Don't Fall for Hamas, Palestinian Myths

During the Hamas Massacre of October 7, nearly1,500 Israeli were murdered, about 5,000 others were wounded, maimed and injured and another 240 were kidnapped, and dragged into Gaza, the Hamas stronghold..

And from that horrible day, an erroneous myth about Hamas and the Palestinians was born. And it needs to be corrected.

After almost every condemnation of Hamas for their despicable, inhuman acts, comes a caveat. A chorus, so to speak, composed of two chants. “Hamas is not all Palestinians.” “Hamas does not represent the Palestinians.”

Those statements are patently untrue.

For some, the erroneous refrain has been learned and is unconsciously repeated. For others, however, it has been deliberately repeated, part and parcel of a public relations campaign to turn Hamas into the victim.

One month later, the time has come to out the lie. The time has come for the truth to be told.

The statements “Hamas is not all Palestinians” and “Hamas does not represent the Palestinians” give the impression that most Palestinians are not supportive of Hamas, but the facts tell us otherwise.

Had the chorus chosen to chant “all Palestinians are not terrorists” they would be correct. While just a fraction of Palestinians are terrorists, the figures tell us that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians support Hamas.

And that, for Israel, for the Western world, for the entire world is frightening.

The first of the two most important pieces of evidence disproving the “erroneous” statements are the results of the 2006 Palestinian Parliamentary election — an election that was open to all residents of the West Bank and all residents of Gaza. The second piece of information is a poll conducted among over 1,200 Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank in September of 2023. A poll conducted less than a month before the Hamas massacre on October 7.

The results of both the election and the poll are staggering. They demonstrate — unequivocally demonstrate, that an overwhelming number of average Palestinians support Hamas over Palestinian Authority leadership. Not by a slight margin — by an overwhelming margin.

Believe me when I tell you that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his party do not have the popular support of the people they are, supposedly, governing.

Western leaders, especially in the United States, want the world to believe that Abbas and his PA can and do exert control. They cannot and they do not.

The West is maintaining that they want Abbas and his PA to take charge of Gaza. Given their lack of popularity — that is impossible. They can’t even control the West Bank and the West wants them to control Gaza, too?

Has the Western world forgotten that Hamas threw Abbas and his PA out of Gaza in 2007 in a brutal coup? Hamas and the Palestinians certainly haven’t forgotten.

Here are the numbers:

On January 25, 2006, the entire Palestinian polity went to the polls to vote in parliamentary elections. For the first time, Hamas was permitted to run for election.

Parenthetically, I was against it. I wrote about it and advised against it. I posited that anti-democratic parties should not be permitted to run in a democratic election because if they win, they will suspend democracy. Hamas should never have been permitted to run.

But the United States and the Europeans were not swayed. They were convinced that the PA would win and that Hamas would fall in line.

They were not reading the Palestinian masses, the people. They were listening to the wrong advisers. The election went on as scheduled. The PA was trounced.

Hamas won a whopping 76 seats in the parliament. The Palestinian Authority won 43 seats and Independents won 4. The Palestinian Parliament appointed a Hamas Prime Minister. Hamas won nearly 2 to 1. And Abbas promptly took back the parliament by ousting the Hamas prime minister and appointing his own unelected PM.

And that’s when, as is their style, Hamas violently took over Gaza.

Seventeen years later, from September 6 to 9, 2023, in a poll conducted of 1,270 Palestinians, the results were almost identical.

The poll was conducted by Khalil Shikaki from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. It determined that, in a head-to-head election between Abbas of the PA and Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, Hamas would win. Haniyeh with 58% of the vote, Abbas with 37%.

And then came the massacre.

Additionally, according to the poll, both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are seen as overwhelming corrupt. Eighty-seven percent of Palestinians see the PA as corrupt while 72% see Hamas as corrupt. Seventy-eight percent of those polled even demanded Abbas resign.

Important lesson number one to be learned from these numbers is that Hamas is representative of Palestinians. Yes, I repeat, Hamas is representative of Palestinians. Not of all Palestinians — but certainly of a significant majority.

Those who support Hamas are not necessarily, murderers but they support the murder of Israelis. Every Palestinian and every Israeli knows the Hamas Charter and knows that the Charter’s preamble proclaims the destruction of all of Israel and the murder of the Jews.

Important lesson number two is that Abbas and the PA are not capable of ruling Gaza and the PA — which leads to an important conclusion.

After Israel wins the war in Gaza and Hamas is no longer a threat, Gaza must be handed over to and controlled by an international force. That force should be sponsored and composed of those countries that make up the Abraham Accords. Israel’s involvement should be limited to advice and supervision.

As the West has demonstrated time and time again, they have no understanding of the Palestinians. It is only those countries that signed the Abraham Accords with Israel who understand both the Palestinians and Israel.