Do you condem Hamas? has become the signature phrase of Peirs Morgan, who according to some, is the journalist who has milked this conflict the most for his own personal glory and betterment of his career. His frequent repetition of this question has almost become a running joke. Even Peirs himself has joked about it.

I have come to appreciate his work and his efforts to give a voice to both camps, no matter his personal intentions. Yes, you could say he’s milked the topic. But he is a modern day journalist. If he doesn’t get clicks he is out of a job and every time he sits down with people commenting on this issue you are sure to get a lively discussion. The horror and tragedy of what’s happening in Gaza has some creepy cerebral entertainment value, since it’s like a courtroom drama with all of us picking sides. I sometimes think people in the west, me included, focus on this issue so much to distract themselves from their own personal issues. I know I have at times.

Anyway, it’s on Peirs Morgan’s show that I heard the argument that on October 7th the Palestinians organized something like a slave revolt.

Norman Finkelstein and others (probably inspired by Finkelstein) have argued that what happened on October 7th was the same as slaves rising up against their master. They can’t condemn slaves like Nat Turner (he led a four day slave rebellion back in 1831 during which about 60 white men, women and children were killed) or abolitionist like John Brown (he tried to spark a large slave uprising all across the American south in 1859 and earlier he had killed pro-slavery whites in Kansas) who rose up and killed slave owners and their family members. According to voices like Finkelstein, in the face of slavery any violence is to be condoned or at least to be accepted as inevitable. The same with the Palestinians. After everything Israel has done to them it’s no surprise there is an outburst of extreme violence. Finkelstein points to the mass unemployment in Gaza prior to October 7th caused by Israel. He mentions how many commonly used products were not allowed into Gaza. He mentions the travel restrictions. According to Dershowitz, and Moshe, this was done to prevent Gaza from turning into a terror base. Dershowitz argues that the restrictions weren’t tight enough, because clearly Hamas did transform Gaza into a staging area for attacks on Israel.

I haven’t seen anyone argue that the Palestinians are the slaves of the Israelis, but I have seen many instances of people calling Gaza an open air prison or the largest concentration camp on earth.  

I have also seen very beautiful pictures of Gaza shared online with captions like: ‘We will make Gaza as beautiful as it was before October 7th.’ These are exactly the same people who claim it was an open air prison and the largest concentration camp on earth. So it was a beautiful open air prison and a beautiful concentration camp? It can’t have been a lovely place and a prison at the same time. Unless, perhaps, Gaza is a correctional facility in Norway.

The situation of the Palestinians prior to October 7th was far from enviable. In the West Bank the Palestinians saw themselves more and more encircled by Israeli settlers and Gaza was not exactly a prosperous place. Nobody claims there was no blockade. International law says that an occupied people have the right to resist. Moshe argues that the Palestinians are not living under an occupation. Gaza was given back to them in 2006. He also argues that the blockade can’t have been very tight, since Hamas managed to construct all those tunnels, they could launch all those rockets and there were luxurious restaurants there and even a riding schools for the kids of the elite in Gaza. I argue that even high security prisons all around the world have an elite class of prisoners that manages to live better than the other inmates. Israel’s reaction to the peaceful protests along the security fence back in 2019 prove to me how dangerous life in the Gaza strip is. Moshe argues that those protests were far from peaceful and that some of those protesters were trying to kill IDF soldiers. We could go back and forth like this on any aspect of life in Gaza. I will find something to suggest life in Gaza was bad because of Israel’s policies and Moshe will either blame that on the policies of Hamas or will try to paint a rosier picture.

What we can agree on is that Gaza was not a great place to build a life prior to October 7th and that Israel’s policies were at least partially the underlying cause of those less than optimal circumstances. It’s also true that Hamas could theoretically have spent more money on improving those circumstances and less on acquiring weapons. The trouble is that Palestinian lives are so cheap and they are shot at the slightest suspicion of wrong doing, see for example how hard Israel makes it for Gazans to go out fishing. I don’t believe that Israel would have stopped controlling the lives of Palestinians in Gaza and restricting their economic abilities if they had chosen a purely peaceful path. Moshe has argued the opposite. He wouldn’t have minded if Gaza had become one of the top tourist destinations in the world. I don’t see how that could have happened with the way Israel treats the Palestinians.

Was Hamas justified in surging through the security fence and attacking, killing and abducting IDF soldiers, but also civilians?

When it comes to attacking IDF soldiers, I say, yes.

When it comes to civilians of military age, I say, no. If they were sure they were dealing with reservists in the Israeli army, maybe, but Hamas could not be sure of that. Am sure they killed some Israeli citizens who refused to serve in the IDF. Am also sure they killed some Israeli peaceniks. Some of the kibbutzim were known to be populated by people who tried hard to ease the tensions between the Israelis and the Palestinians. If this is indeed the case, then that’s just sad and most deplorable.

I find it hard to talk about October 7th in any conclusive way, because nobody has the full picture. The IDF in its response to the attack killed some of its own citizens when it blasted away at the attackers to neutralize the threat as soon as possible. Some argue the IDF was acting according to the Hannibal directive. Meaning that it was killing its own citizens rather than have them be taken captive by Hamas to be used as precious bargaining chips later.

Hamas taking civilians as hostages, including children, is often defended on the grounds that Israel routinely detains (kidnaps is perhaps a better word) civilians in the West Bank, including very young children. These civilians are often subjected to abuse. Some parents never see their children again. If this proves to be true, then Hamas taking hostages starts sounding a little less outrageous.

Hamas knows the IDF has vastly superior weapons, with the unwavering support of some of the most powerful nations on earth.

Given how succesful the Palestinian resistance was with the exchange of their lonely prisoner Gilad Shalit back in 2011 it’s easy to understand why Hamas wanted to return to Gaza with hostages. IDF soldier Gilad Shalit was handed back to Israel in exhange for the release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners.

Perhaps they thought dragging hostages back to Gaza would safeguard them against a large scale military reaction.

Israel wanted to prove to Hamas once and for all that it could not be manipulated this way. The trouble there is that Israel’s reaction has displaced pretty much every living soul in Gaza and has killed a truly shocking number of civilians. It knew full well its offensive was going to result in great loss of life. Not enough precautions were taken to make sure civilians could stay in safe areas. Defenders of Israel will argue that Hamas made sure that its civilians could never be safe by embedding themselves in populated areas. Of course, Gaza isn’t a very big place. Hamas fighters don’t have many options. There are no mountainous areas to retreat to and there is no jungle like in Vietnam.

So no, Hamas is not going to politely agree to the request from pro-Israeli voices to meet the IDF in an open field and have the most modern firepower the west can deliver blow them away. I bet the affair would be over and done with in less than 24 hours. Some folks really don’t like the concept of guerilla warfare. It’s the only way a weaker opponent can defeat a much mightier opponent. Of course the stronger opponent calls foul when the weaker opponent refuses to fight them head on. This is not about moral courage, but about militarily sound tactics.

So do I condemn Hamas? For taking children hostages? Yes. That was not necessary at all. I know Israel detains very young children and I find it despicable and it doesn’t give Hamas the moral right to do the same.

Do I condemn Hamas for killing and capturing IDF soldiers? No, I don’t.

Do I condemn Hamas for sending rockets? The situation in the West Bank legitimages this response, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s wise or morally right. Those rockets rarely kill, but when they do kill, they kill indiscriminately. It’s entirely possible for a Hamas rocket to kill civilians, including Arab Israelis, which makes the use of them all the more absurd.

The only real defense I have for them is that prior the October 7th it was often only the rockets that kept the media focused on Israel and the Palestinians. In my opinion periods in which few people are talking about this situation are advantageous to the Israelis, because then they can quietly take over more land and fewer people abroad become involved as activists.

On X I got the overwhelming response that the Palestinians can fight back in any way they please since Israel is the occupying force and Palestinians are well in their rights to throw off that yoke.

Moshe argues the opposite. Palestinians are subject to so many restrictions, because Israelis don’t want to be murdered by them.

I have often said that Israel’s campaign of mass destruction in Gaza could not be excused with the ‘Hamas made made me do it’ argument. Meaning that atrocities commited on October 7th were not a free out of jail card to commit atrocities on a much larger scale with far worse consequences. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. That rationale. Am not a Catholic, but I was raised as one, so deep engrained in me is the idea that only love can defeat hate. Unfortunately I also know that an oppressing force doesn’t stop oppressing unless the oppresssing force has too costly a price to pay to continue in its oppressing.

Would Gaza lie in ruins without October 7th? No.

But only a tiny, almost neglible fraction of the number of people talking about the Palestinian cause would be talking about it now.

Hamas, and this must be so baffling and distrurbing to Israel and its supporters, has succeeded in making the Palestinian struggle one of the hottest topics in the world right now. The people of Gaza, and to some extent also the Palestinian people in the West Bank, are paying a horrific price for it, but Hamas has won an overwhelming PR victory.

Whether you condemn Hamas or not, whether you defend Israel or not, Palestine has never had this much vocal support abroad. Gaza has been destroyed, but the idea that the Palestinians are the goodies and Israel the baddies has gained immense traction and I suspect that this is much more important to Hamas than having intact infrastructure in Gaza. To some extent I agree that Hamas is sacrificing some of the Palestinians for what it sees as the greater good in the long term.

I think the mentality of Hamas makes this struggle a struggle with no clear deadline. Palestinians don’t have to get all the land, from the river to the sea, in this life time, it may not be the next generation that accomplishes it, or the one after that, or event the one after that, but eventually it will happen and they have played their part in accomplishing that goal.

I am aware that most of the time am interpreting this conflict with my western mindset, which is very much influenced by the idea that life is supposed to be as fun and comfortable as can be. I don’t know many westerns who live for a struggle that will only see its succesful conclusion hundreds of years from now.

It’s hard for me to get into the minds of Hamas or Palestinians who have nothing to do with Hamas or the minds of Jewish Israelis or Arab Israelis. I reckon none of those groups is firmly unified or entirely uniform in its thinking or experience.

In conclusion, when I read that the head of an IDF soldier was taken back to Gaza in order to be sold for the price of 10,000 dollars I can of course not say that I condone that or understand that or wish to encourage such acts. Pro-Palestinian voices will be quick to say no such thing ever happened, but let’s for a moment assume that it did (and I really do think it happened if I have to guess). That is disgusting. It’s also a huge  tactical mistake, because revolting behaviour like that will naturally give the Israelis ammunition to portray all Palestinians as savages and depraved barbarians. There are unfortunately scenarios in my head in which I can imagine I could stoop so low as to do something like that. It would take a lot, but I can’t rule it out. This layer of varnish that keeps us functioning as civilized human beings can prove to be rather thin given the right circumstances to trigger vile behaviour. Am not going to say what would need to happen for me to do something like that, because I believe in the power of manifestation or the law of attraction (hey, everyone is allowed their beliefs and that’s one of mine), but in theory scenarios like this exist in my head. So without knowing the life story of the person who took that head to Gaza it’s very easy for me to condemn such an act. What I can’t imagine though is that the young soldier who was beheaded personally wronged his excutioner.

Am a chronic overthinker. The other day I sat down for a long conversation with a journalist from arguably the best Flemish newspaper, De Standaard.

When we hit upon the topic of Israel and Gaza and some of the things happening there, he at one point said, in reaction to a different example:

‘That’s simply what war makes people do.’

A Vietnam war vet describing the absurdity of his situation in Vietnam says in Ken Burns’s ten part Vietnam war documentary:

‘This is war. This is what we do.’

Or as general Robert Edward Lee said:

‘It is well war is so terrible, lest we should grow too fond of it.’

Perhaps we expect too much of human beings who are wrapped up in a war. There is a war. I am naïve to think it could be a chivalrous fight where no non-combatants are ever harmed and captured enemies are received with camaraderie and hospitality and wounded enemies are treated with dignity and – this sometimes happened in the American Civil War – heroic enemy actions receive warm applause from their opponents, literally. (In april 1861 Southerners applauded the defenders of Fort Sumter as it managed to keep returning fire under very hot circumstances).

As General William Tecumseh Sherman said:

‘War is hell and you cannot refine it.’

While we grill each other as to who needs more condemning, the fact of the matter is that this whole situation is a sad result of poor leadership on all sides, not just on the Israeli and the Palestinian side, but with all parties involved in this descent into madness.

So far no leaders have been found, strong and charismatic and wise enough to lead us out of this darkness.