[cess11]

The palestinians have a right to violent resistance to the occupation. On the Gaza strip they're denied international relations and trade so they can only make very primitive military equipment, which means that to reach an effect at all they pretty much have to fire unguided rockets into Israel. When they tried non-violent protest against the occupation, the "March of Return", by demonstrating at the border they were systematically mutilated by the IDF.

There is an alternative, sure, prepare for a year and then invade Israel. Which they did, after decades of "mowing the lawn" as the israelis call it.

The terror organisation classification of Hamas isn't as much about the political party or its affiliated militia as manufactured consent to relations with Israel and traditions among colonial states. The modern 'West' usually calls its enemies terrorist, like it did during the Mau Mau uprising. This is why so few states agree with this classification.

You don't have to like Hamas but compared to the PA they're not very corrupt, and since they stopped doing suicide bombings they've been quite successful as a resistance movement. Since several years back they've also been quite good at unifying and coordinating the political parties and militias on the Gaza strip in preparation for and during periods of israeli military aggression, including with their main competitor in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, socialists from PFLP/DFLP/Fatah movement, Iran's Mujahideen movement and so on.

Hamas isn't just a political party with a militia, it's also a charity movement. To most people it seems weird to call people terrorists because they take care of their vulnerable neighbours and run soup kitchens and the like.

[YZF]

People keep saying "right to a violent resistance" but it's not a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_resist

Nobody has the "right" to kill other people. That's not a right.

Gaza was not occupied, so they specifically didn't have the right you claim they had that doesn't even exist.

> On the Gaza strip they're denied international relations and trade.

This is also not true. When Israel left in 2005 they pretty much had control of their destiny. They chose to elect Hamas, that said its goal is to kill all Jews in the world. They chose to keep attacking Israel after Israel left. The full blockade on Gaza from the Israeli side was only imposed after Hamas came to power in 2007. Gaza still has a border with Egypt where they were free to negotiate any trade or relationships they felt like. Except the Egyptians didn't like them any better than Israel because they supported ISIS in Sinai.

[dragonwriter]

> People keep saying “right to a violent resistance” but it’s not a thing

Your link says it is a thing:

“In international law, the right to resist is closely related to the principle of self-determination. It is widely recognized that a right to self-determination arises in situations of colonial domination, foreign occupation, and racist regimes that deny a segment of the population political participation. According to international law, states may not use force against the lawful exercise of self-determination, while those seeking self-determination may use military force if there is no other way to achieve their goals.”

> Gaza was not occupied,

Gaza was openly occupied until 2005, and after that Israel “disengaged” but still actively patrolled Gaza’s waters, maintained what was in effect a free fire zone on the Gaza side of the border (with declared entry rules and prohibitions within certain distances, but the shootings occurred both well beyond the declared distances and when civilians were complying with the declared conditions), and otherwise used military force to effectively dictate conditions inside Gaza.

Moreover, Palestine remains occupied whether or not the Gaza piece of it is.

[cess11]

Yes it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_to_resist

Yes it is. It definitely is. It's definitely very much a right to start killing soldiers if another country invades yours and starts occupying it.

Yes it is. Israel controls the borders, airspace, finances, communications, water, and so on. This amounts to occupation.

Your views are so very weird. IS in Sinai has executed people suspected of helping to supply weapons to the Gaza strip, they're at war with Hamas.

[0xA1EF]

Israel withdrawing its soldiers from Gaza doesn't mean that Gaza is not under occupation. There's no Palestinian soveriegn state. All of Palestinian lands and the entire Palestinian population are under occupation, and according to International law, the responsibility of the occupier, and have the right to resist.

[tptacek]

I agree with almost all of this, but you lose me at "the right to resist". What, precisely, does that mean? The right to blockade roads in Gaza, to use force of arms to prevent IDF vehicles from entering Gaza? That makes sense. October 7th, though? Obviously not.

[WJW]

Nobody calls them terrorists because they run soup kitchens. People call them terrorists because they take children hostage and kill civilians. Destroying the Israel and killing its inhabitants is literally in their founding charter, and they act upon it whenever they get the chance. That is why they are terrorists.

[cess11]

No, they got the designation because they used suicide bombings in the nineties. But OK, so you'd call Israel a terrorist state then? And consider Israel the bigger problem due to the scale of their actions?

The Hamas charter is from 2017. Do you have any specific complaints about its contents?

[WJW]

> they got the designation because they used suicide bombings in the nineties

Did you completely miss their actions on October 7th? They didn't stop that kind of thing after the nineties.

[cess11]

Were suicide bombings used on October 7th?

Please answer my questions.

[boppo1]

They killed a whole bunch of civilians.

Not as many as Israel since though.

[cess11]

Seems likely they did, maybe other groups did too, and we'll probably never know to what extent the IDF were responsible.

The involved actor who could clear things up doesn't want to. If they don't want to, I take it that it wasn't very important to them.

[WJW]

Don't be obtuse, there are many more forms of terrorism than suicide bombing. Israel should be more careful with the Palestinian population as a whole, but Hamas specifically have always been shitbags, are still shitbags and deserve every single shell coming their way.

[cess11]

Maybe there are, but the reason they got designated as a terrorist organisation by a rather small number of states were the suicide bombings in the nineties.

Sure, they might be shitbags, they're led by politicians after all. Have you considered sending the IDF a message and ask them to change their priorities and start aiming their shells mainly at al-Qassam brigade militants?

[YZF]

2016 was the last suicide bombing by Hamas. Keep in mind those didn't stop because Hamas changed. They stopped because Israel built walls around the West Bank and Gaza, many other security measures, and joint effort between the PA and Israel to stop these. While suicide bombing attacks were thwarted there have been many attacks against civilians through the years (something around 13 attacks in 2023 preceding Oct 7th) using assault rifles or vehicles e.g.

[lo_zamoyski]

Hamas are terrorists, yes. But that doesn't mean you destroy them at all costs. It doesn't mean you can "mow the grass" in Gaza at such high civilian cost. And while destroying Israel is Hamas's stated goal, it's about as delusional as thinking the Jan. 6 rioters could have overthrown the US government. 30,000 Hamas fighting with crude weapons against the IDF, one of the most powerful and advanced armed forces in the world? Come on.

[YZF]

Hamas is armed with pretty fine weapons including the latest AKs you can't even get outside Russia, Dragonov sniper rifles, RPGs etc. The attackers on Oct 7th were very well equipped, comparable to most modern military's infantry. This story about how primitive their weapons are is at least partly a lie.

The environment they operate in neutralizes a lot of the IDF's advantages. Dense urban, many civilians, tunnels. You can't bring F-35s to bear if you have battles inside your own towns. It took the IDF about 3 days to recover from the initial attack including scenes like tanks firing into Israeli houses.

There are a lot of Israelis with military background that claim that the Oct 7th attack wasn't far from being an existential threat. Hamas was planning to connect with the west bank and also to proceed much farther into Israel than it managed to. There were some heroics e.g. from the police in stopping that on the roads leading out of the south. In combination with a land attack from Hezbollah in the north that could have been a scenario that has some probability of getting 10's or 100's of thousands of Israelis killed at the very least. It's hard to imagine but then Oct 7th was also hard to imagine.

[cess11]

I haven't seen any sniper rifle besides the al-Ghoul in their combat footage since October 7th. Neither in PIJ:s, PFLP:s, DFLP:s, Mujahideens Brigades, or in Intifada al-Fatahs or the People's Resistance Committees'.

Claiming that IDF infantry and the armed resistance groups in the Gaza strip are pretty much equal in equipment is just insane. It's, you know, not even wrong.

How long would it take to walk to the West Bank? Are you sure they planned to "connect with the West Bank"?

[Tainnor]

People can have different opinions on the way Israel is conducting this war. I know I am conflicted.

But Hamas is not a legitimate resistance movement. It is a fundamentalist, oppressive, terrorist regime. You do not stand to gain anything by associating with them.

[cess11]

I don't care whether they're considered legitimate or not, to me that's up to the palestinians to decide. Currently they're the most successful faction.

They've also shown a lot of ideological pragmatism compared to e.g. Hezbollah, and their main competitor on the Gaza strip is a splinter called Palestinian Islamic Jihad which considers Hamas too pragmatic, too invested in 'soft' projects like social or charity work. I'm not as sure that the alternatives are better.

[skinkestek]

> I don't care whether they're considered legitimate or not, to me that's up to the palestinians to decide. Currently they're the most successful faction.

Except they killed all opposition.

Someone will have to root them out like the German nazis, put the area under military occupation until they are ready to elect a new government - just like postwar Germany - and sadly that someone is Israel since no one else steps up.

I'd personally love if some other country told Israel to get lost, rooted out Hamas and administered Gaza until they were ready for elections.

I'm sure most Israelis would love it too.

[fakedang]

> You don't have to like Hamas but compared to the PA they're not very corrupt,

If your society's two choices are a.) lots of corruption, and b.) less corruption but with terrorism, then you've pretty much shown that you're incapable of self-governance as a people.

> and since they stopped doing suicide bombings they've been quite successful as a resistance movement. Since several years back they've also been quite good at unifying and coordinating the political parties and militias on the Gaza strip in preparation for and during periods of israeli military aggression, including with their main competitor in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, socialists from PFLP/DFLP/Fatah movement, Iran's Mujahideen movement and so on.

Sounds like if Israel didn't exist, these guys would just be fighting against Fatah instead. Or fighting between themselves.

[cess11]

What do you mean by "terrorism", exactly?

Yeah, possibly. In the West Bank militia groups have been fighting PA forces recently due to them harassing and killing militia men and generally assisting the IDF in the occupation. After the 2006 election the PA tried to oust Hamas from the Gaza strip and got violently expelled.

On the other hand, over the decades since 2006 Hamas has co-existed with lots of political movements in the Gaza strip and helped make sure their militias continued recruiting and exercising. It has been a politically repressive environment for sure, in large part because you can't survive as a political movement under occupation without developing a serious paranoia.

[fakedang]

Has HN descended to such lows as to idealize Hamas now?

Hamas terrorizes Palestinians, threatening those who dissent with cutoffs from basic amenities and even certain death. All of the aforementioned militia have good reason to distrust PA, because PA is the recognized representative of the Palestinian people by every single country in the world. No country gives a shit about Hamas. When aid is delivered to WB or Gaza, it's delivered in the name of the PA, even if they have lost control over Gaza for so many years.

And why does Hamas oppose PA? Because their ideal government is one with roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a designated terrorist organization in the West as well as every surrounding country in the Middle East.

One could argue that Hamas is the rightful representative of the Palestinian people. But is it really? Elections held in Palestine are often a sham affair, with threats and coercion abound. But even if they won with a resounding majority, the fact that Palestinians en masse chose to elect an organization that cuts their water supply to make rockets from pipes says a lot more about the kind of people Palestinians are, and why they shouldn't be supported too much (something which every Arab neighbour of theirs has figured out pretty much).

[cess11]

I disagree that I've idealised them.

It's unclear what you mean by dissent. Before October 7th dissent was likely the majority political position in the Gaza strip, they weren't very popular. Suspected collaboration with the occupier or its affiliates has been dealt with harshly for sure, and to some extent this has hurt LGBTQ persons specifically since Israel likes to identify them and pressure them to become collaborators.

Hamas opposes the PA because they are collaborating with the occupier. The ikhwan movement is feared by regional dictatorships because it is relatively egalitarian, hence they designate them as a terrorist organisation. It's been decades since they stopped using political violence, IIRC they did before Hamas began using it.

Elections aren't often held in Palestine, so they can't often be anything at all. Abbas knows he'd be ousted if he called elections, so he won't. His buddies in Israel and the US also prefer that he stays in power, so they won't pressure him to call for elections either.

As for aid, it goes through Israel rather than the PA. Same goes for money, the palestinians aren't allowed to have their own currency or financial system. Israel enjoys having the ability to refuse to pay out taxes they collect, for example.

Israel routinely cuts water supply to the Gaza strip, and in the West Bank it forbids palestinians to collect rain water through a rather nasty bureaucratic regulation while at the same time destroying or stealing wells. Under such conditions it's somewhat reasonable to use infrastructure to try to get rid of the occupier, don't you think? What would you do?

[edanm]

> Under such conditions it's somewhat reasonable to use infrastructure to try to get rid of the occupier, don't you think? What would you do?

Probably recognize that 30 years of violent resistance only ever ends up harming me more, and strive to elect leaders that will opt for trying a truly peaceful approach. Instead of starting wars every few years with a far more powerful neighboring country, maybe... not starting such wars is a better idea.

[cess11]

Abbas refuses to call elections and Hamas was trying to get in the PLO.

Hamas drove out the israelis from the Gaza strip, that's generally considered a success among palestinians and something many palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem wishes they had too.

When another country occupies yours, then it's not you that's starting a war when you attack them.

[YZF]

I just want to decode this for a random reader:

- dealt with harshly -> torture and summary executions. Tied with a rope to a car and dragged through the streets. Thrown from a rooftop of a tall building. That sort of stuff.

- "Suspected collaboration with the occupier" -> being associated with the Fatah, PA, or just not doing what Hamas orders you to do in any civil or other matter. Basically any person that crosses Hamas members in any way. Think Mexican drug cartels hanging journalists from bridges and you won't be far off.

- occupation -> the existence of the state of Israel in any borders. occupier -> Israel.

- Gaza's occupation -> The blockade Israel imposed after Hamas took over Gaza by force and started launching attacks at Israel from Gaza. Please ignore the border with Egypt or Egypt's control over the Egyptian half of Rafah. Egypt doesn't exist. Waiting for the Muslim Brotherhood to take over there but in the meantime let's support ISIS in Sinai since an enemies enemy is my friend.

- "Israel routinely cuts water supply to the Gaza strip" -> Israel supplies water, food, electricity to what is essentially an enemy state that attacks it continuously. Gaza has its own power station, it has a desalination plant, it has wells, and it can also get all these things from Egypt or use the international aid money it's getting towards becoming more independent. Nah- let's dig tunnels and build rockets. Think Ukraine supplying Russia with water, food and electricity. Or South Korea supplying North Korea.

You are right that Hamas would win an election. Even more so after Oct 7th. The Pro-Palestinian crowd does its best to pretend it ain't so. They artificially separate Hamas, who the Palestinians want to represent them, from the Palestinians. Palestinians are peace loving people that need to be protected at all costs and the Hamas are people from another planet that just happened to have landed in the midst. There hasn't been an elections since 2006 so Hamas is not the legitimate government of Gaza and so we can't treat the Gazans as a side to this war. Even Israel says the same thing, our war is not with the "Palestinians" our war is with Hamas.

[cess11]

Yeah, sure. What would you expect? Israel tortures, maims and kills to pressure palestinians, how would you compete with that if you were a politician in the Gaza strip? At least there's a kind of brutality forced upon them that explains it, unlike US allies in the region, like the house of Saud, that doesn't have to publicly execute people but does anyway. Who, by the way, are ambigous about the palestinian issue because they suspect that Hamas is too egalitarian, too democratic, to warrant their support.

If they were that bloodthirsty, how come they haven't killed more in their own population? How come they weren't ousted by the local population?

Israel controls the means for sustaining life in the Gaza strip and uses that power arbitrarily, that's occupation. If you treat a couple of million people that way they will for sure try to hurt you badly. And it's not weird that they do, it's not surprising or savage, it's rather very reasonable to do. You would too.