“What is the real Hamas?” is the question that journalist Joshua Leifer seeks to answer in a 6,000-word Guardian feature that examines the evolution of Hamas and explores the capacity in which the terror group could have a hand in governing the Gaza Strip after the war.
The piece opens with Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin — described as an “architect” of the deal to free kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011 — who until the October 7 Hamas massacre had kept in almost constant contact with Hamas leadership, including senior official Ghazi Hamad.
Readers could be forgiven for thinking that Baskin is an influential figure in Israeli politics, a perception that contrasts sharply with reality. His view that Hamas could have been a potential partner for peace was not widely shared.
Glossing over the opinions of counterterrorism experts and US and Israeli security analysts, all of whom see Hamas as a group “defined by its violent hostility to Israel’s existence,” Leifer quickly turns to an “opposing, more heterogeneous camp, comprised of academics and thinktankers, many of them Palestinian” who view Hamas as a “multifarious, complex political actor, divided between radical and moderating tendencies.”
These heterogeneous, Palestinian viewpoints comprise the bulk of the piece.
Sins of Omission
However, the major sin committed by Leifer is one of omission — it’s what he doesn’t say that is particularly striking.
For example, readers are introduced to “Palestinian scholar” Tareq Baconi, who dispels the notion that Palestinians are not broadly supportive of Hamas:
But if ‘Hamas were to disappear tomorrow,’ he said, the Israeli blockade on Gaza and military rule in the West Bank would remain. ‘There’s this tendency to suggest that this is a war between Israel and Hamas rather than a war between Israel and Palestinians, which places Hamas outside of Palestinians,’ he added. ‘It’s an inability to address the political drivers animating Palestinians.’
It is a point that Leifer initially steers away from, although he acknowledges later the simple fact that the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank (71% according to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research) believe the October 7 massacre was justified.
Leifer’s presentation of Baconi as a moderate, thoughtful voice deviates from the reality that Baconi has previously justified Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians, whom he has deemed “settlers.”
Then there is the way Leifer uses the fanaticism of Hamas to make other Palestinian political factions seem less extreme.
Khaled Elgindy, a former adviser to the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership on negotiations with Israel, is quoted saying he thinks Hamas would have to be a part of a postwar settlement, primarily because he “believes that Palestinian politics could contain Hamas’s rejectionism alongside the Palestinian Authority’s cooperation with Israel, just as Israeli politics includes parties that support and those that oppose engagement with the Palestinian Authority.”
Remarkably, Leifer failed to challenge the risible claim that Hamas is the only driver of Palestinian rejectionism when the Palestinian Authority has repeatedly turned down agreements that would have seen the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
Trust @guardian to turn a tragic traffic accident into a charge that “an Israeli truck killed four Palestinian workers.”
But that’s only one problem with the newspaper’s long read about Hamas. 🧵 https://t.co/4xVlGWU4i7 pic.twitter.com/C1KNg5XLoG
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) March 21, 2024
The brief history of Hamas that appears midway through the piece also contains some worrying omissions.
What Readers Are and Aren’t Told
Readers are told that the group was formed “against the backdrop of the first intifada, the popular Palestinian uprising [that] ignited when an Israeli truck killed four Palestinian workers in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp.”
But readers are not told that the truck crash was a tragic accident caused by a mechanical failure.
Readers are told how Sheikh Ahmad Yassin was the group’s “spiritual leader” and that he was “diminutive and softly spoken.”
But readers are not told that Yassin called suicide bombing a “religious obligation” and was a terrorist mastermind.
Readers are given the opinion of Azzam Tamimi, who is merely described as an “author” of a book about Hamas.
But readers are not told that Tamimi could more accurately be described as a Hamas supporter who once argued Palestinian suicide bombings are for a “noble cause” and that he would also perpetrate one if he “had the opportunity.”
Leifer’s piece is illuminating at points, including his brief exploration of the theory that a major reason for Israel’s failure to prevent October 7 stemmed from not taking Hamas’ maximalist rhetoric seriously. However, the devil is in the details, and Leifer’s omission of critical facts undermines what could have been a comprehensive understanding of Hamas.
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