Summary
Author of Hamas Contained and of Chapter 13 of From the River to the Sea, “What was Hamas thinking?” (first published in Foreign Policy, 22 November 2023), which reads the 7 October 2023 attack as Hamas’ disruption of its containment under the blockade (From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine, lines 893-1005).
Details
- His term for the post-2007 order is a “violent equilibrium”, in which military force negotiated concessions between Hamas and Israel while Hamas remained Gaza’s governing authority under daily structural violence (line 903).
- The choice, as Hamas saw it, “was between dying a slow death—as many in Gaza say—and fundamentally disrupting the entire equation”, rather than acquiescing to strangulation within “various Bantustans” (lines 933-939).
- Israel will fail to decimate Hamas: the movement is much bigger than its military wing, and in an asymmetric struggle the guerrilla fighters “merely have to not lose” (lines 953-961).
- Any US-Israeli “day after” installing compliant leadership in Gaza “will be clear to all Palestinians that it is just another Bantustan solution” unless it holds Israel accountable and dismantles its regime of Apartheid (lines 995-1001).
Related pages
From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine, Hamas, Bantustans, Apartheid