But What About Hamas?
The Children of Amalek, Ch. 2
But What About Hamas?
By now, some of you might be thinking: how could you have written so many paragraphs without explicitly denouncing Hamas?!?? Actually, I have no problem denouncing Hamas; I do not think Hamas deserves to rule Palestine anymore than Likud (Netanyahu’s party). And I think most of what Hamas did on October 7th was a moral abomination and was unjustified.
However, in the context of the grossly oppressive regime of Israel, a revolution is justifiable, albeit its virtue still depends on the way it is carried out and the aspirations of its leaders. For example, Nat Turner, who led a slave revolt in the U.S. in 1831 was morally justified to revolt — that is, it would have been morally righteous for there to be a slave revolution intended to bring liberation to the enslaved population before the civil war. On the other hand, Nat Turner was not the right person to do it, and some of the things that some of his followers reportedly did were detestable, such as killing infants.
Furthermore, the slave revolt of 1831 exemplifies the moral complexities of any “right to self-defense”, which is often invoked as a justification for Israel’s retaliation to the actions of Hamas. Did the slave aristocracy of the American south have a “right to defend itself” during Turner’s revolt? Well, in some sense, it did have the right to defend the innocent, such as the infants, but it didn’t have any “right” to defend the slavers. And it certainly did not have the right to kill innocent people, including infants, in retaliation for what Turner did. The same applies to the current situation in Palestine. Israel has the right to go after those men from Hamas who wantonly killed innocent people, and defend innocent people, but they do not have the right to wantonly kill innocent people in the process. And they do not have the right to defend any of the people who are directly responsible for the continued occupation of Palestine (except for defending against excessive and cruel unjust punishment).
They certainly do not have the right to starve “sucklings”, or destroy the majority of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and universities, or coerce them with violence to leave the territory
According to an interim assessment by the World Bank, over 60 per cent of residential buildings and nearly 80 per cent of commercial facilities had been damaged or destroyed in Gaza between October 2023 and January 2024, with 80 per cent of total damage concentrated in the governorates of Gaza, North Gaza and Khan Younis.
Whether it is to try to make Hamas surrender, give up hostages, carry out collective retribution, or to possess land they erroneously think they have a right to, much of what the Israeli government has done and is doing is not justified.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says he has ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip, as Israel fights the Hamas terror group.
“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” Gallant says following an assessment at the IDF Southern Command in Beersheba.
“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” he adds.
The right thing would be to end the occupation, just like the right thing after Nat Turner’s failed rebellion would have been to abolish slavery—how to deal with those people who carried out atrocities during the failed rebellion would be an important consideration, but separate, just as it would be an important but separate consideration about how to deal with the people in Hamas who were responsible for the atrocities on October 7th.