Bernard Spiegal

This is Part one of a two-part article. In Part two I outline Hamas’s general position on what, for it, constitutes an acceptable negotiated settlement. I aim to publish part two in five days’ time, Tuesday 25 June.

It is not possible to defeat Hamas. Therefore, as a war aim, it is irrational for Israel to try.

Hamas, it is said, cannot be defeated because it is the expression of an ‘idea’, of an ideology. From this perspective, Hamas is a belief-based, social and political phenomenon; and beliefs are not susceptible to bullets, bombs and missiles.

IDF’s spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, somewhat belatedly, seems to agree.  He told Israel’s Channel 13 broadcaster on 19 June that:

‘This business of destroying Hamas, making Hamas disappear – it’s simply throwing sand in the eyes of the public’. ‘Hamas is an idea; Hamas is a party. It’s rooted in the hearts of the people – whoever thinks we can eliminate Hamas is wrong.

But this is wrong, too; or at least a too limited understanding. For Hamas is not only an idea, but an organisation with manifest capabilities that enable it to act in the material world, as it demonstrates daily. The Rear Admiral may pray-in-aid the intangible hearts and minds of Hamas as a sort of mystical excuse for the IDF’s failure to vanquish Hamas militarily, but what Hamas deployed in the stricken material world Israel has created are tangible, brutal military skills and the effective use of ordnance.   

If Hamas cannot be defeated, it follows that neither can it be wished-away. Therefore, proscribing Hamas, as the previous UK Government did, a position the new UK government is unlikely to change, is not only futile, but also irresponsible.

Irresponsible because the ban on Hamas – we are not allowed to speak with it, nor hear it – is a ban on knowing and understanding the perspective of an organisation which, whether we like it or not, has significant support among Palestinians.  The corollary to this is that our sources of information about Palestine/Israel will not only be more limited than they might otherwise have been; they will also be, almost by definition, inherently distorted and unbalanced.  

The UK Government’s proscription of Hamas appears to be no more than hollow gesture, one that will make not one iota of difference to the situation in the middle east. Rather, and perhaps this is its real purpose, it throws some meat to the UK Zionist lobby, demonstrating thereby that the UK Government, the past one, and likely the current one too, remains firmly in support of a state increasingly viewed as a pariah.  

Part two will be posted Tuesday 25 June