Palestinians in Gaza are learning the hard way that they have no greater enemy on the world stage than Western anti-Zionists.
Well, maybe Qatar. Let’s call it a tie.
Yesterday, a 32-year-old Palestinian named Ibrahim went food shopping in downtown Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza and happened upon a remarkable scene: Hundreds of Gazans were marching in protest against Hamas. So he joined them. The protesters’ message to Hamas was simple: Get out of Gaza and don’t come back.
The New York Times reports with an adorable earnestness: “Gazans, at least publicly, tend to blame Israel for much of the death, destruction and hunger the war has brought. But at least some hold Hamas responsible, as well, for starting the conflict by leading the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, abducting 251 people to Gaza and continuing to fight rather than giving up its power in exchange for a cease-fire.”
Hard as it may be to believe, it’s true: Gazans have not have been fully honest in public. There’s a reason for that. To take just one example, Amin Abed was nearly beaten to death with hammers for criticizing Hamas. Abed was saved by bystanders, so presumably the intention was to finish him off. During the cease-fire, Hamas members bragged about executing “collaborators” and filmed themselves shooting civilians.
Which is what makes yesterday’s protests all the more significant. To protest Hamas in public is to take one’s life in one’s hands. That is especially true because the protests were bound to be filmed, in order to get the message out to the world. The reason the world needs to hear that message is that Westerners have been Hamas’s willing propaganda tools. The protests on campus are not “pro-Palestinian,” they are pro-Hamas—and the people of Gaza are Hamas’s victims. Which means the anti-Zionist protest movement around the world objectively sides against the victims and civilians in Gaza.
It is true what they say: Western leftists are willing to fight Israel down to the last Palestinian. Comfortable activists in Morningside Heights call for “resistance” because they do not assign any value to the lives of Jews or Arabs, Israelis or Palestinians. They also fool themselves into believing things that Gazans cannot afford to—that, for example, Israel wantonly destroys residential buildings because it enjoys doing so. In reality, Gazans know Hamas builds entrances to terror tunnels in civilian homes because it has been done in their homes. It is not the IDF that hides bombs in stuffed animals in Palestinian children’s bedrooms along with a camera to know when to detonate that terror teddy. Gazans know their homes would still be standing if it weren’t for Hamas; it’s really that simple.
Which is why Gazans are saying the exact same thing the Israeli government and the U.S. government have been saying. In the words of one man from Beit Lahiya: “Without Hamas going away, the next war will only be a matter of time.”
Left unsaid is the key point: Even Gazans know that it isn’t Israel’s desire for war but Hamas’s. If Palestinians in Gaza don’t fall for the moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel, what excuse do Americans have?
The answer is none. No one, anywhere, has any excuse to even attempt to equate Hamas and Israel. And the instant that a Palestinian in Gaza has the slightest opening to be honest, they say so plainly. Israel’s existence does not necessitate war; Hamas’s does.
There were also complaints about al Jazeera, the Qatari propaganda station, at the protests. Qatar sponsors Hamas and dresses terrorists in press vests and makes it nearly impossible to distinguish Hamas from anyone else. Gazans don’t appreciate that, and they don’t appreciate the lies spread around the world from al Jazeera’s platform. Those lies, after all, condemn everyday Gazans to death. (Perhaps Steve Witkoff can talk to his friends the Qataris, whom he has lavished with praise for their supposed desire for peace.)
Anyone who claims to bemoan the tragic condition of Gaza yet supports Hamas’s continue existence is contributing to, and compounding, Palestinian misery in the Gaza Strip. This is a rare point of agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. The connection between Hamas and the devastating war in Gaza is the same as the connection between gravity and falling objects. The difference is that in the case of Hamas, the problem can be solved.
