Understanding Hamas And Why That Matters

by Rami G. Khouri, Helena Cobban

Across Western mainstream discourse, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has been subjected to intense vilification. Branding it as “terrorist” or worse, this demonization intensified after the events in Southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

This book does not advocate for or against Hamas. Rather, in a series of rich and probing conversations with leading experts, it aims to deepen understanding of a movement that is a key player in the current crisis. It looks at, among other things, Hamas’s critical shift from social and religious activism to national political engagement; the delicate balance between Hamas's political and military wings; and its transformation from early anti-Jewish tendencies to a stance that differentiates between Judaism and Zionism.

Both accessible and authoritative, Understanding Hamas provides much-needed insight into a widely misunderstood movement whose involvement in a just resolution of the Israel/Palestine conflict will be critical.

Genres: Nonfiction, Middle East, Politics, History

244 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2024

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why wouldn't you want to understand Hamas if you're at all interested in West Asian conflict? Whether or not you like the group, whether or not you're committed to justice for Palestine or whether or not you're a Zionist, you should want to read and learn all you can. This ongoing genocide/conflict is emblematic of everything imperialism and colonialism is all about, fought on the most important piece of land in the world. The ongoing attempt at intimidation in regards to even studying Hamas is intellectually offensive and a clear indication that you've hit on something important. Intellectual understanding and immersion is simply that and any attempt to silence or censor should be as chilling as the ongoing violence.

[Salah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seeing a bunch of 'reviews' from trolls who it seems have not even read the book or any book in my estimation. As some one who HAS read this cover to cover, it is an absolute must read for all those who care about the Palestinian cause, those who care about justice, and it's a vital contribution to the discussion surrounding Hamas and Palestinian resistance. The conversational format of this book made it hard to put down and all five discussions and contributions with the experts were extremely valuable.

In this book, five experts are interviewed who have between them lived in Gaza, studied Hamas close-hand and have spent time with its members and leadership and I learned so much.

Now why should understanding Hamas matter?

Well because facts matter and to be blunt, there is no alternative except genocide. In the West, Hamas has been reduced to a caricature and there is no desire to understand or come to terms with it. Rather than being informed by facts, the perceptions of most Westerners are formed by Islamophobic and Orientalist notions which serve to make this genocide more palatable. Thus, any massacre and any crime can be justified post hoc by attaching the boogeyman label 'Hamas'. Across Palestine and the Arab and Muslim world, Hamas represents resistance to a murderous foreign occupation and enjoys widespread support. Thus, to "exterminate" Hamas would require genocidal scale slaughter which the world powers have since justified in Gaza. Understanding Hamas matters precisely because that will knock down a key pillar to this genocide: the dehumanising discourse on terrorism.

The discussions in the book naturally tackles the contentious events surrounding the Al Aqsa Flood Operation (7/10) and followers of Western mainstream media will be surprised to learn that much of what they have been led to believe happened that day did not in fact happen. Rather many of those despicable accusations can be historically traces back to the occupations own historic crimes; “Every accusation is a confession”. Understanding what happened and did not happen on that fateful day when Palestinian commandos broke the cage of their concentration camp will knock down the foundational pillar to this genocide. However, legitimacy to Palestinian resistance is being suffocated because people will and have started asking questions about Zionism that they are not allowed to ask leading them to conclusions they are not allowed to.

Dr Gunning, a founder of the field of critical terrorism studies and one of the experts, draws strikingly similar parallels between Palestinian resistance and other historical resistance movements such in South Africa, Algeria and Vietnam which saw sheer brutality unleashed upon them for daring to free themselves like we see today in Palestine. The Zionist entity is simply a remnant of the European settler colonies of the previous centuries following the exact same strategies: suppressing resistance through spread heinous misinformation and untethered savagery. May it have the same ending as its racist predecessors.

[Efrat Cohen · Rating 1 out of 5]

"understanding m*rderers, r*pists, mu*tilators of people while they are still alive, and b*rning people alive". Would defend people like that if they victims were any other ethnicity? You know the answer is no.

[Shri · Rating 5 out of 5]

ignore the zionist trolls who are review bombing this. good analysis and decent starting point for those who are interested in learning about palestinian armed resistance but don’t know where to start because so much information is heavily propagandized.

[Julesreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Obviously, this one is gonna be polarizing. Informative book for those who aren’t rabid zionists. It would be informative for them too if they weren’t….rabid zionists. Very glad I read it.

[Flo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely educated me on some of Hamas’s history and ideological shifts over time, and I found the examination of their Islamism vs Palestinian nationalism the most interesting. Couldn’t help but feel that the interview transcript format stopped the examination/argument from progressing beyond the same points (negotiation is vital, armed resistance as anti colonial expression, comparisons with the Viet Cong). TLDR, strong overview for the value of negotiation and contextualisation of Hamas within other anti colonial struggles.

[Alina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I needed this book! Coming from an authoritarian country and now in the US, I found the nonstop Hamas-is-terrorist rhetoric, putting it mildly, suspicious. The five interviews included in the book (available as podcasts from Just World Ed in case someone is interested but the cost of this book is prohibitive) are just excellent. I'm a researcher myself and it was very important for me to read scholarly experts on Hamas. This book is great because it's opinions/analyses from five scholars, it's a page-turner (interviews are conversational and easy to read) and it's so recent! Whether you condemn or support armed struggle, it is essential to understand Hamas to form your own opinion on what's going on.

[Randall Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

October 7th Backstory: Hamas leaders told the author that October 7th wasn’t expected to be a big operation but “was intended to capture a few Israeli soldiers …in order to exchange them for Palestinian prisoners.” The importance of this is that “you can hardly find a Palestinian family in Gaza or in the West Bank that doesn’t have a member who is incarcerated by the Israelis. And such experience has shown that there is really no other way of getting the Israelis to release them, to release those prisoners, without a prisoner swap or a prisoner exchange.” This is known as the primary reason for October 7th, as well as “the Gaza Strip had been under siege for 17 years and the people were really suffocating. The Israelis were keeping them on a diet that was measured to just keep them alive.” Dr. Azzam Tamini says that eyewitnesses and experts conclude, “there was no beheading of babies, there was no rape whatsoever.” And “some of the houses in which the hostages were held inside the kibbutz were actually bombarded with tank fire by the Israelis themselves.” Some of the civilian hostages that day “were taken by ordinary people who crossed into those territories.” Hamas asked for an international inquiry into the taking of civilian hostages on October 7th but Dr Azzam Tamini said “the Israelis refused, and they were insistent on seizing on that event to crush Gaza” [ed: of course under international law killing even a single civilian is ALWAYS illegal whether by the occupied OR the occupier]. Tamini says Israel and US Mainstream Media thus are “equating the aggressors with the victims.” Suppressed is that many writers wrote that we should see the October 7th action by Hamas like the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. Tet and its example of Vietnamese resistance changed world perception on Vietnam and led to US withdrawal. How dare people w/o resources or rights use their remaining resistance right under international law to fight violent repression by the state, clearly financed by the US? The author says Netanyahu won’t allow a ceasefire because he sees one as the end of his career, and as defeat and failure for Israel. Thus, Netanyahu’s real fight is not against Hamas, but for his political career.

A Palestinian Explains Resistance: “We did not go to Europe and invade Europe. Europe came to us and invaded us.” Imagine Mainstream media ever showing you thus the perspective of the invaded rather than the invaders. Post October 7th: “Eradicating Hamas would require a full genocide because the majority of Palestinians would support Hamas actions in spite of Israel’s genocidal response” (p.67). “It is important whether Israeli armed forces killed a significant number of their own citizens on 7 October, as numerous reports and eyewitnesses have argued, because that changes the narrative of what happened on 7 October.”

“Arafat basically gave the Israelis and the Americans all they wanted. And in the end, the only thing he had to show for it was being poisoned and killed.” “We now have four European countries, Norway, Ireland, Spain, and Sweden, that recognize Palestine.” “A lot of Palestinians feel there’s an element of racism going on, that Palestinian lives matter less than Ukrainian lives.” “Fatah itself is deeply authoritarian, but acceptable to the international community.”

Hamas: It was Fatah which canceled the scheduled 2021 elections because it feared losing to Hamas.” Many Islamic women told the author, “Hamas had enabled them to go to universities that enabled them to get jobs.” These women also told the author that “Hamas was opposed to early marriages, and to honor killings. They said both were un-Islamic practices; they were a kind of Arab cultural practices that had emerged and were not Islamic, and therefore could not be sustained.” “In 2006, during the elections, the population group with the second highest percentage of Hamas voters at 47% were housewives, according to an exit poll.” While “Hamas is deeply patriarchal”, they had no problem with women being elected to parliament or heading ministries.” Indeed, several MPs and ministers in Gaza were women. The author says the reason Hamas doesn’t recognize Israel as a state is because history shows “any recognition of Israel is done by a state.”


Dr. Azzam Tamimi says, “The Security Council is the most undemocratic institution in the world. It grants unchecked powers to a few members of the so-called international community, to the extent that the international community is really just Washington and its allies, there’s nobody else.” He reasonably writes that “The issue is not, having or not having a state. For us, the issue is one of being free from occupation, from the foreign invasion that we have been suffering.” Tamini reminds his listeners that “there will always be a new generation of resistance fighters.” He adds that “The people of Gaza know who the enemy is. The enemy is not Hamas. The enemy is Israeli occupation and those who support that occupation.” He says, “if you look over here in the Gaza Strip, between December and March (post October 7th) the support, the opinion poll support for Hamas actually increased.” He is also concerned about religious Zionism which is “a fanatical form of Zionism” and that the founding fathers of Zionism “were secular and atheist and were condemned by the religious communities of Europe and America at the time.”

Dr. Azzam Tamini says the dumbest thing Hamas ever did was their original Charter of 1988 which made it about religion (when it wasn’t) and about Jews being the problem (when Zionism was clearly the problem, not Jews). Tamini says that that Charter (which Hasbara-ists love to quote from) was written when Hamas leaders were all in prison except for one guy who was in charge and he published it. Hamas replaced it with another Charter in 2017 (which no Zionist will mention) that says the fight is with Zionism NOT Judaism. Part of the problem Tamini says is that “it is Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.” Tamini calls Zionism a “racist ideology” because they believe Jews have “a God-given right to come to this land and live in it, or on it, at the expense of its natives.” He says it’s simple: “no more Zionism and we can live in peace” (the one-state democratic solution). He says, “we don’t have a problem with them as Jews, but we have a problem with them as people who believe that they have God-given rights to discriminate against us.” We should see Palestinian armed resistance today as we see Vietnamese, Algerian, ANC (South Africa), or French and Polish armed resistance in their day – ALL as tried and proven tools of the liberation struggle against colonialism. All as fighting for justice, not as aggressors but against the aggressors.

Hamas 2017 Statement replacing its Original 1988 Charter: The new Hamas Charter says the reason why it sees “Israel” as illegal is because it “contravenes the unalienable rights of the Palestinian people and goes against their will” and is “a violation of human rights” including self-determination. It says: Hamas believes in cooperating with all states that support the rights of the Palestinian people. It opposes intervention in the internal affairs of any country” (which the CIA and Mossad have a long-documented history of doing). In this 2017 statement Hamas writes, “Hamas also condemns all forms of colonialism, occupation, discrimination, oppression and aggression in the world.” No wonder Hamas has a problem with Zionism.

Fun Fact: “When the UN General Assembly and the Security Council passed a resolution that Zionism is racism, one of the first things Zionists did was to import into Israel a lot of Ethiopian Jews.” In fact, Operation Moses was a 1984 IDF/CIA project to airlift thousands of Ethiopian jews to Israel. [How dare you rightfully call us racist! Give us a minute and we and the CIA will import a bunch of blacks just to disprove your accusation!] And, Hamas doesn’t talk anywhere against homosexuality; you are thinking of Anita Bryant, James Dobson, Phyllis Schlafly, Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson, Trent Lott, and Jerry Falwell.

A few decades ago, if you believed in equality and equal rights for all the people of the world, you were called a commie, a pinko, a dirty red. Today if you STILL believe in equality and equal rights for all the people of the world - but dare include the occupied territories - you must be a Jew-hater and an anti-Semite. You would think after October 7th, the US press would explain to us what is this Hamas? What were its goals on October 7th? Were they just trying to kill all Jews they encountered like Hitler on that day? And why does Hamas exist and what does it want from Israel? I read this book to find out what US media intentionally doesn’t want to tell me. US media only tells me about Hamas from the occupier’s point of view.

Hamas wants what Palestinians want – no one enjoys being occupied and deprived of rights – so it wants Israel to end the occupation and restore Palestinian rights (including right of return). Will US media ever tell you that? No. Will I be hated on social media, for reading this book and taking the time to objectively understand Hamas and why October 7th happened? Yes, because you are NOT supposed to look beyond official paid Hasbara in search of the actual stories of the oppressed. The end of WWII brought the end of most colonial structures of oppression worldwide yet strangely the creation of one ill-timed new one in Palestine. Why are we supposed to be so impressed with Israel’s determination to be settler-colonial when the rest of the world has clearly moved on?

This is a great book that is one of the few that explains Hamas finally as something other than inaccurately wanting the death of all Jews for no reason. I’m super glad I’ve read it. It’s strange how the US still subsidizes settler-colonialism by proxy in Israel after the world has screamed ENOUGH with discredited colonialism! All of us must keep reading about Israel/Palestine and making the cause of the oppressed EVERYWHERE our cause as well. Last time I checked our Pledge of Allegiance demands “Justice for all” - so why are we spending billions annually to guarantee “Justice intentionally for some” in some country that so cavalierly disregards international law and even its sponsor, the US (USS Liberty attack anyone?)?

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Understanding Hamas And Why That Matters is a fascinating, accessible and informative volume that explores the origins, aims and actions of what is currently the most prominent active Palestinian resistance organisation. The book's format is that of a series of interview transcripts between the editors and five prominent international experts on Middle Eastern politics and six appendices providing supporting primary sources.

While the book purports to be even-handed and informative to a global audience, the views of the interviewees and the editors are clearly supportive of the Palestinian cause.

[Matthew O'Brien · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good intro into understanding what hamas is. Hamas is a revolutionary movement and like every revolutionary movement it has a history and it has support. this book isnt trying to make hamas look like saints its trying to make them look like what they are. I think it is fair to say Hamas will be seen the same was as the ANC one day, that is it will also be seen as a group who fought against injustice and apartheid and won.

[Leda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This read was excellent! I appreciate all contributors a lot and the Just World News that Helena Cobban has created, so I didn’t expect anything less than that. The western states are always quick in proscribing anti-colonial and pro-liberation movements as terrorist, but the truth lies in these organizations’ history, goals, and own Charters. We don’t read interviews by Hamas members and we don’t interview specialists who have talked with them. People do not know how they are structured and what they believe in, or their collective decision-making process, which leaves them with no real information and knowledge. Only fear and/or hatred. The truth is multi-faceted, not one-sided. I never understood how people were talking about Hamas without knowing a single thing about them, how easy it was for them to believe the blatant lies by the occupation without evidence and still to this day, they do, despite the evidence. Especially for Oct 7th.

We might have different political approaches and ideas of how a resistance movement should look like, but only fools ignore the facts. Hamas is not only (one of) the strongest and most effective aspects of the Palestinian resistance movement, but also an organization that has consistently been open and has tried to negotiate with numerous parties. If the West had recognized them since 2006 as a political counterpart instead of rejecting them leading to diplomatic isolation and sanctions, if the West had really cared about ‘peace’, ‘hostages’ and ‘safety’, they would have sat down to negotiate with them. Instead, they are arresting hundreds and hundreds of people globally accused of supporting ‘terrorist organizations and symbols’ for daring to say what international law has taught us: Resistance is justified when people are occupied. The occupier has no right for self-defence and colonial systems MUST be dismantled.

So this book is for you if you don’t know as much as you should about them from organizational structure to internal differences, from their obvious differences from ISIS, the group’s relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Axis of Resistance to the role of women, but also a broader presentation of their shift from social and religious activism to national political and military engagement. Break through all narratives. You can even hate something someone did without hating them or dismissing them. Also, it is easy to read through the interviews with academics and specialists, and in the appendix, you can find some parts of their Charters and a glossary.

From the river to sea, Palestine will be free.

[Audrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

So important to learn the history of Hamas and their views!! Especially with the way the media demonizes them and refuses to see their side of things. Really informative and short book. I learned a lot- it took me a while but I read most of it in the last 2 days.

If I knew how to write I could write a better review. Just know that this book (and all books about Palestine) is so important.


So sad that every book about Palestine has a fleet of evil Zionists rating it 1 star without even reading it.

[Ennu Leiwo · Rating 5 out of 5]

changed my review from 4 to 5 stars because of all the 1-star spam reviews lol. the book consists of five brilliant and informative interviews with five world-class experts, originally held in spring 2024. I would recommend this to anyone willing to seriously discuss Hamas and armed resistance.

[Ruya Hazeyen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good intro to kkhhhamas and accessible writing I recommend for the most part and don’t feel like discussing the parts I disagree with but most is great 🍇

[Khalid B · Rating 4 out of 5]

A free, easy and essential read. Do not let those with a closed mind tell you otherwise.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw a couple of reactions of people who didn't read the book, but saw the name 'Hamas' and went berserk. Actually I've read the works of some of the academics who wrote this book, and they are authoritative and knowledgeable. The implication of a lot of reactions is that writing a book on militant organizations means supporting or endorsing them. That's lame. It's important to understand organizations in order to evaluate them, analyse them, and influence them. More important in this context even, is to place the organization in the context of a 100 year war, for which no solution is in sight. I hope people will get into this, because if you do not understand the circumstances, roots, parties, and context to this conflict, you will presumably not be able to make the right diagnoses and do not come up with the right track for solutions.

About the propaganda reactions: In Israel there is a lot of state-sponsored propaganda. The largest newspapers In Israel provide apps in which gamification is mixed with propaganda, by letting users score points with copy-pasting propaganda material (written by the state) on global social media and reputable media platforms in order to convince the world of their righteousness. It seems some have them have found this book on GoodReads, which leads me to believe there is merit in this book. My message: thank you, propagandists, for pointing this book out for me. I will definitely read it.

And because you already blasted it with 0 stars reviews, without reading it; I've added a five star rating before reading it. Every book deserves an honest evaluation.

[Judy Lindow · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hamas is not a movement (and it is definitely not a key player) - they are terrorist proxies for the Islamic Republic of Iran. They slaughter, kidnap, rape, lie, use their own civilians as shields while they hide in tunnels built with aid money, create propaganda, and lie. They killed off the other partisan political group in Palestine when they came into power. Their goal is to kill Jews, get rid of Israel and participate in destroying western civilization. They are not really the brains behind the global Jihad, the Brotherhood plan, or a global caliphate - they are more like mercenaries.

Hamas is not known for any social or religious activism. They would not understand what 'national political engagement' means. They would be mystified by the 'delicate balance' you talk about between their political and military wings. They would not know which is which. They would be confused by the word 'wings'.

Regarding the terms and words 'early anti-Jewish tendencies', 'stance', again, I think you'd loose them. Lastly, I think they still hate jews so I don't think that particular game of claiming they like jews but don't like Israel ever really took hold.

I will have to say, I found this book NEITHER Accessible or authoritative. I would not claim it is much needed OR insightful.

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has to be said that since the material for the book was collated, certain things have transpired that have not been taken into account here, like the assassinations of Haniyeh and Nasrallah, the death of Sinwar, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and Syria and the dissolution of the government in Damascus, but the book has not lost much because of it.

Overall, I found this book very informative, and given that it is virtually the transcript of a series of conversations with experts on Hamas and the politics of Western Asia, it has a particular hands-on quality that is lacking in much of the punditry-published material in media both corporate and alternative. An excellent read to close a tragic year.

[Ashish Pathak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although these interviews happened in May 2024, it seems like a lifetime ago. So much has changed -- the interviewees talk about Haniyeh and Sinwar who are now assassinated, they talk about Biden and their hopes with upcoming elections and hopes for peace -- and of course Israel has now broken the second ceasefire when the panelists here were wishing for the first one to materialize. It was a quick read, since it's basically just transcripts of interviews, but very enriching in the way it tries to give a fuller picture of what Hamas thinks and how it behaves like.

[Muawiyah Yousuf · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and quick read for those wanting to understand the reason as to why Hamas exists, it's politics, why it keeps fighting despite the odds stacked against it, their ultimate objectives, their changing policies, and their role in Gaza and the west bank. The book has 5 chapters, all in the format of a dialogue that takes place on a panel. The 5 interviewees are people who have studied Hamas. They neither support nor endorse the party, and the goal of this book is to show facts for what they truly are.

[Oriel · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a Hamas propaganda book. It won't make you understand Hamas. At best it will show you how Hamas wants you to view him.
He of course won't talk about the Hamas covenant that exterminated all the Jews.

In the same way, we could have a book understanding the Islamic State and why that matter—a book where they try to convince you that the Islamic State is a good organization.

So why is it that the author thinks that the Islamic resistance movement is a good force?

[Asti Tami · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's like reading a meeting's minute. All the information is straightforward and understandable with no substantial pre-knowledge required. I tried to see if the panellists invited are diverse enough to prevent information bias, and i think they are indeed coming from diverse backgrounds. It's a good and easy read if you have minimum knowledge about the whole conflict but still want to understand hamas better amidst all this propaganda.

[Johanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoughtful, thorough and timely discussion about one of the most influential political movements of today. The book is actually a transcription of several interviews conducted as online lectures with various experts. This book is rigorous and fact-based and a must-read for anyone who is sincerely interested in Palestine, the history of the region and the ongoing genocide and conflict.

[Mal · Rating 4 out of 5]

An adult discussion of Hamas, its motivations, its objectives and its ideas - a necessary rational take on a subject that contrasts with the tiresome hyperventilated discourse that we usually get in the West. Includes an appendix with really useful resources / links / content- including material from both the original and updated charters.

[Galena · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew nothing about Hamas and this book, given it's neutral position for the talks, is an important contribution towards ensuring we are all better informed on Hamas. I certainly am better informed after reading it.

[Kevin Sharpe · Rating 1 out of 5]

the most biased book I have ever read. it makes no attempt at giving a balanced view. it did offer so interesting perspectives on why the peace plans have always failed and the divided nature of Palestinian politics

[Ana Paulina Maestre Camacho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy to read. Easy to understand. Should be read by anyone interested in Israel and Palestine. Sheds light to why the current Israeli military approach of “mowing the lawn” will eventually fail.

[Jamie Smyth · Rating 5 out of 5]

That's me never getting into the States.

5⭐ to counter the Zionists who obviously never read the book.

Essential Reading.

[Em · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

[‎ ‎ · Rating 5 out of 5]

🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻