Stop Using Hamas as a Bogeyman to Silence Palestinians
Enthusiasts for Israeli militarism often claim that Gaza needs “freeing from Hamas.” Such a claim is steeped in the logic of collective guilt, refusing Palestinians the right to both armed struggle and the ballot box.
Palestinians gather during a protest against US president Joe Biden’s support for Israel at Unknown Soldier Memorial Park in Gaza City, July 14, 2022. (Ali Jadallah / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
This spring, Britain’s right-wing press had the chance to return to the heady days of the Jeremy Corbyn era and one of its favorite pastimes of that period: associating the former Labour leader with Hamas.
The accusations concerned a webinar about Palestinian liberation involving a representative from the party. We were told that Corbyn was due to attend the online meeting, or may simply have been invited to attend. In any case, he did not do so.
The headlines damning Corbyn’s supposed “Hamas ties” felt like a blast from a tedious and recent past. But they did provide an opportunity for a more valuable discussion on a question deliberately kept absent from Western media discourse: What is Hamas, and what does it want?
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