There is certainly a lot of curiosity about these dimensions, and it is difficult to get feel for things without being on the ground. I do my best to follow the raw feed from various Telegram channels, which eliminates some of the middlemen. That being said, we must acknowledge the limitations to what can be known from a distance. Additionally, we must always appreciate the diversity of Palestinian society. There is not one perspective but a range that changes across time, context, and geography, to say nothing of class, gender, age, and so on.
With all this said, it’s not like folks in Gaza woke up one day and decided that it might be a good day to attack Israel on October 7.
The enormous history, resources, and conviction that go into making a decision like that and pulling it off in the end; smashing the Gazan military command that enforced the siege; taking significant numbers of Israeli personnel captive to exchange them for Palestinian prisoners — the main aims declared by Hamas on the day; the response of Gaza’s political and civil society which has held firm for the past months and actively declared its motivation to join with Hamas and resist the Israeli campaign: all of this speaks to broad and complex historical dynamics related to the struggle with Israel, as well as to internal matters within the Palestinian movement that tend to get lost in the imagery of incredible suffering and destruction.
In this sense, the answers to your question do not arise in a vacuum but are part of various historical continuums that are themselves informed and layered, with key junctures and dialectical processes — relational, ideological, and political. If we seriously want to know the factors that go into answering these questions, we need to appreciate the dialectical processes themselves and not only the dynamics unleashed by the events of October 7.
In this light, let’s pause to say it clearly: rarely in human history do you have such a textbook case of genocide. That’s what the genocide scholars are saying at least. Of course, Palestinians are not waiting for the jury to emerge to see whether this understanding can penetrate public discourse in the West. But Palestinians already have deep experience with Zionist ethnic cleansing — every Palestinian generation has had their lived reality shaped by these experiences. So Palestinians see what’s happening today as part of that continuum and act accordingly.
The question for Palestinians has always been how to resist this — to end al-Nakba almustamirra (the continuous Nakba); to end the system of oppression that Palestinians face under occupation; to ensure the return of the refugees; to somehow put the brakes on the machinations of the Israeli state and its colonial practices that ceaselessly appropriate land and displace them. These core objectives form the basis for all Palestinian approaches to politics since 1948 and are wrapped up in the question of national self-determination and statehood.
On top of this, the situation in Gaza before October 7 was absolutely unlivable. Gaza has been a poisoned open-air prison for decades, with no future for millions of people. It was run in a sadistic, Orwellian manner by the Israeli army and the international donor community—a perverse regime that emerged out of the Oslo Accords and its dystopian doublespeak. Israel used the world’s most sophisticated military technologies to control and manipulate a population of refugees who were desperate to escape this prison and go back to their ancestral lands and homes—homes which were all nearby and largely empty. The direct and structural violence of these policies led Gaza and the broader Palestinian cause into an advanced state of sociocide and politicide.
Western liberal states camouflaged Israel’s acts and ignored their own responsibility for this situation. They engaged in “humanitarian” activity by paying for the elementary social programs that enabled Palestinians to barely survive within their ghettos, all while financing Israel and supplying their army. The whole system was so perverse, skewed, and normalized that Palestinian suffering generally, and Gazan suffering in particular, was seen as a necessary cost of the new global and regional order — effectively rendering that suffering invisible.
In this broader context, we should be clear that while Hamas was the main political and social body representing and organizing Palestinians within the Gaza prison, it was not the prison guard who actually ran it.
In that regard, Hamas is the latest political actor that entered into this broader context and attempted to answer the main questions of the national movement. More specifically, it did so during the decline of Fatah and the PLO factions in their failed Oslo gambit. While Israeli and Western actions bear most of the responsibility, there was also a strong sense among Palestinians that chaotic politicking, financial corruption, democratic shortfalls, and ideological bankruptcy also played a role in Fatah’s failure, or at least in the failure to build an effective alternative when the true nature of the post-Oslo order became apparent.
For Hamas, the process of entering this terrain and having to take up this mantle has been a huge, complex, and delicate undertaking that the movement overall was, frankly, not prepared for on many levels. The organization was also undertaking this role from an outsider’s positioning, insofar as Hamas was seen as a latecomer to Palestinian politics and was outside the fold of the “legitimate” secular national actors who launched the post-Nakba national movement.
There is no need to trace all the stages of how Hamas got to where it did. The fact of the matter is that by 2006 it already overwhelmingly won democratic popular elections and was deliberately prevented from taking power by Israel, the West, and a section of the historical Fatah movement that controlled the PA.
This moment was an important historical turning point in Palestinian politics because it unmasked the game being played under Oslo.
Before 2006 — even with skepticism around Oslo — one could still argue that the Western donor community supported institutions of self-representation for Palestinians. But when these actors refused to engage with the winners after the election and, moreover, deliberately sought to undermine them, it became clear that the Oslo process and the PA only had one function: to be the administration of a delimited autonomy scenario, with Israel and the donors deciding who was a legitimate actor, all while Israeli settler colonialism was given a free pass.
This blunt clarification initiated the contemporary historical era. Hamas became the default representative and defender of the legitimate democratic consensus in Palestinian politics. But it had to undertake this responsibility in a completely unforgiving environment that pitched it against Israel, the donor states, and a wing of Fatah under Abu Mazen that had consolidated its interests around the PA and its bureaucracy. There were also plenty of Hamas skeptics amongst the liberal and left intelligentsia, to say nothing of harder core Islamists.
In this regard, Hamas’ victory was as much an affirmation of the movement’s claim to stand firm around core tenets of Palestinian nationalism, as it was a testament to the collapse of Palestinians’ confidence in the former bearers of this consensus — namely, the PLO factions, and Fatah in particular.
The default nature of Hamas’ role is important to bear in mind when we witness contemporary developments. It reminds us that Hamas was historically tasked with rebuilding the Palestinian national movement after Palestinian society gave it a democratic mandate to help rescue it from the disaster of the Oslo process.
But this mandate lacked cohesion around a range of core political, tactical, and strategic questions. So Hamas was tasked with actualizing this mandate into more concrete policies without many of the basic tools of governance because of the boycott enacted against them and the broader lack of freedom to organize across the OPT. This was hardly a fair or free context, to say nothing of the fact that Israel arrested most of its parliamentarians within weeks of its electoral victory. Western donor states and Fatah in Ramallah also zealously denied funds to Hamas, both because they were politically opposed to them, and because they were petrified that Israeli-Zionist lawfare efforts would pursue them for “material support for terrorism.”
With all this said, it’s important to acknowledge after witnessing what we do today — both in Gaza and in the West Bank — that eighteen years after its electoral victory, Hamas has been successful in reconstituting this center. This success is not merely a result of Palestinians rallying in response to the horrific situation in Gaza. If anything, October 7 is the dramatic pinnacle of Hamas claiming its leadership mantle over the entire movement, although we must admit that it has used a risky strategy to do so that relied upon the sonic boom of its October 7 operation.
While many actors failed to see this coming, this process did not occur overnight and left many indications to those willing to read the tea leaves without bias. Indeed, there has long been an echo chamber in certain circles of Palestinian discourse, particularly the English-language discourse, which ignored or downplayed Hamas’ achievements and the overall dynamics in Gaza — either because these actors resented Hamas’ rise, were detached from the factors behind it, or were content with promoting a superficial, self-reinforcing discourse on Palestinian affairs.
Well before October 7, Hamas was consistently winning the main elections that took place in Palestinian society, whether the student elections in Palestinian universities, or the elections for certain large syndicates like those of the engineers and doctors and so on. These results indicate that, rather than being a one-off winner, the movement was able to accumulate and expand trust beyond its base and amongst a periphery of folks who are willing to travel with the movement without being directly affiliated with it.
There are many reasons for Hamas’ ability to consistently win and expand public trust over the years. This process was not linear, and the movement is still regarded in certain circles with skepticism. While the movement has clearly made both mistakes and enemies, it is equally worth recalling that these blunders were also judged in relation to the actions, inactions, and mistakes of other actors in the Palestinian context. They also are judged across a broader historical arc whereby the ‘Palestine question’ has undergone significant political and financial retreats internationally and regionally in the past three decades. Collectively these factors have improved Hamas buoyancy over this period.
While it’s neither the time nor place to fully elaborate on the complex reasons for Hamas’ rise, a few key aspects illustrate how the movement gauged and implemented its historical mission as both a national and a governance actor under the specific conditions it operated. These elements will be important as things play out on the ground locally and with regard to Israel.
To begin with, it is worth noting that the organization did not attempt to implement shari’a law when it came to power and which many outsiders may have assumed was its priority. One of the organization’s first domestic targets was actually local Salafists, who tested its rule and were viciously struck down. This move was an early signal that the movement aimed to chart a pragmatist course rather than a utopian one and wanted to court and reconstitute the political center.
On a national political basis, Hamas did not elaborate any novel positions. If anything, the movement moderated its political approach, changing its founding charter in 2017 to more closely align with the positions of other PLO factions that enabled a more staged approach to liberation. No serious political party could survive or maintain their legitimacy if it did not hold certain core Palestinian national principles: the right of return, the right to self-determination, the right to statehood, the end of the occupation, Jerusalem’s status as the capital of the Palestinian state, and so on. The difference between factions is less about these goals and more about the tactical and strategic means to achieve them and the people’s trust in those strategies. Hamas distinguished itself from the other factions at this level, that is, at the level of means and strategy.
Under Oslo, Fatah-PA governance, and the donor-Israel arrangement overall, Palestinians were constantly bullied into demonstrating that they were “pro-peace,” “anti-terror,” and weren’t “inciting” against Israel irrespective of what it did to them — as though the articulation of basic national rights and resistance to occupation and settler colonialism were crimes or constituted incitement.
Fatah participated in this game to demonstrate its credentials to the international community, and to the US and Western Europe in particular. Fatah attempted to represent itself as a reliable player regionally and as a security partner that would not threaten Israel in its pre-1967 borders. Palestinians resented this cynical approach, even if they understood it was partly tactical on Fatah’s behalf. The prioritization of Israeli and Western security concerns, and the acceptance of the entire dystopian discourse of the peace process, was read by Palestinian society as an abuse of both language and rights that imposed obligations on the oppressed to recognize and protect their oppressor. It also was read as insulting the formidable historical sacrifices of the national movement. So Hamas won points for being clear and unequivocal on these questions.
But this political approach would have not been enough to cement Hamas’ leadership were it not linked with a sensitivity to political economic considerations — that is, to the livelihoods of those under siege and occupation.
Under the arrangement established by Oslo, the most elementary aspects of Palestinian governance and wellbeing were captive to Israeli and Western approval and finance. It’s not that Fatah had fallen in love with Israel — to the contrary, deep animosity and distrust characterizes relations between Israel and the PLO/Fatah. Too many outsiders who support the Palestinian cause often misunderstand this issue. With that said, Fatah’s Oslo gambit relied on donor funds for its government services and employees, so all of these programs needed Israeli or Western approval.
This reality created conditions where entities and persons who downplayed national politics were more likely to economically prosper. At the end of the day, Israel made all Palestinians subject to invasive security/intelligence checks, especially when it came to matters related to movement and access. This basically meant Israel and donors could “make you” or “break you.” Over time, this dynamic was thought to have corrupted large parts of the Palestinian movement and turned it into beggars or hucksters, while creating a whole tier of political profiteering from the cause by those who played the Oslo game — be they within government, political parties, the private sector, or NGOs.
With this said, Israel could also be pernicious in its use of collective punishment against entire families, villages, or communities. So even if you were apolitical in such a community or family and kept your head down, so to speak, this still did not insulate you from conditions that could ruin your life, simply through association. This also promoted a “nod” towards Hamas.
Financially, Hamas was also not beholden to Oslo’s discursive peace process simulacra. It relied on separate financial revenue streams (both external and internal) while also advocating a general ethos of Palestinian agency and self-reliance, irrespective of what Israel or donors did—breaking the dependent, shoulder-shrugging mentality that the political economy of Oslo promoted amongst wide sections of Palestinian society. This enabled the organization to pitch itself as a moral and institutional movement “aligner” while acting as a consensus builder among the disaffected. On this path, Hamas took important positions to help build trust on different levels of society, as well as within the existing political society.
In Gaza in particular, where the movement was relatively free to operate within the prison walls — ironically freer than Fatah in the West Bank, which suffered from the territory’s fragmentation — Hamas was credited with bringing a sense of security and order after the chaos that emerged with the decline and splintering of Fatah after the death of Arafat in 2004.
Situations of siege and crisis like those in Gaza have the potential to bring out the ugly side of a society, as they incentivize predation, opportunism, exploitation, and gangsterism. In such contexts there is no recourse except for coercive force. Such force needs to be seen as legitimate in order to exercise governance over time. In this regard, Hamas’ military and civilian police capacity introduced forms of rational administration and regulation, in addition to conflict management and resolution frameworks that mixed shari’a and tribal law precepts in dispute resolution. While this kind of rule can also be critiqued for reinforcing traditional social and gender hierarchies, it was welcomed by much of Gazan society as a bulwark against gangsterism.
Hamas also had deep experience in the charity sector, including running soup kitchens, day care centers, and social mentoring. It also innovated new programs that attempted to resolve siege-specific malaises. Hamas proved itself capable of stabilizing the markets when it established its “ministry of tunnels” to oversee tunnel trade across the Egypt-Rafah border. These tunnels also acted as lifelines for Gaza when the siege was ratcheted up in 2008. The disastrous economic conditions in Gaza under siege made simple life-transitions, like marriage, exceptionally difficult for many youths, particularly junior males in large families. There were also many families who had either lost fathers and husbands, or else suffered physical disability due to the Occupation. Hamas worked to solve these social questions in different ways. For example, it organized and subsidized group marriages. It also developed pension programs for the injured and the families of martyrs and became a major employer in the Strip, in both its civil administration and its military wing. The over five hundred kilometers of tunnels beneath Gaza were built by an enormous labor force of young men, of whom there was no shortage. Playing these important economic roles allowed Hamas to build trust locally in Gaza while also fostering patronage.
On the level of national politics, Hamas also attempted to forge forms of national consensus that effectively collected and aggregated anti-Oslo sentiments, both individually and institutionally.
For instance, the organization’s engagement in national reconciliation efforts with Fatah was broadly appreciated, particularly when it resulted in important cross-factional consensus-building documents like the Prisoners’ Document of 2006. The latter included influential Fatah figures like Marwan Barghouti and essentially meant that Hamas was able to forge a national basis of organizing with all factions, while strategically isolating the Abu Mazen wing of Fatah as the only significant element of organized Palestinian political society that still upheld the Oslo framework.
Hamas also allowed for and encouraged its members to participate in the Great March of Return and the Breaking the Siege movement in Gaza, in which, over the course of a year and a half, tens of thousands of Gazans marched to the fence and demanded an end to the siege and for the right of return. Israel’s brutal repression of this fundamentally nonviolent movement through incessant sniper fire, together with the indifference of the international donor community, played important roles in preparing Gazan society for a broader military confrontation with Israel. Social and political actors concluded that civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance was categorically ineffective in achieving Palestinian rights. The takeaway from these demonstrations was that these actions did not generate significant political traction, and that there was no reliable regional or international force with either the will or the capacity to stop the mass maiming of Gazan society.
This began tipping sympathy and conviction towards militarism, bearing in mind that all Palestinian factions (including Fatah) formally reserved armed struggle as a legitimate option in national struggle activity. As the conviction for armed struggle strengthened, Hamas took the important but little-known step of helping arm and train all the political factions in Gaza. It also created joint command centers where collective military activity could be coordinated. Such cooperation would be unheard of from Fatah today, though the PLO trained various revolutionary movements from South Africa to Ireland during the 1960s and 1970s in Lebanon and Jordan.
Hamas also made open alliances with actors like Iran and Hezbollah, who were willing to support the movement on its terms through the provision of arms and training. While such alliances are not beyond criticism, they were nonetheless widely supported by local political factions who saw no credible alternative strategy. Moreover, they also witnessed the role guerrilla struggle in Gaza played in pushing out the Israeli military and settlers during the Second Intifada in 2005 and in South Lebanon in 2000. The memory of these campaigns certainly reinforced the tendency towards militarism that Hamas embraced on both a national and a factional level.
In this respect, Hamas’ limited reign in Gaza provided the basic primitive conditions where this aspiration could be explored and attempted on a scale it had not since 1948. Militarism also served hierarchical internal power dynamics both between the factions and between society and the factions, while obfuscating or retarding more distinctly political alliance building on the local, regional, and global levels.
Lastly, one of the most important and effective issues Hamas used to expand its base through was the question of political prisoners. It’s difficult for outsiders to appreciate the importance of this issue to the local scene, but Palestinian society is the most imprisoned population per capita in the world. One out of every three Palestinian men has experienced detention or imprisonment, while the Palestinian Prisoner Society estimates that 80 percent of these experiences involve forms of torture, abuse, or sexual abuse. This far-reaching phenomenon — largely invisible to those who have not suffered it — encompasses almost every Palestinian household, and viscerally conjures the pain and traumas of what it means for wives, children, families, and communities overall.
Moreover, the question of imprisonment separates the authentic Palestinian political leadership from those who formally occupy the seats of power sanctioned by Israel and Western donors together with other elites. A large part of the Palestinian leadership is currently in Israeli prison. Their absence has a tangible impact on the effectiveness of the movement overall — not only in its struggle with the Occupation, but also regarding local matters. Thus, recovering prisoners is regarded by Palestinian society as a highly important cross-factional objective. Moreover, history has shown that Israel is vulnerable to releases in the form of prisoner exchanges.
For these reasons, Hamas exerted great efforts to place the recovery of prisoners at the center of its resistance activity and set it as one of the central goals of Operation Al Aqsa Flood. In fact, in several speeches made before October 7, Hamas’ leader Yahya Sinwar warned Israel that the organization would find new means to release its brethren if Israel continued to refuse to engage in a prisoner exchange for Israeli soldiers Hamas claimed to have held since the 2014 assault. These warnings, like others, were not heeded. In any event, Hamas knew the cross-factional and cross-societal nature of the prisoner issue also created a strong unifying political basis for its military maneuver irrespective of how Israel would respond.
Having said all of this, the calculus of interpreting ongoing developments becomes more complicated than a cost-benefit calculation of the number of Palestinians killed and buildings destroyed. The dynamics unleashed on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides by the events of October 7 certainly represent a high-stakes gambit that could fundamentally break core features of the previous dynamic. While the outcome of this struggle is still undetermined and could be catastrophic or propitious for either side’s long term aims, the dynamics at play have already greatly expanded knowledge of the situation in Palestine while challenging the terms of debate regarding its management by the West. It has also unmasked significant parts of the hard and soft power networks implicated in Palestine’s oppression.
While these have certainly come at an enormous toll, it still beggars the need for these sacrifices to be invested to their fullest: the isolation and powerlessness of the Palestinian question and the Gazan predicament of recent years, which lent itself toward the calculus of what happened on October 7, must now be vested with efforts to reify institutions, frameworks and struggle dynamics that can finally expose, restrain and hold accountable the racist and violent system that made this possible both in Israel and within the Western donor states.
In this regard, while it is always necessary to remain critical and independent in thought, this cannot hold back action upon the unfolding historical conjuncture and its window for building a massive new political movement for Palestinian justice. Indeed, such a movement is the only realistic path toward achieving Palestinian rights and preventing a still bloodier future in Palestine. The latter will also have important knock-on implications for building the new social and political movements in Western metropoles needed to fight the rise of the populist, fascistic right in the wake of the collapse of neoliberalism and resultant Western decline. These forces cannot be ignored, as they are positioned to do enormous harm to the historical achievements of working-class struggles, let alone to the Palestinian people and others like them. There is an organic connection between these struggles and the Palestinian cause today that also goes to the heart of the fight for a more just and sustainable world in this moment characterized by morbid symptoms, as Gramsci put it in another context.
