombs refugee camps. It actually targets children. Let’s not forget the IDF tank crew that used six-year-old Hind Rajab — a Palestinian girl who had witnessed her family shot to bits in her immediate presence — as live bait to lure emergency medical workers to their deaths. A total of nine civilians died in that IDF operation, including Hind, whom they dispatched as soon as she served her purpose. A forensic investigation found that 335 rounds had been fired into the car she rode in. And this demonic war crime has yet to be punished.
Israel’s siege of Gaza is worse than illegal warfare. Israel is clearly engaged in ethnic cleansing enhanced with constant gratuitous atrocities.
Hamas, on the other hand, is not attempting to exterminate Israel; it’s fighting chiefly for recognition of a Palestinian state, and it is willing to negotiate. Indeed, it agreed to the 31 May 2024 American proposal, which included a path toward a permanent cease-fire, but Israel will not. Netanyahu repeatedly insists that once he gets all the Israeli hostages back, he will return to finish the job of exterminating the Palestinians in Gaza.
Hamas would be insane to agree to that, so it’s absolutely clear that Israel wants the carnage to go on. And to top that off, Netanyahu criticizes Hamas for refusing to commit genosuicide. When Israel or one its obedient allies claims that Hamas is scuppering the deal, it’s another steaming pile. They mean that Hamas has rejected Netanyahu’s counter proposal, which requires them to give up all their hostages — that is, every bit of negotiating leverage they’ve got — then die.
Which will not happen because, let’s be honest, they’re not losing. Qassam Brigades fighters have exhibited remarkable gallantry in the rubble that was Gaza: snipers are taking out IDF soldiers and officers; and fighters are hand-delivering RPG rounds and explosives to Israeli tanks. They wear no helmets, no boots, no body armor: they do this in sneakers and t-shirts. They make excellent use of unexploded ordnance and captured ammunition. Their courage, resourcefulness, and ingenuity are extraordinary.
The IDF, in contrast, lack the courage to assign support troops to protect their tanks, which are more vulnerable in an urban environment than one might imagine. I’ve seen unguarded tanks and APCs used as mobile cover with IDF troops cowering within, which leaves the vehicles vulnerable to the kind of brazen, broad-daylight attacks that Qassam fighters appear to take pleasure in, like counting coup, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere.
Role reversal
The IDF army look like the irregular forces here. They’re reservists and conscripts: a lot of poorly-led stooges and sadists good only for massacring vast numbers of unarmed civilians at long range or from the safety of cover with spectacularly overpowered weapons, in hopes of breaking the will of the Palestinians, which they have not yet begun to do. This legitimately makes the IDF a terrorist organization. That is the very definition of terrorism.
Israel has been steadily committing mass acts of moral degeneracy several orders of magnitude more vile than Hamas; and, while many people will deny it strenuously, the facts remain and they will be made public in time. The day will arrive when the Zionists’ obscenities will be common knowledge, like the Nazi extermination camps that all the “Good Germans” were so eager to believe were only rumored.
Finally, with its recent assassination spree on sovereign, foreign soil, Israel is clearly attempting to provoke a wider, regional war involving Hezbollah, and possibly Iran, which it is incapable of fighting, and from which America will have to rescue it, possibly by force of arms. With friends like Israel, we certainly don’t need enemies.
As for Hamas, their behavior since 7 October has been sound. I see them as a morally-disciplined, armed resistance group that has, like the ANC and IRA, committed terrorist acts in the past that don’t define it today. It’s now engaged in armed struggle for the survival of a people — which, to borrow a phrase, is the very definition of just warfare.
I wasn’t surprised that on 7 October Hamas answered decades of relentless Zionist provocation with violence. Palestinians are victims of apartheid: they’re unable to travel freely, or study or work or live where they please; they’re monitored relentlessly, detained arbitrarily, mistreated in custody, and disqualified from most opportunities to improve their lives. The unremitting pressure and humiliation that Israel exerts on Palestinians was guaranteed to draw a violent reply driven by rage.
Never say die
The Israelis are making the mistake that the Americans made in Vietnam, believing that by destroying villages and killing NVA and VC at a rate greater than the replacement rate, victory was inevitable: it’s math, after all. The Americans mistook destroying for winning. (I’ve discussed this idea in greater depth in a follow-up article.)
The Israelis, too, are bringing destruction on an apocalyptic scale, with no victory in sight and no will to stop. Destroying Gaza is another example of not winning. If the Zionists persist in undermining a just settlement in favor of mindless destruction, I think a lot of us will be rooting for Hamas to humiliate them.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m peace loving, although obviously not a pacifist. Certainly, a just peace is always preferable to violence. And I hope sincerely that Israel will finally take “Yes” for an answer and accept the U.S. proposal, offered back in May, for a permanent cease-fire and hostage exchange. [2]
For now, I suggest that we follow standard procedure to nudge things forward. Pop quiz: what do these folks have in common:
Henry Kissinger & Le Duc Tho
Menachem Begin & Anwar Sadat
F.W. de Klerk & Nelson Mandela
Yasser Arafat & Shimon Peres & Yitzhak Rabin
John Hume & David Trimble
That’s right, they all (except Le Duc Tho) took bribes from the Nobel Committee to play nice. So let’s do it again: let’s give a shared Nobel Peace Bribe to Bibi Netanyahu and Yahya Sinwar, and get on with the negotiations, hoping that justice might finally prevail.
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[1] Update 10 Sept: In late August, six hostages, including one American, were found dead in Rafah, having been shot by their Palestinian captors. Since Hamas had allowed the Israelis to rescue four hostages in Nuseirat by force without attacking the captives, back in early June, this must indicate a new policy, whereby any hostages Israel attempts to free by force will presumably be shot as well. This is clearly meant to discourage rescue attempts, since the hostages represent Hamas’ only negotiating leverage. Personally, I abhor killing unarmed persons of any nationality for any reason, but the hard-nosed logic here is sound.
[2] Update 19 August: Antony Blinken is in Israel. It’s clear that Netanyahu has demanded his usual deal-breaking amendments to remove any path to a permanent ceasefire. A duplicitous Blinken announced publicly that “Israel has agreed,” and that everyone is now waiting for Hamas to agree (translation: the USA capitulated again). Blinken readily admitted that the proposal had been altered, saying that it “reflects” the original US deal. I must point out that Hamas already agreed to the US proposal months ago and is unwilling to entertain amendments, with good reason. No doubt the MSM will again frame this as Hamas’s intransigence rather than Israel’s sabotage. But let’s not be fooled.
