What is required of Hamas?

It is only natural for those suffering from the crime of genocide, displacement, and total destruction to demonstrate, especially since most of the Gaza Strip has become uninhabitable due to the unprecedented and stifling siege.

It is only natural that Hamas, not as a resistance movement, but as the ruling authority in the Gaza Strip, will receive its share of popular anger. It embodies a repressive, factional rule devoid of oversight, accountability, or popular participation. Hamas must understand the motives behind the demonstrations against it and respond to whatever demands the angry demonstrators can meet.

The range of demands presented to Hamas is broad, and they come from a large segment of the population, not all or most of the population. This reflects Palestinian pluralism, a source of strength, resilience, and the continuity of the Palestinian cause. There is also a large segment of the population that supports Hamas, beginning with the demand of some Hamas demonstrators who started in Beit Lahia and later spread to several areas. They demanded that Hamas demonstrate a serious willingness to relinquish control of the Gaza Strip. This is to remove the pretexts and justifications from the occupation, which claims through its government that ending Hamas rule will lead to the cessation of genocide if accompanied by the release of Israeli prisoners, and will ensure that the Gaza Strip no longer remains a source of threat. However, the real goals are much greater, as Netanyahu made clear last Sunday when he set impossible conditions for a ceasefire agreement, including continuing the displacement of the people of the Strip. In other words, the Israeli conditions extend to displacement and annexation. Furthermore, Hamas's relinquishment of power has become necessary in order to remove the pretexts from regional and international parties that have declared their unwillingness to fund reconstruction if Hamas continues to be the de facto authority in the Gaza Strip, because this could lead to a new Israeli aggression that would destroy what is being rebuilt and reconstructed.

The question that arises is whether the demand to end Hamas rule without comprehensive national consensus or without holding elections in which the Palestinian people choose their representatives is just. Of course not. Rather, it is a continuation and reflection of the abdication of Arab, regional, and international parties, as well as the international community, of their responsibilities, which require the occupying state to halt the genocide and enable the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination in accordance with international law and UN resolutions. Despite its injustice, however, it must be fulfilled because wisdom dictates so that the resistance does not bear any responsibility for the continuation of the crime of genocide.

Based on the above, and although Hamas has the right to participate in government since it won the last elections with a majority, it was not able to rule alone when it formed its government, and it was not able to rule after its participation in the national unity government, which prompted it to carry out a coup in which it seized control of the government in the Gaza Strip. This is an unforgivable crime despite its mitigating conditions stemming from the fact that it had won the elections but was not able to rule by the occupation and internal and external parties.

In all fairness, Hamas has shown a willingness to share power with others through a national unity government, having been unable to govern alone and facing significant difficulties in doing so under the blockade and boycott. It also agreed to resort to popular elections, particularly in 2021, when elections were on the horizon before they were canceled by a unilateral decision by President Mahmoud Abbas.

Had elections been held then, we very well wouldn't have reached the point we're in now. Hamas's continuing mistake is that it prioritized its continued unilateral control over the Gaza Strip, and failed to pay the necessary attention to the unity of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the establishment of an independent state therein. Although it agreed to this, there is a fundamental and decisive difference between agreeing to the establishment of a state and considering this the central goal of this stage. One of its mistakes was that it believed it alone could liberate the Strip, or—and this is a contradiction—that it could at least gain Arab and international recognition of its authority, leading to recognition of the state over the Gaza Strip as a stage on the path to liberation.

In this context, one of Hamas’s mistakes was that, since the outbreak of the war, it did not realize its actual results and repercussions. Rather, it was a prisoner of wishes and false assessments. Therefore, it did not show a willingness to take a step back, which is completely different from surrender. It did not seriously and practically agree to leave power, although it showed its formal readiness to do so through its agreement in the Beijing Declaration, in July 2024, to form a national unity government in which the factions would not participate, and its subsequent agreement to form a community support committee composed of independent figures. The evidence of this lack of seriousness is that it said during the exchanges that it would be the next day. After reaching a ceasefire, it reorganized its government and the committees emanating from it. It could have done so in partnership with others. This is different from its call for surrender, as it is different from its call to hand over power to the Palestinian Authority or the Arab League, because the occupying state occupied the Gaza Strip and does not hide its intentions to remain there. It rejects the return of power to Gaza, just as it refuses to take over the Arab League. Statements and signals were issued indicating that Hamas is not serious about relinquishing power, and that the most it could agree to is to leave the government and remain in power, embodying a formula that is closest to the formula of Hezbollah in Lebanon before the last war.

Before we conclude this paragraph, we must complete it by saying that if President Abbas had the will to form a national unity government in which Hamas and the other factions did not participate, we would not have reached this point.

I do not downplay the president's concerns about the risks of a partnership with Hamas, with its head under the guillotine. However, the risks of not forming a unity government—for Hamas, Fatah, Abbas, the PA, the PLO, the entire political system, the Palestinian cause, and the people—are far greater and more significant. The evidence is that what is being proposed now is the liquidation of the Palestinian cause in all its dimensions through displacement, annexation, and the liquidation of the refugee issue. It also calls for the formation of new frameworks in the Gaza Strip that are truly independent of the two authorities for a "transitional" period during which the PA will be stripped of its remaining political and national role under the guise of "reform." This includes "renewing" the PA to enable it to meet the demands of the new phase, which entails stripping the president of his powers for the remainder of his life. This will be accomplished by appointing a vice president illegally, illegitimately, and without national consensus, to whom the president's powers will be transferred during his lifetime. All of this is proceeding in parallel with the return of a kind of regional and international guardianship over the Palestinians, one that enjoys at least the approval of Israel, if not its supervision.

The Palestinian leadership could have, and still can, agree to the formation of a unity government, linking this to the adoption of a Palestinian program and strategy, and the formation of a unified Palestinian leadership responsible for decisions on resistance and negotiations, subject to which all the military wings of the resistance factions would be subject. It could also be integrated into a unified national army. However, insisting on including Hamas in the leadership if it wants to join the PLO is based on imposing the eight conditions repeatedly stated by the president, including continued commitment to the Oslo Accords, which Israel killed long ago and did not formally bury and abolish in order to preserve Palestinian commitments thereto.

It is unnatural for Hamas and all Palestinian factions to be asked to disarm or leave their leadership, cadres, and fighters, because this cannot happen until the end of the occupation and the independence of the State of Palestine, and because disarming will encourage the occupation forces to commit more massacres and begin the displacement of Palestinians. We have a lesson from our experiences since the handover of Palestinian weapons to the Arab armies before the Nakba, and what happened with the Sabra and Shatila massacre after the withdrawal of the leadership and fighters of the PLO from Lebanon, and the killing of the Israeli governments of the Oslo Accords and ending with the failure to commit to continuing to implement the last armistice agreement. The formation of a special administration by the Israeli government to encourage displacement is nothing but damning evidence that the handover of weapons and the departure of Hamas from the Gaza Strip does not end the implementation of the plan to liquidate the cause and displace its people. And because disarming and expelling the resistance fighters is tantamount to surrender, which is the most dangerous thing that can happen, as it confiscates the possibility of resuming resistance in the future. This is different from the defeat that could befall the resistance, but refusing to accept defeat is necessary and very important because it establishes a new Palestinian launch that absorbs the lessons and mistakes of the revolutions. And previous uprisings are on the road to victory.

However, if surrender actually leads to stopping the genocide, displacement, annexation, Israeli withdrawal, lifting the siege, and starting reconstruction, then it is welcome. There is nothing more precious than the human being. However, no one can guarantee this due to the existence of a government in Israel that believes in its ability to establish “Greater Israel” and resolve the conflict with the Palestinians by liquidating the Palestinian issue and creating a new Middle East under Israeli hegemony. This government is encouraged by the existence of an American administration that is no less extremist, and the margin of disagreement between them is limited to differences in priorities while maintaining the unity of the greater goals.

Palestine is at a historic turning point in which the Palestinian cause and its various components, including the PLO, will be completely erased, transcending its sole representation of the Palestinians and the authority that embodies the identity and unity of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The situation will be restored to what it was after the Nakba, when it was a refugee issue, a humanitarian issue whose people are fragmented and lack a national identity, unity, a comprehensive framework, a shared program, or a single leadership.

Or the beginning of adopting a new approach that focuses on the priority of consensus and unity in the face of common dangers, and on gathering cards of strength, and relying on oneself first, and doing what is required of Palestine, and then working for the broadest Arab, regional and international support and solidarity that can provide the factors of steadfastness and survival for the cause and for the people on their homeland, as steadfastness is the highest form of resistance at this stage, in addition to thwarting the plan of liquidation, genocide, annexation and displacement on the path to achieving the rights of the Palestinian people and their national goals.

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In all fairness, Hamas has shown a willingness to share power with others through a national unity government, having been unable to govern alone and facing significant difficulties in governing under the blockade and boycott. It has also agreed to resort to popular elections, particularly in 2021.