what are your thoughts about hamas / or do you have marxist oriented or just good not western media biased resources for understanding them?
theyre an islamist anti colonial organization, theyre also a political party with a military wing (al qassam brigades) which is what people usually are referring to when they talk about ~hamas~. they won in elections and have a degree of popular support and, because they are the ruling political party, theyre in charge of civil institutions in gaza, like schools and hospitals etc. when reporters describe things like the gaza health ministry as “hamas run” when they would never say this about another political party, they are purposefully trying to delegitimize it and obscuring the fact that they are the government that won in elections, not a rogue terrorist cell. al qassam brigades was not the only part of the resistance that took part in the attack on october 7, there are a bunch of other factions like the islamist PIJ, marxist PFLP and DFLP, and some others. im not the most knowledgable on like politics within gaza and exactly how people feel about hamas but theyre absolutely not a terrorist group, i think theyre much closer to other anti colonial militant organizations like the viet cong and algerian national liberation front. theyre also fighting an asymmetrical war using guerrilla strategies like the viet cong and nlf, and western media misrepresents this with all the shit about “hiding weapons by civilians” or whatever. i would recommend looking into the history of guerilla warfare and anti colonial struggle to understand why im criticizing media representations of it. they also make a lot of their rockets from scraps of israeli bombs! i think people should make a better distinction that hamas is a political party with a military wing (al qassam brigades) because then its more obvious that bombing civilian infrastructure thats allegedly “hamas run” is a war crime. also i heard in their statements that most of their militants are orphans whos parents were killed by israel and i think that should be noted. i think its also incorrect to say they have an issue with jews in general and are rabidly antisemitic as if their main aim is to kill jews, the way most media portrays them. they very specifically exist because of the continued occupation of palestine and without that i do not think they would give a shit about jews. they attack settler because theyre settlers, not because theyre jews. idk this article was pretty good and has a link to their 2017 charter where they specifically say their struggle is against zionism not jews
Enthusiasts for Israeli militarism often claim that Gaza needs “freeing from Hamas.” Such a claim is steeped in the logic of collective guil
heres their charter thats linked in the article but ngl i just recommend reading their statements and material in general. not saying take every single thing at face value but theyre a political party with issues like any other, not evil sadistic terrorists. and why let mainstream media set the terms of your understanding of them
Hamas explains general principles and objectives in 42-article document
If you'd like something really in-depth, Tareq Baconi is a Palestinian author and analyst who has written a book "Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance" (billed as "the first history of the group on its own terms") which covers its entire history and ideology (you can decide if you agree with Baconi's argument or not, but the research itself is very thorough, and keep in mind was published in 2019, and things have changed since then).
If you want something shorter and more accessible, he's done several good interviews with the Unsettled Podcast (which has many great episodes, check them all out), one back in 2019 as a general overview of Hamas, and a more recent one published on Oct. 13, 2023, about what happened, and what might happen (it contains some very poignant discussion about the types of violence that occur as a result of colonialism). The first one has a transcript, and the second doesn't (yet) but he also did an interview with The New Yorker that covers essentially the same topics.
On the note of understanding guerilla warfare and anti-colonial struggles, this is an excerpt from the more recent podcast episode I thought was particularly relevant. His theory is that the attacks were hostage focused, and got more violent than expected, or others took advantage of the gaps in the fence independent of the assault. That second part tracks with what's known of what happened at least (keep in mind this quote is part of a broader conversation, and not the entirety of the argument etc etc).
Tareq Baconi: It is very possible that [the October 7th attacks] got out of hand very quickly. And I think that’s what’s frightening about decolonization generally. Which is that the violence is uncontrollable, and [violence] is the system that holds these ethnic groups in this way. Once that system erupts because there’s been so much dehumanization over the years, the violence that is unleashed is uncontrollable. So regardless of whether Hamas or not was intending for this to happen, I think there is a delusion when one thinks that that kind of violence can be controlled. And so I think that there always needs to be a reckoning with the fact that once we exist in an apartheid reality that’s being challenged, violence is unfortunately and tragically going to impact civilians.
And for a slightly different theory of the violence in anti-colonial struggles, while not an academic analysis or anything, it is a leftist perspective; the Well There's Your Problem podcast's episode about Rhodesia (link with timestamp), with @wartakes as a guest is very good and discusses a lot of stuff related to the violence in many anti-colonial struggles that is important to keep in mind (it's also just a good podcast (with slides) imo). The part about the grim reality of insurgent guerrilla fighting starts at just under an hour, and goes for about 25 minutes.
All of this is very much meant in addition to what OP already said and recommended, and as easy to access and understand stuff before digging into more in-depth stuff that tends to assume a certain level of background knowledge from its audience.
