4 Lessons from Gazans’ Protests Against Hamas

4 Lessons from Gazans’ Protests Against Hamas

The Philos Project staff in The Times of Israel

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Early this week, protests spontaneously erupted across Gaza as Hamas’ refusal to release the hostages led Israel to resume military operations in the Strip.

Videos show Palestinians chanting, “Hamas, get out,” and calling on the Qatari-funded news outlet Al Jazeera to come out from hiding and cover their protest.

Here are four lessons the West should learn from Gazans protesting Hamas.

1. The West’s “Free Palestine” Movement Hurts Palestinians

The radicalized social justice movements in America are cheering terrorists destroying the very individuals they claim to champion.

Western sympathy for Hamas inflames their brutal tactics of hiding under their civilian population to maximize casualties, their atrocious acts committed on October 7th, and their brutal suppression of dissent.

If the West really cared about justice for Palestinians, it would not support a terrorist group whose methods make martyrs out of the next generation.

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2. Hamas Rejects Liberal Democratic Processes

A fundamental misunderstanding in the West is that Hamas is a legitimate “resistance” group combatting the evil colonialist oppressor: Israel.

As its frequent brutalization of the Palestinian population shows, Hamas couldn’t be further from a liberal democratic icon.

Already, Hamas and protestors have clashed in northern Gaza. Despite the lack of free press in Gaza, dozens of instances have been documented since October 7th of Hamas torturing civilians, from kneecapping Palestinians trying to access aid to brutalizing dissidents.

3. Hamas Is Not Fighting To Better Palestinian Lives

Masked behind the neo-Marxist narrative of “oppressor and oppressed,” Hamas is weaponizing Palestinian grievances to fuel their imperialist agenda of regional power.

Hamas is an Islamist party that seeks to reinstate the Caliphate, an Islamic form of government that unites political and religious leadership under a head of state.

Watch Hamas’s Fathi Hammad on a December 1, 2023 state that Palestinians are preparing to establish an Islamic Caliphate with Jerusalem as its capital:

However, this vision of a Caliphate does not promise the rights Westerners assume an oppressed resistance movement would entail. Sharia law has no tolerance for other viewpoints, faiths, or ideologies, particularly women’s rights.

4. There is No Future For Palestinians Under Hamas

Hamas has made their end state crystal clear: the destruction of Israel at the price of the destruction of the Palestinian people.

What future awaits a destroyed society? There isn’t one, and Palestinians are waking up.

There are many questions: Can Hamas be eradicated? Who would control Gaza instead of Hamas? How can Gazan Palestinians become deradicalized?

But there is one certainty: Palestinians cannot remain under the boot of Hamas.

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