“The reality is that the Islamist terrorism of Hamas, masquerading as “resistance,” has achieved nothing for the Palestinian people except for billions of dollars in wasted resources and tens of thousands of needless deaths, with Gaza in ruins after 20 years following the withdrawal of settlements in 2005,” Palestinian journalist Ahmad Fouad Alkhatib wrote on X.
By Rachel Avraham
Ahmad Fouad Alkhatib, a Palestinian journalist and human rights activist who works as a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, recently wrote on X: “When a ceasefire in Gaza is announced, Hamas’s fascists will do everything they can to frame this as the ultimate victory; they will wear their military uniforms, emerge from their tunnels, stop hiding in schools and displacement centers, and very quickly reassert their control over the coastal enclave. They’ll even get a few Gazans to celebrate and dance for them, not unlike what the Kim Jung Un regime does with North Koreans during state parades.”
However, Alkhatib declared that this is nothing more than a sham: “The reality, however, is that no Gazan will seriously celebrate the state of the Strip after 15 months of death and destruction; every single person in Gaza has not only experienced the most traumatic chapter of their lives but has been directly impacted by the destruction of 70% of the Strip, and the death of tens of thousands, with every single person having a relative or close family member who was killed.”
He proclaimed, “The reality is that the Islamist terrorism of Hamas, masquerading as “resistance,” has achieved nothing for the Palestinian people except for billions of dollars in wasted resources and tens of thousands of needless deaths, with Gaza in ruins after 20 years following the withdrawal of settlements in 2005. Indeed, there will be a reckoning with Hamas after the war is over, and the group must be put on metaphoric, intellectual, and literal trials for its crimes against the Palestinian people’s aspirations and national project. Do not mistake people’s jubilance with the end of the war (assuming a deal is actually signed and implemented) with celebrations – totally separate things that Hamas will try to make one and the same.”
According to Alkhatib, “Hamas’s propaganda machine, run by Qatari-state media, Aljazeera Arabic, will work overtime to help the terror group turn a catastrophic disaster into a victory akin to the battles of Stalingrad and Leningrad, desperately seeking to promote terrorism and the armed resistance narrative as one that is heroic and valiant when it is cowardly, ineffective, and helps anti-Palestinian factions within the Israeli political landscape.”
Similarly, MEMRI recently noted that a number of Palestinian journalists have turned against Hamas in recent days, critical of the terror group for causing the people of Gaza to suffer and clinging onto power at all costs. They were also critical of Hamas for implementing the October 7 massacre, claiming that it did nothing for the Palestinian people and they called for Hamas to be held accountable for its crimes against the Palestinian people.
Bassem Barhoum, a columnist for the Palestinian Authority (PA) daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, wrote: “It wasn’t the Palestinian people that made the decision to launch the [Al-Aqsa] Flood [Hamas’s name for the October 7 attacks], and neither was it their legitimate leadership. It was a single faction [i.e., Hamas, which made the decision] on its own, without consulting anybody and without taking anybody else’s opinion into consideration. They acted alone and they – not the Palestinian people – bear the responsibility for their decision. It was an entirely reckless adventure, and it brought about a national catastrophe. This defeat does not belong to them [i.e. to the Palestinian people], but exclusively to Hamas.”
He continued, “It is important to go back to the roots of the matter here. Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip by the force of arms, by means of a military coup, although it was heading a national unity government at the time that had been approved at the February 2007 Mecca Agreement. Since then, Hamas has held the Gaza Strip hostage along with all the decision-making [there]… Therefore, Hamas alone is responsible for its decision, and not the Palestinian people… The Palestinian people have the right to demand accountability from Hamas following its reckless adventure.”
Palestinian Al-Ayyam columnist Abd Al-Ghani Salameh similarly wrote that Hamas’s decision to carry out the October 7 terror attacks was the result of megalomania and a delusional belief that Israel was on the brink of destruction. He claimed that Hamas ignored the balance of power and brought upon the Palestinians a catastrophe whose consequences will be felt for decades to come.
He concluded, “This belief in the prophecy [about Israel’s disappearance], and the ‘Promise of the Hereafter’ conference held by Hamas, were not just propaganda with an aura of holiness. They were systematic propaganda aimed at assassinating the collective intellect, first of the [Hamas] movement and then of society, which adapted and remained silent in the face of these fairytales, and perhaps even believed them. This experience has brought Gaza to the edge of collapse. It has led us all to a catastrophe that is beyond our ability to handle, and whose catastrophic consequences will be felt for decades to come.”
