Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance

Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures

by Tareq Baconi

Hamas rules Gaza and the lives of the two million Palestinians who live there. Demonized in media and policy debates, various accusations and critical assumptions have been used to justify extreme military action against Hamas. The reality of Hamas is, of course, far more complex. Neither a democratic political party nor a terrorist group, Hamas is a multifaceted liberation organization, one rooted in the nationalist claims of the Palestinian people. Hamas Contained offers the first history of the group on its own terms. Drawing on interviews with organization leaders, as well as publications from the group, Tareq Baconi maps Hamas's thirty-year transition from fringe military resistance towards governance. He breaks new ground in questioning the conventional understanding of Hamas and shows how the movement's ideology ultimately threatens the Palestinian struggle and, inadvertently, its own legitimacy. Hamas's reliance on armed struggle as a means of liberation has failed in the face of a relentless occupation designed to fragment the Palestinian people. As Baconi argues, under Israel's approach of managing rather than resolving the conflict, Hamas's demand for Palestinian sovereignty has effectively been neutralized by its containment in Gaza. This dynamic has perpetuated a deadlock characterized by its brutality―and one that has made permissible the collective punishment of millions of Palestinian civilians.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Middle East, War, Religion, Terrorism

368 pages, Hardcover

First published May 15, 2018

Reviews

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because I know of no other that sets out to try to explain, in an objective way, the evolution of Hamas and the points of view/motivations of its key "shapers" over time. Every other resource available is presented from a biased perspective. That perspective is usually uniformly negative (from someone who lives in Gaza and isn't happy with what Hamas has achieved, or not, on a personal level, or from Israelis/others who see them only as terrorists). But sometimes it is overly romanticized--typically among activists. Baconi avoids both traps and simply tries to both provide a nuanced record of what actually happened and why, as well the thinking behind decisions, in the words of Hamas decision makers. Unfortunately, the latter is only through quotations from websites and publications. I really hoped Baconi could have supplemented this material with personal interviews that also would have added a human dimension.

HOWEVER, the final chapter of the book makes up for those lapses. Baconi brings it all together with a truly insightful analysis that gives all parties their due. And I now have a degree of appreciation and respect for what Hamas has tried to achieve and why. That's not to say I am a cheerleader, but rather I have a deeper understanding. And that's what I had hoped for.

[Sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this after listening to Baconi’s excellent interview on the Dig. The book is great, notable for its serious treatment of Hamas as a social and resistance movement. It’s basically a history of Palestine since the first Intifada through the lens of the Hamas experience.

From the conclusion:

Hamas neither espouses an ideology of global terror nor does it seek to create a transnational Islamic caliphate.87 It is a movement that utilizes Islamic discourse to deal with contemporary ailments and that is geographically tethered to the specific political and social environment of the occupation.

In that sense, Hamas is akin to a religious and armed anticolonial resistance movement. Understanding Hamas’s political drivers and motivations, however, would complicate Israel’s efforts to present the movement as little more than a terrorist organization committed to its destruction. Such a portrayal has been extremely useful for Israel on several levels. First, it excuses and justifies the forceful marginalization of a democratically elected government and the collective punishment inherent in besieging two million Palestinians. As the preceding chapters have shown, operations carried out by the Israeli army against Gaza are then understood as a legitimate form of self-defense, most often preemptive. For each of the three major operations of the last decade—Cast Lead, Pillar of Defense, and Protective Edge—a clear pattern has emerged whereby Israeli provocations, often after Palestinian unity deals are signed, trigger opportunities for Israel to claim self- defense and launch spectacular attacks on Gaza. By preventing unity and containing Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israel has effectively cultivated a fig leaf that legitimates its policies toward the strip. Rather than positioning Gaza’s marginalization as a result of Hamas, it is perhaps more accurate to state that Hamas has become marginalized as a result of Gaza, as evident in its failure to overcome its entrenchment there.

Second, with Hamas’s dismissal as a terrorist organization, the thread linking the early days of Palestinian nationalism, from al-Qassam to the PLO and through to Hamas, gets eclipsed. Central to this continuity from fedayeen to “Islamic terrorists” are key Palestinian political demands that remain unmet and unanswered and that form the basis of the Palestinian struggle: achieving self-determination; dealing with the festering injustice of the refugee problem created by Israel’s establishment in 1948; and affirming the right to use armed struggle to resist an illegal occupation.90 In this light, Hamas is the contemporary manifestation of demands that began a century ago. Israeli efforts to continue sidelining these demands, addressing them solely from a military lens, have persisted. From antiguerilla warfare to its own War on Terror, Israel merely employs contemporary language to wage a century-old war.

Israel does not have a Hamas problem; it has a Palestine problem. (226-227)

Some of the aspects that stood out in particular with regard to Hamas were:
- Principled efforts at unity even through betrayals and extremely dire situations
- Principled stand against the Assad regime even against allies like Iran, leading to severed funding streams in the midst of catastrophe
- The experiments in grappling with the severe perils of “governance” by a resistance movement
- Unjustifiable violence against other parts of the Palestinian movement, sometimes even under the cover of Israeli bombardments like in 2014
- Short term moves toward pacification to avert humanitarian catastrophe having longer-term consequences

[Doug]

Highly, highly recommend reading this. In addition to being extremely informative it also provides crucial, and fair minded, context, criticism, and nuance about and of a political entity that is persistently labelled as "terrorist," at a time where all efforts towards true understanding are all but thrown out the window, along with any effort to remember the distant, and recent, past in the region. Truly depressing to know this book was written in 2017 and ends by suggesting that another conflagration looms on the horizon as long as the blockade of Gaza persists and the fracturing of Palestinian nationalism continues.

To quote the books conclusion:

"Israeli leader consistently present Hamas as nothing more than an irrational and bloodthirsty actor seeking Israel's destruction. This framing is part of a longer history of sidestepping the political concerns that animate Palestinian nationalism by labelling movements such as Hamas and the PLO as terrorist organizations. In Hamas' case, it's Islamic nature facilitates a greater conflation of its actions with groups such as al-Qaeda."

"Instead of deterrence, since 2007 Israel's policy toward Hamas has taken the form of what Israel's security establishment refers to as "mowing the lawn." this entails the intermittent use of military power to undercut any growth by the resistance factions in Gaza. Through three major wars and countless incursions...Israel has used military might to break the spirit of resistance in Gaza, pacify Hamas, and work toward deterrence. The result is that Israel and Hamas are now engaged in the process of maintaining an equilibrium of belligerency...Both Hamas and Israel will continue to focus on short-term survival in a longer-term battle, where political gains can be reaped from intermittent confrontations on the battlefield. This status quo allows Hamas to sustain its power and Israel to maintain its colonization of the West Bank and its stranglehold on the Gaza Stip, where besieged Palestinians continue to pay the highest price of all."

[Randall Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Question: “Why is terrorism limited to subnational groups of clandestine agents if states (like the US and Israel) are clearly the BIGGEST perpetrators of organized violence against civilians?” Or as Noam asks, why is terrorism defined as what THEY do, but never what WE do? And who has the moral high ground - the illegal occupier/aggressor? or those who resist illegal occupation/aggression? Tareq calls this “the aggression of an oppressive occupation on an unarmed population”. In response, Hamas has insisted that to end the violence, the occupation itself has to be dismantled.

Before the October 7th attack, Israel believed “Palestinians would acquiesce indefinitely to their imprisonment, that Israel could maintain – and expand – its colonial regime at no cost to Israeli society.” The real shock of October 7th (aside from the fact that Guns R Us Israel took eight hours to get its act together in a state only the size of New Jersey) was it shattered the illusion that “Israeli apartheid can persist without cost.” And that shoving Palestinians illegally into Bantustans while trapped in a total sea/land/air blockade still wouldn’t give Israel “peace & security”. In response to October 7th, Biden called Hamas “pure evil”. If Tibetans had done the same thing to their Chinese occupiers, Biden would have been encouraging them to further resist THEIR occupation. Our violent Revolutionary War started when Britian was treating us colonists MUCH better than Israel does the Palestinians.

Tareq says the Palestinians have long been merely “seeking to overturn a regime bent on their erasure.” They have no hopes of statehood or sovereignty and Hamas knew that being only administrative meant “beautifying a Bantustan within Israel’s apartheid system” – basically making one’s oppressor look good, and ensuring future oppression. Many Palestinians had come to “describe their confinement as a slow death.” In asymmetric struggles, all the occupied have to do is avoid losing – an easier task than for the occupier which has to maintain force, deterrence and aggression and the funds to pay for such nasty-assed constant oppression.

Suicide Bombing Period: Early Hamas involved suicide bombing which in response in 1996 brought in a rightwing Likud and Netanyahu government. In 1997, the US labelled Hamas a terrorist organization. Yet it was clear that Hamas was using terror to fight terror. Thomas Suarez in his book shows how Zionist terror groups like Irgun, Lehi, Stern Gang and Haganah collectively killed more civilians before 1948 than Hamas has done to date, but terrorism committed by the US and its allies doesn’t count in the US if you are a true hypocrite & moral coward. Hamas saw suicide bombings back then as a response to “mitigate the asymmetry of power”. The bombings led to no one riding Israeli buses and Israeli shopping centers were suddenly “not what they used to be.” But also at this time Israel was assassinating Hamas leaders which couldn’t possibly help quell the violence by the occupied.

Hamas Wins the Election: One of the reasons Hamas won their election was because Palestinians felt Fatah “was a corrupt party that was subservient to Israel.” That same election had a whopping 77% voter turnout, and Jimmy Carter called it a model for democracy. Hamas official Musa abu Marzouq explains, “we are a government under occupation.” Yet to Hamas, democracy was still not a substitute for resistance to occupation. Israel’s response to the Hamas election was “a form of collective punishment against civilians to penalize them for their democratic choice (Noam says the same).” You are not supposed to know that Hamas refused to implement sharia law in Gaza, such knowledge would only humanize them.

The Second Intifada: Israel’s response was akin to the US War on Terror – hey, let’s start a war we can’t possibly win! Question by Rantissi: “Why is there no talk of the crimes of Jewish terrorism? (p.49)”

The Tunnels: Think about it – the Hamas tunnels were Hamas’s way to mitigate the land/ air/sea Israeli blockade – just create a tunnel economy. “By 2008, there were more than five hundred tunnels snaking beneath the Rafah border bringing in a monthly revenue of about $36 million to Hamas.” By 2011, the tunnel trade had changed Gaza’s recovery time from 80 years down to 5. That doesn’t mean the tunnel trade was sustainable because Gaza still could not export, develop “lasting industry or a manufacturing base.” In 2015, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Morsi becomes Egypt’s first democratically elected president.

Israel’s Wall stole more than 10% of the West Banks land, of course was illegal, and intentionally limited Palestinian movement including cutting villages in half, and allowing Jewish only roads for “the chosen”. Countless checkpoints soon imposed “a suffocating system of closures” to restrict the Palestinian economy (see Sara Roy’s Gaza de-development book) as thousands of Palestinian homes were razed to make way for the oppressive structure.

By 2017, Gazans were getting 2-3 hours of electricity per day as opposed to 4 back in 2014. Hospitals had to rely on emergency generators, and water treatment plants were no longer functional. Life had become so unsustainable for Gazans that millions of US liberals rushed to action, and quickly did nothing to object. Give me a progressive any day. Israel since 1948, has waged more than twelve wars on Gaza; all occupations are illegal but imagine going to war more than 12 times against enclosed people w/o an army, living blockaded behind walls and razor wire with no hope – all thanks to the Zionist settler-colonial project. To add to this delightful comedy, Tareq says in Israel “the phrase ‘Go to Gaza’ is now the popular manner of saying ‘Go to hell’.”

For those who still care about international law and the Golden Rule: “under international law, the blockade amounts to collective punishment and comes at horrific cost to Gaza’s population.” The election of Hamas wasn’t a choice to elect evil, as US politicians paid by AIPAC might say, it was a vote against captured agencies like Fatah that clearly “placed the interests of Western policies in the region above the rights of its people.” Voting for Hamas was voting for “an alternative.” Hamas wrote a second charter which NO US liberal will ever read let alone tell you about, because it sounds perfectly reasonable next to the nasty Likud party charter which no US liberal will ever tell you about. In 2017, Yahya Sinwar got elected to head Gaza’s operations in the Gaza Strip.

So, what is the big difference between al Qaeda and Hamas? Well, “al Qaeda is part of a transnational network that wages a violent struggle against Western hegemony, (while) Hamas adopts armed resistance on a localized front to end an occupation that is deemed illegal by international law.” And clearly al-Qaeda rejects democratic politics while Hamas does not. Biden will never tell you Hamas is NOT trying to establish an Islamic caliphate or endorse global terror. Israel wants you see Hamas ONLY as “a terrorist organization committed to its destruction.” This allows Palestinian collective punishment and political marginalization to stay completely off the US liberal radar.

Tareq reminds us to see “Hamas is the contemporary manifestation of demands that began a century ago.” As your secret Zionist magic Decoder Ring will tell you, “Israel does not have a Hamas problem; it has a Palestinian problem.” When every Palestinian “accidently” lays dead under the bombed rubble, Israel will no longer have a Hamas problem. It will simply have a PR problem.

This was a great book, which I’m super glad I’ve now read. My only gripe was this: those of us who read a lot on Israel/Palestine know that Netanyahu himself financed Hamas for over a decade, so why ON EARTH would the author not mention in a book SPECIFICALLY about the true story of Hamas, which Western media will never tell you about? In fact, The New York Times, CNN, The Times of Israel and Haaretz ALL ran articles on Netanyahu clearly funding Hamas (fact check it yourself) and they are obviously mainstream so why did Tareq decide through intentional omission to take a stand to the RIGHT of our mainstream media outlets? I think it is extremely important, if Biden is going to call Hamas “evil” to ask, “If Hamas is so ‘evil’, then why did Netanyahu personally fund Hamas for over a decade?” Anyway, kudos to the author for writing the good stuff he did write in this book which I enjoyed. As this book amply shows, you are never going to stop resistance to ANY illegal occupation, especially when under international law, not only is your resistance legal, but so is armed resistance.

[Lama Hussein · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Gaza is one microcosm, one parcel, of the Palestinian experience."
الكتاب عن نشوء وتطور حماس.
مفيد لمن يحاول فهم الكارثة التي في غزة الآن.

[Spooky Socialist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tareq Baconi provides a cogent and sober view of Hamas, dismissing stereotypes of it as a single-minded, terrorist organization committed to the wholesale destruction of Israel. The Hamas of reality, not in the minds of Zionist fearmongers, is far more complex and pragmatic: its immediate goals are a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders (in effect, a two-state solution), its armed resistance is limited to ending the occupation (rather than the transnational terrorism network adopted by al-Qaeda), it has cracked down on Salafi jihadist extremists, refused to implement Sharia Law within Gaza, and safeguarded the principle of armed resistance as a core of Palestinian nationalism. In effect, Hamas is a nationalist, anti-colonial movement that speaks in the rhetoric of Islam, believing its Islamic ideology will prevent it from drifting away from armed struggle and resistance to the occupation—unlike the previous forebearer of Palestinian struggle, the PLO.

Most of the book’s content is a fairly straightforward recounting of Hamas’s history from its own perspective. The history gets somewhat tedious with the most strongest portions of the book undoubtedly being its preface and conclusion. Baconi’s observation that Israel has effectively contained Hamas and turned it into an administrative authority similar to the PA has, of course, been decisively overturned with the events of October 7th. The paradigm of containment, like the occupation’s walls, has been breached and we are living through the history of that breach.

[Charles Cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

EDITED 11/2/23: I was naive, I was overly optimistic. On October 7, Hamas reminded us who they are. Whatever their circumstances, whatever led to their past, whatever their puppeting by Iran, Hamas is a terrorist organization.

I read this because I was hoping to understand this organization that I only knew as a primary source of terror and chaos in Israel, of inconsistent support for and incompetent leadership of Palestinians, and an overriding dedication to Palestinian liberation that was almost always conflated with erasing Israel entirely.

Baconi digs deep to say more about Hamas - specifically, and within the context of Palestinian resistance and self-governance - than anyone else I've read. Are they the "big bad", as often described in the media? Definitely not. I have a much more nuanced appreciation for their mission, and how they both used and were used by Israel, the US, Fatah, Iran, and other regional and global actors to achieve countless conflicting agendas. On the one hand, they're more successful and focused than I imagined; on the other, they are subject to forces over which they have so little control, whether that's larger countries using them as a proxy or a standin, or smaller terror groups as cover for their own aims.

There were a couple of frustrating things about the book. The first and more challenging was trying to parse when Baconi was using public statements or press releases from Hamas officials, and when he was quoting from interviews. At first it seemed like there were no interviews used, which made me suspicious of whether this was really a look into Hamas and its leadership, or whether this was just a gloss that wasn't really any more than propaganda, with enough critical elements to make it seem like there was real digging. But there were a fair amount of original sources, even if I would have liked more.

The second disappointing aspect was how Baconi, despite all of his well-researched writing, still made assumptions or superficial judgments of Israel's activities/decision-making/priorities. It was so frustrating to read a chapter with over 200 citations, then get to a point when Baconi references Israeli leadership's mentality or agenda, and there isn't an endnote to be found. I know this was a work focused on Hamas, but it made the work feel one-sided in a way that was unnecessary.

Despite those two factors, I think it was important and valuable to read this. I'm glad I did.

[Scottie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5
Amazingly nuanced, fair, and objective. I learned a lot!

“Hamas is akin to a religious and armed anti colonial resistance movement. Understanding Hamas’ political drives and motivations, however, would complicate Israel’s efforts to present the movement as little more than a terrorist organization committed to its destruction. Such a portrayal has been extremely useful for Israel [because it] (1) excuses and justifies the forceful marginalization of a democratically elected government and the collective punishment inherent in besieging two million Palestinians; and (2) [eclipses the thread of] the early days of Palestinian nationalism, from al-Qassam to the PLO and through to Hamas….

Israel does not have a Hamas problem; it has a Palestine problem. (!!!!)

…In other words, the political reality that makes Gaza ‘a hostile entity’ extends beyond that strip of land and animates the Palestinian struggle in its entirety. Gaza is one microcosm, one parcel, of the Palestinian experience. Instead of addressing the reality or engaging with Hamas’ political drives, Israel has adopted a military approach that defines Hamas solely as a terrorist organization. This depoliticizes and decontextualizes the movement, giving credence to the persistent “politicide” of Palestinian nationalism, Israel’s process of erasing the political ideology animating the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. This approach has allowed successive Israeli governments to avoid taking a position on the demands that have been upheld by Palestinians since before the creation of the State of Israel.”

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

On February 25, 1994, an American Jewish settler named Baruch Goldstein walked into the Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron during prayer time. Standing behind the rows of kneeling figures in front of him, Goldstein opened fire. Within minutes, twenty nine Muslim worshippers [sic] had been killed and close to one hundred injured. [...] Forty-one days after the shooting, once the time allotted for Muslim ritual mourning had been respected, a member of Hamas approached a bus stop in Afula, a city in northern Israel. Standing next to fellow passengers, the man detonated a suicide vest, killing seven Israelis. This was on April 6, 1994, a day that marked Hamas's first lethal suicide bombing in Israel.

I've been biding my time for years now, waiting until the right book with enough technical chops and skin in the game came around to talk both politics and political history in a world where Islamic democracy is murder but Christian oligarchy is the land of the free and home of the brave.

Israel does not have a Hamas problem; it has a Palestine problem.

You see, I'm sick and tired of bleeding hearts throwing up their trauma and not citing their sources while raking in millions, if not billions, of settler state tax money for their military industrial complex test labs.

Hamas's thinking was grounded in a revolutionary's mind-set, questioning why past policies enacted by the PLO had to persist in light of the most recent democratic election. Perhaps more importantly, leaders argued that the arguments were redundant given Israel's chronic failure to meet its own responsibility.

This history goes into intensive and unflinching detail about the history of Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah, also known as Hamas, and the ways in which it has both acted and been acted against on the broader scale of anticolonial revolutionary movements, post-WWII ethnic migration and forcible displacement, and the US as the biggest bully on the 'might makes right' playground.

For Hamas, before talk of statehood and governance came talk of unity and liberation. [...] International diplomatic engagement with the former and isolation and starvation of the latter communicated quite clearly what concessions Palestinian political parties needed to abide by to gain entry into the international community. As Hamas's political overtures had been ignored during its years in office, the movement saw through its geographic "liberate" base in Gaza an opportunity to implement its own defiant government of resistance that would safeguard what it viewed as the purest principles of the Palestinian struggle.

For might does make right, over and over and over again, and the headlines being mewled and puked today are the ones being spewed out in 1994, in 2000, in 2006 and 2014, to the point that I have say that the violence between Israeli occupation and Palestinian nationality will never cease until either every single last Palestinian is dead or the US turns its back on Israel.

By April 2014, it became increasingly clear that the tireless efforts of Secretary of State John Kerry would fail to produce a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. In a leaked recording of a closed-door meeting, Secretary Kerry warned that Israel risked becoming an "apartheid state" if the US-sponsored peace process failed to produce a two-state reality. (Beaumont, The Guardian, 4/28/14)

We are talking about a power play where a single ethnic group that was previously systematically betrayed on every ethical and political front imaginable has been given a carte blanche to do the same to a national group for the last three quarters of a century so that a country that would gladly see the two burn can have its imperial profits and keep its hand clean at the same time.

The American approach was rooted in the belief that Palestinians had voted [in 2006] for change, seeking a less corrupt government than Fatah's, but that they still desired a negotiated peace settlement in the form of a two-state solution, unlike Hamas. In reality, Palestinians had voted Hamas in for a number of reasons, including frustration with Fatah's corruption, resentment at the failed and endless peace talks, Hamas's reliability in providing welfare services, and indeed its defiant rhetoric against the occupation.

Because if you think the US gives a single fuck about combating antisemitism or litigating war crimes, I suggest you get your head out of The Book Thief/The Boy in the Striped Pajamas/Washington Post/New York Times mentality and grow up.

With Hamas's takeover, [Gaza Strip] came under absolute internal Palestinian control, as Hamas's government rejected any official engagement with the Israel state. Imposed curfews, home demolitions, and midnight raids by Israel's occupying forces, or by Palestinian security following Israeli orders, were no longer a daily occurrence as they were in the West Bank.

At this point, if you're a US citizen, the complete and utter collapse of your government would do a lot more good for the rest of the world, politically as well as environmentally, than you being any sort of status quo-sanctioned hero would.

The Mecca Agreement indicated Hamas's willingness to abide, on a practical level, with the demands of the international community. Rather than acknowledging these concessions, Israel condemned the incoming cabinet. In particular, it denounced its commitment to the right of return through UN Resolution 194, a key demand for Palestinians writ large—not just Hamas. This underscored Israel's unwillingness to deal with certain political aspects that form the core of Palestinian nationalism, not of Hamas's political agenda.

All in all, sorry if you came to this review looking for an answer or at least reassurance.

It should be noticed here that many scholars who question Islam's compatibility with democracy have no similar concerns about the compatibility of Israel's explicit Jewish character with its democratic nature, despite the fact that its democratic credentials are strongly by religious preference. (See Gorenberg, The Unmaking of Israel & Yiftachel, Ethnocracy)

I'm too busy shoring up for the time liberals decide it's politically pragmatic to legalize the hunting of trans people for sport to tell you that doxing yourself in that Google Form sign up for the next 'big protest' (it's actually a rally when a bunch of people show up and actively refuse to give the government a reason to take them seriously) is going to do anything but get you blacklisted from AI-vetted job applications.

As with past escalations, the assault was portrayed as necessary self-defense against Hamas's consistent aggression, overlooking the movement's effectiveness at restraining rocket fire from Gaza and the violence inherent in the act of the blockade itself.

Your best bet is to join a union or mutual aid network and learn how to actually communicate without continually absolving the settler state, but that's certainly not going to get you trending on the algorithm.

While Hamas had embraced the democratic process, it had done so less in the spirit of government and more with the desire to lead the Palestinian struggle. In many respects, this development is the belated outcome of the Oslo Accords. Sidelining the Palestinians in a permanent state of restricted autonomy and curtailing their sovereignty did not in fact lead to their pacification, but rather it sparked a search for alternatives that might sustain the national revolution.

By the way, it's still easier for me to legally acquire a gun than to get a proper passport, in case you're wondering why the world is the way it is these days.

As Meshal noted, before the teenagers were kidnapped there was full calm in the West Bank and relative calm in Gaza. He added that this was unnatural given the persistent occupation and Israel's unyielding stranglehold on the strip. Now that the Palestinians had achieved unity, Meshal questioned, a war was suddenly declared? "Are Palestinians just meant to surrender and die a slow death?" he asked, noting that Palestinians were being asked to accept their fate of living under occupation in the West Bank and under blockade in the Gaza Strip with no efforts to resist the status quo.

[Gubly]

For anyone who wants to hear hamas’ side of the story. Which I did. I just wish the writing wasn’t so lifeless.

[Muhammad Fadel · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Do you condemn Hamas?" This was the popular question thrown everywhere after the 7th October tragedy.

I didn't know about Hamas before this. I thought Hamas was just another extremist group like ISIS or Salafi Jihadist. Then, a couple of weeks after the incidents, the world was surprised by the testimonials of the released elder hostages that Hamas was treating them well.

The testimonials by the hostages triggered my curiosity to study more about Hamas. Who are they? What are their principles? Why they did start on the 7th of October? And so on.

While there a plenty of books written about Hamas, finding one that wasn't biased toward Israel was not easy. When I came to Goodreads, Dr Baconi's book was amongst the latest written on the subject and the one with the most positive reviews. I started to watch Dr. Baconi's interview about his books and was appealed to him when he said that Hamas wasn't a terrorist organization. A terrorist did terror for the sake of mere violence, but Hamas isn't. Resistance is the way it chose as Israel disrespects any other non-violence alternatives ever tried. That arguments convince me to read the book.


1. The story of the movement's evolution. Started as a social and education movement, it later evolved as a resistance movement as a response to the increasing brutality of Israeli occupation across Occupied Palestine, and the lack of success from diplomatic efforts made by Fattah/PLO. Its target was liberation of Palesine land, the rights if the return, and the right for Palestinian to govern themselves. While its original charter disprove state of Israel and the permission to attack all Jews, its updating its movement to demand returning to 1967 border while keeping Israel sovereignty and limited its target to IDF soldiers and top Zionist leaders.

I was surprised to know that Suicide Bombing was among the choice of assault, as it was proven to be the most effective (which they got legitimation by the fatwa of Sunni clerics, Dr Yusuf Qardhawi which seen it as permissable under live threatening situation).

Latter, it strengthen its presence in Political and Government, and win election in Gaza in 2006. It kept to be the ruling power in Gaza until now. Hamas was almost no longer pursuing suicide bombing after its cement presence in political area.

2. The struggles that Hamas faces post-election victory with PLO and other neighboring countries. Apart from Israel, Hamas was facing with internal political battle with Fattah, and other US-backed Islamic Countries such as Saudi, UAE, and Egypt. Israel and US saw Hamas as threat to the security and this lead to the creation of wall, and the introduction of goods blockage to Gaza and financial aid restrictions by US. The collective punishment severely affect livelihood of people in Gaza, as they're lacking basic needs, job security, and limitation of movement.

Overall, this is an exceptional reads for someone who wanted to educate themselves about Hamas, and its struggle to the liberation of Palestinian people.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

"As a key member of Israel’s security establishment noted, "Israel needs Hamas to be weak enough not to attack, but stable enough to deal with the radical terrorist groups in Gaza. This line may be blurry but the logic is clear. The challenge lies with walking this blurry line.” Managing Hamas in this manner allows Israel to avoid risking another transmutation of Palestinian nationalism. Defeating Hamas militarily would, obviously, be one way of ridding Israel of its “Hamas problem.” But that would simply transport Hamas’s ideological drivers to another vehicle that would remain rooted in the key tenants of the Palestinian struggle."

I'm not sure what is says about Hamas that, in reading this highly researched book, it more confirmed than challenged much of what I knew. This is partly perhaps because the book is heavier on analysis than on anecdote - I had been hoping for something that gave more of a 'feel' for Hamas as government.
For most of the book, it felt more like a refresher than something that revealed great depth on the subject. The final section, tackling post-2016 situation, was new to me, and highly fascinating in tracking how Hamas had responded to the Arab Spring, Trump/Netanyahu and a changing relationship with Iran/Hezbollah. The author is far from supportive of Hamas, but makes a compelling case for the need to understand it as something sitting outside the Salafi network of groups.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I write, Israel is currently nine months into what is unquestionably the most horrific atrocity of my lifetime. With the full backing of the United States, they are carrying out the genocide of an imprisoned population in real time as the world watches on in horror. Crimes including the systematic killing of journalists, bombing of schools and hospitals, and sodomizing of detainees in concentration camps are widely known and reported, and yet the slaughter continues. Western powers, which have long benefitted from their strong ties to Israel as a colonial outpost in the region, have struggled to legitimate their continued support in light of these atrocities. The dominant narratives which have continuously been reproduced by the complicit corporate-media complex have tended to rely on the demonization of Hamas as a uniquely depraved, barbaric entity, hell-bent on the destruction of Western civilization. These narratives are propped up through a combination of fabricated atrocity propaganda, including now widely-discredited reports of beheaded babies and systematic sexual violence, as well as descriptions of October 7th which are factual but narrow in scope and completely stripped of any historical context. Reference to the 75-year occupation of Palestine and 15-year blockade of impoverished Gaza would not serve the purposes of powerful institutions in legitimizing the genocide. Walking the streets of Manhattan’s affluent Upper East Side, one’s eyes are bombarded by images sensationalizing October 7th and further manufacturing consent for genocide. If Hamas really are indistinguishable from Nazis, as these propaganda pieces claim, wouldn’t it be legitimate to root them out by any means necessary?

These narratives are also reinforced by good old-fashioned racism. Western portrayals of Hamas are inseparable from long-held western perceptions of the Arab world as a mystical, backwards, homogeneous region of the world stripped of its cultural diversity. For instance, despite the fact that Hamas has very little in common with ISIS, they are both militant Islamist groups that cover their faces, making the comparison sensible for Westerners and useful for institutions seeking to legitimize the disproportionate use of force against them. These perceptions are inseparable from the West’s material relation with the Middle East as one of imperialist domination and exploitation of natural resources. U.S. politicians are able to say the most vile things imaginable about Palestinians and it largely goes under the radar because the legitimacy of the United States’ foreign policy has long been upheld by these racist notions.

The value of Hamas Contained lies in its de-mystification of Hamas. It seeks to present a history of the movement (and later, government) on its own terms by drawing heavily from interviews with Hamas leaders and illuminating the internal tensions within the group. Baconi essentially waits until the last chapter to bring out any sort of thesis, devoting most of the book to painstakingly detailing the historical record, from the group’s inception in the First Intifada to their election as the de-facto government of the Gaza Strip and subsequent isolation. Following the 1993 Oslo Accords, after which the Palestinian Authority increasingly came to be understood as security contractors for the occupation, Hamas rapidly gained legitimacy among Palestinians as a principled movement with a genuine dedication to resistance. Amoral tactics such as the group’s embrace of suicide bombing are placed within the broader context of an increasingly suffocating occupation which has left fewer and fewer options for meaningful resistance. Contrary to propaganda which claims that Israel “lacks a negotiating partner”, Hamas has consistently displayed a willingness to negotiate while maintaining certain red lines. Namely, they have refused to disarm as a precursor to any concessions being made by Israel, with the awareness that past disarmament has only resulted in further expansion of Israeli settlements and loss of Palestinian land.

Hamas’ refusal to abandon the project of armed resistance, combined with the fact that it is an explicitly Islamist movement, has made it rhetorically easy for the West to dismiss it as a terrorist organization akin to ISIS. The difference is that while ISIS and other Salafi jihadist movements glorify violence with the goal of establishing a transnational Islamic caliphate, Hamas is a predominantly nationalist movement which, in the words of Baconi, “utilizes Islamic discourse to deal with contemporary ailments and that is geographically tethered to the specific political and social environment of the occupation”. First and foremost, Hamas is a Palestinian movement which draws its strength from Palestinian aspirations of freedom from occupation and a right for refugees to return to their homes, both legitimate demands according to international law. Hamas has even cracked down on Salafi jihadism within Gaza in order to maintain calm on the border with Israel following ceasefire negotiations, despite Israel consistently and brazenly violating these agreements and maintaining the blockade. These realities are inconvenient to the propaganda apparatus which seeks to legitimize the genocide and to ghouls like Netanyahu who continue to claim that “Hamas is ISIS”. Unfortunately, this type of rhetoric is all too effective in appealing to Americans whose view of Islam is shaped by the United States’ own imperial endeavors, particularly in our post 9-11 paradigm.

If Hamas is indeed a movement rooted in the legitimate Palestinian aspirations of self-determination, what does it mean for Israel to go to war with the stated goal of destroying Hamas? The answer is obvious: genocide–exactly what is currently happening. Despite nine months of constant bombing, terror, and atrocities, Israel has utterly failed to achieve its stated war aims of taking out Hamas. Whenever Israel bombs a hospital and claims it was targeting Hamas, there ironically may be some truth to it; Hamas is everywhere in Gaza, not because Gazans are inherently violent religious lunatics, but because brutal occupation will always result in defiant resistance. A few weeks ago, in a rare moment of clarity, Israel’s top military spokesman stated, “The idea that it is possible to destroy Hamas, to make Hamas vanish–that is throwing eyes in the sand of the public”. In other words, since Israel is not willing to bear the cost to their international legitimacy (whatever of it remains) of nuking Gaza, they will inevitably fail to deliver on their war aims. Every school bombed, detainee tortured, and ziptied man shot in the back of the head will only sharpen the imperative of resistance among the population. As was the case with the United States in Vietnam, the question is not: who will win, Israel or Hamas? Rather, the question is: how much more destruction will take place before Palestine is finally free?

[Jenni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mandatory reading.

Almost nothing in Gaza is what it initially seems, and it’s glaringly obvious when “analysts” don’t have the background necessary to understand what animates the current war.

Hopefully a real review coming soon. Until then.. this is a good one to flag for reading, especially if you view Hamas as fanatically opposed to a two-state solution. In practice, as it has repeatedly communicated both explicitly and implicitly, Hamas has been virtually begging for Israel to delineate the two lands along the 1967 borders. That may sound insane given Oct 7th and certain of Hamas’s public-facing statements (largely made to save face and maintain funding), and it certainly doesn’t negate the tragedy and horrors that have come as a result, none of which I believe was justified in the name of resistance. But it is not for nothing, and indeed is crucial information for those that seek peace and security for Israelis, that Hamas has time and again made clear that its practical goal is to achieve a two-state solution along the 1967 borders. If that sounds far-fetched to you then you are the prime candidate to read this book.

4.5 or 4.75 out of 5. Absolutely mandatory reading for anyone on the more pro-Israel side of things. Please trust me that if you seek peace and security for Israelis, then you are doing yourself a disservice to allow yourself to be misled by uninformed and wildly misleading traditional narratives.

I’m not a woke SJW and I’m not pro-Hamas. I just happen to be educated on this specific subject. Give it a shot.

[Danny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I could give 1/2 stars. A 3.5 rating would have been right where I saw this book. I read this in tandem with Milton-Edwards' Hamas: The Islamic Resistance Movement. Baconi's Hamas Contained is among the most up-to-date analysis of the infamous group. Published in 2018, Baconi ends his book arguing that the current trajectory of both Palestinian and Israeli politics insures futures conflagrations between Hamas and Israel which was both obvious and prescient at the time. I also agreed with his assessment that both Netanyahu and Hamas pursued short-term political victories at the expense of a longer-term peace or stabilization of the conflict.

Baconi's writing and research are excellent and this is a highly readable account. I do quibble some with his framing of Hamas' rhetoric and ideological shifts. Baconi downplays some of Hamas' more virulent rhetoric calling for the destruction of the state of Israel while taking Hamas statements calling for a two-state solution based on the 67 borders at face value. Hamas is by no means a monolith and it can be hard to understand which factions really hold the cards.

I appreciated Milton-Edwards discussion of the internal tensions within Hamas (she argued that the hardliners were in the ascendent) but that is largely absent in Baconi's account. Where he does a good job is contextualizing the regional events that are shaping Hamas' actions.

[Sam McCarthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Salaam! Baconi traces the development of Hamas from its creation in the 80s to its takeover of Gaza to its most recent conflagrations with Israel. The book is incredibly, even shockingly, sympathetic to the terrorist group/political party. Only at the very end of the book does Baconi place any responsibility on Hamas for Gaza’s ongoing catastrophe, and rarely does he mention Hamas’ authoritarian governance, human rights violations, and theocratic ideology.

If you can look past these flaws, however, this is an incredibly cohesive, well-researched, and factual book. Baconi forcefully demonstrates Hamas’ willingness to make concessions to Israel, its prioritization of Palestinian nationalism over regional Islamism, and many other surprising facets of its existence. Although I just slammed the book for being too soft on Hamas, I appreciate Baconi’s attempt—largely successful—to humanize a group that is often incorrectly understood. If there is to be peace in Gaza, Israel and the PA will have to come to grips with Hamas, despite its terroristic and theocratic nature.

[Sarita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hamas contained: a look at how Hamas has been politically and geographically contained directly by Israel and their supporters and indirectly through lack of support and withdrawal of support from various countries in the Middle East.

"HAMAS, the Arabic acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya (Islamic Resistance Movement), also meaning 'zeal'".

The book covers the context leading up to Hamas's creation in 1987 until 2017.
I really recommend this interview with the author that discusses the context since 2017 to 2024 by The Dig:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0sbY...

I really recommend this book as a starting point for education in the Middle East and the current violent settler colonialist project happening in Palestine. I have so many quotations I could share but overall my takeaways are that the history of the formation of Hamas and groups like it stem in self defense and a rejection of colonization through armed resistance. It is also stunning the way Palestine has been treated when it is an occupied country trying to defend itself from a violeng occupier.The international community consistently failed to capitalize on Palestine's (through the PLO and later Hamas) willingness to negotiate and pleas to have its basic sovereignty recognized.

The author also shows how Hamas is not a singular or blameless party in this war but how the decisions they've made have been more a result of a commitment to liberation that the international community has never supported.

A brief timeline the author talks about throughout the book:

WWI: Palestine is conquered by the British from the Ottoman Empire
1922: Palestine made into a British Mandate under supervision of the Leage of Nations (UN predecessor created to maintain peace after WW1). This meant Britain had the responsibility to guide Palestine toward independence.
Early 1900s: Britain makes commitments to the Zionist movement seeking to establish a Jewish homeland in historic Palestine
1947: "the UN General Assembly issued a 'Partition Plan' calling for the partition of Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state and setting a deadline for the termination of the British Mandate. The proposed partition allocated 56% of Palestine to the Jewish community, which formed about one-third of the population at the time."

***"Given the power disparity with Israel, it became clear even as early as the 1970s that liberation through armed struggle was unlikely. Nonetheless, the Palestinian Liberation Organization's revolution persisted as a means of asserting Palestinian identity, developing political legitimacy, and broadcasting the Palestinian plight globally. For an American administration in the midst of the Cold War, and its view that the Palestinians were allied with the USSR, the PLO's actions were branded as international terrorism and all forms of diplomatic engagement with the group were banned."

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is required reading for anti-imperialists. I’d say it’s nicely shelved on the second tier of palestine reading, after 100 Years War and 10 myths. It is a stark and honest and REASONABLE review of the last 100 years of Gaza and the last 50 years of the resistance-turned-political movement that has governed it. I so appreciate the characterization of Hamas as a singular player in Palestinian leadership yet not one without serious mistakes and necessitated compromise.

I don’t know if I agree fully with Baconi’s conclusions about the movement’s compromised legitimacy. But overall this book is a very fair historical analysis of the strategic use of violent resistance and impossibilities of neutral governance in the face of brutal apartheid, ethnic cleansing, blockade, and siege.

[Nate Goodwin-Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Baconi does a great job distilling the Fatah-Hamas schism that led to the isolation of the Gaza Strip. His commitment to identifying Hamas as a strictly nationalist movement as opposed to pan-Islamist revealed some of my own misunderstandings of Hamas’s history. As is always the case, I was struck by how different the reality on the ground is in comparison to the reality during the publishing. Learned a lot. Great read.

[K.A.L.M · Rating 4 out of 5]

In light of current events - and indeed the last 75+ years - this is worth reading for anyone even remotely interested in exploring beyond the mainstream media representation of the Palestinian situation, and indeed Hamas! By no means a propaganda piece for Hamas the book is a well referenced overview of what they represent, what they seek to achieve and provides some insight into why they may have made the choices they did. It also adds little known facts to the incredible odds stacked against the Palestinian people.

[Josue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Israel should have always remembered “when they go low we go high”. Yet in its rage of hate it indefatigably attacked Palestine and disregarded its own citizens lives because they elicited and craved retaliation from Palestine. This essentially describes the ongoing conflict that lies heavily within Israel onus and its belied attempts to achieve peace with the Palestine state.
Solid 4.8

[Anastasios Moralis · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW!!! This book is not pro or anti Hamas; it is a factual history of the organisation and the events that shaped it. Anyone that dismisses Hamas as a terrorist organisation knows nothing about them; just like the ANC was branded a terrorist organisation, there are causes and effects. The illegal Israeli occupation has a lot to answer for, even before 2023.

[Rohit · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent enough introductory text on Hamas and the Palestinian resistance of the past few decades. Fairly high-level, not much here that somebody already well-versed on matters of Palestine and Hamas won't know; and the writing can be rather dry. But worth reading at least for the latter chapters that cover the fortunes of Hamas in Gaza after their takeover in 2007. Also, its a bit odd reading this book today in the summer of 2024, where it is very very clear that Hamas has not been contained or pacified, and that Israel seems to be looking weaker than ever due to their political and military actions!

[bbbassel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential literature in the current moment. Loved the analysis at the end, only wish there was more of it throughout the book. Would love to pick Baconi’s brain sometime.

[Justin Lehmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended by two podcasts and a friend (who was kind enough to purchase it for me) I was eager to get into this one. Provided me with very useful context to have a better understanding of the chronology and evolution/devolution of Hamas. This isn’t a comprehensive book, in spaces its descriptions of the Israeli perspective are obviously dramatically lacking. That said, it feels like an essential read for anyone trying to form a more complete picture of how we’ve gotten to the point we are in. We’re much better served trying to engage with all sides from an equally curious perspective to try and understand the conflict and its origins if we’re to have any chance at creative solutions.

[David Z · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is essential for understanding modern Israel-Palestine as a whole as it dismantles most of the arguments used to justify Israeli actions towards Gaza. I would say that most “pro-Israeli” arguments in general are based on the false underlying premise that Hamas is merely an irrational, bloodthirsty, jihadist force that is driven solely by the goal of destroying Israel.

Baconi’s work effectively inverts this narrative, not by ideologue-driven arguments with little substance to back them up, but with a mass of evidence from Palestinian archives, Israeli archives, reputable news sources and scholarly works, packing around 1,450 citations into 250 pages. The text is fairly dense but still remains interesting the whole way through.

My main takeaway is that while Hamas is not the perfect anti-colonial resistance faction, and is definitely deserving of criticism regarding its authoritarian rule in Gaza, it is by no means reasonable to characterize them as the primary obstacle to peace between Israel and Palestine. The history of Hamas as a political entity, more so post-2006 elections, shows that they have been fairly reasonable in their motives and goals towards achieving a two-state solution on the 1967 borders and ending the blockade. On the contrary, Israel seems to have convinced themselves of the Hamas propaganda that they themselves spread. This has caused a major problem towards peace in that they cannot possibly see Hamas as a rational body and use their characterization to justify their terroristic military operations (which sprout from ceasefire violations) against Gaza. Interestingly enough, as Baconi cited in the book, it was the former Mossad director Efraim Halevy who said that the leaders of Hamas were “very, very credible” in terms of abiding to deals.

This book was a pretty important reminder that the truth is often so far from Western narratives that it's shocking.

[Kristofer Petersen-Overton · Rating 4 out of 5]

The history is familiar to anyone who follows the conflict closely, but it's helpful that Baconi provides an account of how Hamas itself interpreted and responded to various developments. The insights of the introduction and especially the concluding chapter, however, are very good, even prescient. Whatever its religious trappings, Hamas represents the continuation of the Palestinian national resistance movement before Oslo unilaterally derailed it by surrendering key claims (as well as the right to armed resistance against the occupation) in exchange for mutual recognition—and that is the main reason Israel pretends that the group represents nothing but irrational nihilism. Yet Hamas's political demands are clear (i.e., end the occupation and establish a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders) and have been stable for years. They have frequently suggested that they are wiling to be pragmatic—to recognize Israel, and relinquish hardline claims about a return of refugees (Res. 194) to pre-1948 borders—provided Israel is also willing to reciprocate by starting with the 1967 borders. For its own part, Israel doesn't even bother to respond to such appeals and continues to colonize the West Bank and obstruct the formation of a unity government. But because Hamas refuses to give up key bargaining chips in advance, as a precondition for negotiations, the group is treated as a pariah. Yet, as Baconi shows, the core of Hamas's political demands are shared widely across Palestinian factional divisions: a right to resistance, an end to Israel's brutal occupation, and independence. As Baconi writes, "Israel does not have a Hamas problem; it has a Palestine problem." Oct. 7 did not fundamentally change that.

[Hatem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well-thought-of publication.
I want to congratulate the author for such a masterpiece. I first thought this is a kind of an amateur who has been to Gaza and is trying to document his personal experience. Going through the book, I saw such a concise, serious research has been put. With very accurate details I personally lived some by myself.
I'm not a politics person. But I understand how much politics is involved in our day-to-day lives. It's really important to understand why we are where we are. And sadly I never came across a book in Arabic that explains that objectively.
This book is a crash course to the Palestinian case. It should be shelved as a must for anybody interested in the Palestine and the Middle East status.
Congratulations for the author again! I really enjoyed every page.

[Alaa Safi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very thorough book about the history of the resistance in Palestine and Hamas. The author argues that Hamas is of no difference to Fatah but it is a great excuse to opress Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and keep it out of the picture. He raises a very interesting point that the Gaza Strip being the centre of the Palestinian struggle and the birth of resistance and rebellion. It changes the way you see the Gaza Strip and Hamas and puts everything into perspective through very critical lens. Would recommend it to everyone interested in understanding the contemporary history of Palestine. Do not just read the review, make yourself a cup of coffee and enjoy your journey to the heart of the Gaza Strip in those pages.

[Ryan Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating history of Hamas since its founding. Gets into the details of the movement which is a political party and ideological resistance movement with social and welfare and charitable divisions and not merely a terrorist organization as it has been labelled by the US and Israel in large part to deny it any political legitimacy as required under international law. Explores a crucial piece of the puzzle that is the ongoing Palestinian struggle for liberation from Israel’s brutal occupation.