Hamas resistance between recklessness and bravery

…also published in Daily Trust

For more than a decade since the bloody confrontation between two major Palestinian freedom organizations, Fatah and Hamas, which resulted in the political split of the already geographically detached two autonomous Palestinian entities, West Bank and Gaza Strip with Hamas taking control of Gaza while Fatah keeping its control on the West Bank, there have rounds of confrontation between Hamas resistance fighters and the occupying forces of the Zionist state of Israel.

A typical round of confrontation between them is always triggered by provocation with each party accusing the other of it. Hamas would then begin its retaliatory measures by firing some locally assembled rockets into Israeli cities to kill or injure a few Israeli settlers or at least damage a few buildings.

Whereas, the occupying forces would fly some of the most advanced military fighter jets in the world, right onto the Gaza airspace, which already lacks even a semblance of air defence system, to rain bombs indiscriminately on the city killing a multitude of innocent people, maiming more others, destroying houses and the already dilapidated public facilities in the city.  

Likewise, in a typical cross-border skirmish between Hamas and the Zionist army, Hamas fighters would sometimes manage to kill, injure and/or killed a few Israeli soldiers, while the Zionist forces would deploy disproportionate force to wipe out many Gazans across the border. 

In the 2008-09 Israel war on Gaza, for instance, Hamas fighters managed to kill thirteen Israelis (albeit four of them were accidentally killed by friendly fire), injured some and damaged some buildings in the occupied territories. The Israelis, however, killed more than one thousand six hundred Palestinians, maimed thousands more and literally reduced many parts of Gaza to rubble, in sustained sea, land and airstrikes. 

Though ever since then, there has been no confrontation of such scale between them, the pattern of the aftermath of the subsequent confrontations and skirmishes between them has remained the same. In the recent round of hostility between them, for instance, the occupying forces killed twenty-seven Palestinians, injured one hundred and eighty others and destroyed public facilities in Gaza. Whereas, Hamas fighters managed to kill only four Israeli settlers and damaged a few buildings in the occupied territories.

Undoubtedly, Hamas enjoys the sympathy of not only Arabs and Muslims but also all fair-minded people around the world who rightly recognize the Palestinians' right to resist the occupation of their land by the Zionists.

However, considering the fact that it (Hamas) remains a relatively barely armed resistance organization facing one of the strongest militaries on earth (i.e. Israeli military), which also enjoys the support of literally the whole world including all the world’s most economically and militarily powerful countries, a significant segment, if not the majority, of Hamas sympathizers, including apparently, most of the Palestinians themselves, don’t necessarily agree with its method of armed confrontation under these circumstances.

Obviously, Gazans who are always massacred in such encounters, and whose houses, hospitals, schools and other public facilities are destroyed by the Israeli airstrikes that render their already miserable lives more miserable, deep down never agree with Hamas insistence on engaging the Zionists militarily at the moment. As a matter of fact, not many people, particularly in the Arab world, can openly criticize Hamas for this recklessness, as everybody fears the implications of being branded traitor; a label that attracts unbearable stigmatization and vilification at the hands of the general public. 

This situation has developed in the Arab world over decades of excessive media glorification of reckless acts in the name of resistance against Zionist occupation, which the likes of Aljazeera TV channel has particularly promoted. It’s a narrative that has always portrayed recklessness as bravery, and dismisses any contrary view as treasonable, which tacitly promotes acts like suicide operations in the name of resistance, and indeed inspired the formation of reckless armed resistance groups, which apparently only regard armed confrontation as an end in itself rather than a means to end.

Besides, such groups, however, end up being manipulated for propaganda and political blackmail by some foreign governments in pursuit of their own geopolitical and ideological agendas; with some money and weapons that can neither deter the Zionists nor even protect the groups from their attacks.

Hamas and its likes should devise a sensible, realistic and sustainable method of resistance. Otherwise, they should be brave and responsible enough to move their military units and equipment away from civilian areas and neighbourhoods in Gaza.

Interestingly, Hamas leaders and their immediate families in Gaza are sheltered in disguised locations and impenetrable underground bunkers. Others live comfortably abroad. The few of them killed by Israel were in assassination operations, which were also facilitated by Mossad agents among the Gazans themselves.