It's not often that I read anything in the NY Times that I completely agree with. More often I find their coverage of bent by an obvious bias toward conclusions reached in advance about who the good guys and bad guys are. So, for instance, their first stab at coverage of Jason Arday was terrible. Only later did they cover the awkward fact that Arday was clearly a liar who'd invented most of his biography.
This piece is in the opinion section, but even so it feels like the first clear statement about Gaza and Hamas the paper has published in some time. The author is a Palestinian who was educated in American. He got to see how Hamas operated up close.
Despite its posturing as an elite club, Hamas, from its inception, behaved like a mob of gangsters, brutalizing Palestinian women who violated its fanatic sense of morality, torturing and killing those who were suspected of opposing them and carrying out grisly suicide attacks against Israeli civilians, which weakened the Palestinian Authority and empowered the extremist right in Israel, which seized the opportunity to destroy hopes of a new Palestinian horizon or future.
Now, in the ruins of my once beautiful homeland, we are witnessing the coda of the group’s two decades of horrific rule. By agreeing in principle to a disarmament plan after its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and slaughter of hundreds of civilians led to over two years of Israeli bombardment that killed tens of thousands of Gazans, including much of my family, Hamas is acknowledging what Palestinian leadership knew 30 years ago: that only peace could lead to freedom and armed struggle was a disastrous strategy.
But the best part of the article is that it doesn't just go after the terrorist group, it places blame on the group's western supporters who now seem to make up a majority of the progressive left.
Hamas should have no role in Gaza’s future but, appallingly, so many in the West who consider themselves allies of the Palestinian people still see the group as honorable resistance fighters. Their support for, or failure to denounce, the group only helps perpetuate the degradation of Gaza...
Repeated wars killed thousands of Palestinians and wounded or displaced hundreds of thousands, locking Gaza into a cycle of destruction, reconstruction, resource theft and deeper Hamas entrenchment. Billions of dollars were wasted and the development that I saw emerging as a child was arrested.
This alone should have delegitimized Hamas among Western activists, academics, students, journalists, protesters, politicians and those who claim to be pro-Palestinian. Yet after Hamas carried out the worst single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust on Oct. 7, triggering the worst catastrophe in modern Palestinian history, I watched with dismay and anger as activists, students, academics, politicians and writers expressed a chilling appreciation for the massacre.
At a rally the day after the Hamas attack, organized and attended by people who became key supporters of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the “resistance” and “Intifada” were cheered. A day later, student groups announced that they stood “in full solidarity with Palestinian resistance” and that they hold “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Activists began referring to the Oct. 7 massacre by what Hamas called it, the Al-Aqsa Flood. The influential leftist streamer Hasan Piker, who campaigned for Mayor Mamdani, the Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and other Democrats, has normalized Hamas and praised other terrorist groups, even while he coyly denied supporting terror.
The resistance narrative became a matter of solidarity with social justice groups and marginalized communities, with Hamas as a symbol of liberation. As a result, a poll in April found that 40 percent or more of Americans between 18 and 34 said they supported Hamas over Israel.
As Hamas seems to be on the verge of collapsing and maybe even giving up control in Gaza, the last thing anyone needs is support for the group in America. That will only doom Gaza to a repeat of what just happened, i.e. more foolish attacks followed by more destruction and death from Israel in response. In order to avoid this future, Gaza needs to change direction. And that means Gaza's supporters in the west also need to change direction.
Gaza needs to be reimagined so it is no longer sustained by an NGO complex or a refugee framework. Gaza will need deep deradicalization across schools, mosques, media and public language to cultivate and produce builders and creators...
Will those in the West who express support for Palestinians finally abandon their sloganeering about “resistance”?
I was equally struck by some of the comments. The top comments, with hundreds of upvotes, are overwhelmingly supportive of the author's take. Again, this is the kind of thing I'd expect to see on the right, not being upvoted 1,500 times by NY Times subscribers.
This ineffably honest article should be widely distributed not because it is critical of Hamas but because it is critical of the fellow travelers and sycophants of Hamas who continue to enable and promote the Terrorist enterprise.
Here's the #2 comment.
I must confess, I fell out of my chair when I read this. The first honest article I have ever seen in The New York Times on the subject — exposing not just Hamas, but the moral depravity of those in the the West supporting Hamas.
Comment #3 (in order of upvotes) is from the Bay Area.
When Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel in 1977, retired Golda Meir asked Sadat on the tarmac, “What took you so long.”
That’s my question to the New York Times this morning. I’ve read similar accounts mostly on social media, and brave Palestinians and Lebanese speak up for peace the end of terror domination. The political-academic-media campaign to suppress these views and prop up hate has been downright chilling.
It just keeps going like this.
Wow. A realistic assessment of the situation from a normal Gazan, not an Islamist ideologue or Hamas apologist. Somewhat shocked to see this in the NYT, but thank you; maybe there is hope that reasonable people can prevail.
People are genuinely surprised this was published at all.
This is the single best column ever published in the NYT on the Gaza conflict. And it comes from someone who has lived it firsthand.
I hope it goes viral and all those who consider themselves fair minded will read it and consider its point of view even if they disagree with it.
I too hope that it goes viral. If you can, read the whole thing. Hasan Piker shouldn't be allowed to dominate discussion of this topic.
Editor's Note: The Democrat Party has been infected by socialism, and it's spreading FAST. Democrats are claiming there's nothing to worry about, but we know the truth.
Help us continue to shine a light on the socialist takeover by joining HotAir VIP. Use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member