Hamas claims — and the facts

By Bassam Tamil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East. The work of Bassam Tawil is made possible through the generous donation of a couple of donors who wished to remain anonymous. Gatestone is most grateful.

Earlier this year, the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas published a document titled “Our Narrative – Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” purporting to explain why it carried out the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel during which thousands of Israelis were murdered, raped, tortured, burned alive, and kidnapped to the Gaza Strip.

The document, full of false claims and fabrications, seeks to justify the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas terrorists and thousands of “ordinary” Palestinians who invaded Israeli communities near the border of the Gaza Strip that day.

The Hamas document lists a number of reasons, all of which can be easily refuted, as to why the terrorist group launched its attack on Israel.

Hamas claims it launched the attack in response to the “Israeli Judaization plans to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, its temporal and spatial division attempts, as well as the intensification of the Israeli settlers’ incursions into the holy mosque.”

This claim is totally untrue: there are absolutely no Israeli “plans” to split the Al-Aqsa Mosque into a Jewish and Muslim area or to convert it into a Jewish site.

The purported “plans” exist only in the imagination of Hamas and other Palestinians. It is simply part of a Palestinian campaign of defamation against Israel to try to justify the murder of Jews.

Since 1967, Israel has been committed to preserving the “status quo” at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound by allowing the Islamic Waqf to manage the holy site, also known as the Temple Mount, sacred to both Muslims and Jews.

According to the “status quo,” formulated by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan in 1967, Jews would not be permitted to pray on the Temple Mount but would be able to visit the site.

While Israel has respected the status quo, the Muslims have consistently violated it in an apparent attempt to deepen their hold on the holy site.

Muslims have inaugurated four new mosques on the Temple Mount since 1967: the Dome of the Rock; the El-Marwani Mosque, located underground in Solomon’s Stables; the “Ancient Al-Aqsa” Mosque, established in 1988 under the upper mosque; and the Gate of Mercy (Golden Gate) prayer area, set up and turned into a mosque in 2019.

It is equally false for Hamas to claim that “Israeli settlers’ incursions into the holy mosques” are the reason behind the October 7 massacre. This claim relates to Jews visiting outdoor areas of the Temple Mount in peace and in conformity with the “status quo.” Such tours have never been prohibited; they have been conducted regularly since 1967. The tours are not “incursions”: they are coordinated with the Israeli Police and the authorities of the Islamic Waqf.

It is also important to note that the Jewish visitors do not enter any mosque, but only tour the grounds, outdoors, outside of the mosques.

It is also important to note that Hamas and many Palestinians consider all Jews “settlers,” regardless of whether they live in Tel Aviv, or in a settlement in the West Bank, or in New York.

Hamas claims in its recent document that it launched its attack because Israel is “practically taking steps towards annexing the entire West Bank and Jerusalem.” In 2020, however, the Israeli government, to facilitate the Abraham Accords normalization agreement between Israel, the US, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, suspended plans to extend Israeli sovereignty to Jewish communities in the West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in fact, for agreeing to suspend the plans to apply Israeli law over the Jewish communities in the West Bank, faced scathing criticism from his political rivals.

In the end, it was the Israeli government that shelved the “annexation” plans in favor of normalization with the UAE and Bahrain. This agreement took place four years before the October 7 atrocities. Needless to say, on the eve of the Hamas-led attack, there was no talk in Israel about “annexation.”

Hamas further claims that it launched its attack because of “thousands of Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails who are experiencing deprivation of their basic rights.”

Most of the “detainees” Hamas is referring to are convicted terrorists who were imprisoned for murdering or attempting to murder people (usually Jews). For many years, these terrorist prisoners have enjoyed comfortable conditions, especially when it comes to entertainment and leisure. A variety of exercise equipment – including ping-pong tables, stationary bicycles and pull-up bars (in addition to chess) – is available. Each prison cell is equipped with a television, and the prisoners have access to at least 10 channels. Palestinian prisoners, in addition, are entitled to family visits and unlimited access to lawyers.

In contrast, both the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip have been accused by human rights organizations of “systematically torturing critics” in detention. A report published by Human Rights Watch in 2022 said:

“PA and Hamas security forces routinely taunt and threaten detainees, use solitary confinement and beatings, including whipping their feet, and force detainees into painful stress positions for prolonged periods, including hoisting their arms behind their backs with cables or rope, to punish and intimidate critics and opponents and elicit confessions…”

The Hamas document claims that the October 7 attack came in response to “the unjust air, sea, and land blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip.” In 2007, Hamas staged a coup and violently seized control of the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority. To prevent smuggling and the infiltration of terrorists, Israel and Egypt tightened their border crossings with Gaza and placed restrictions on shipping. Israel and Egypt did not impose a “blockade” on the Gaza Strip for no reason.

After Israel, asking for nothing in return, gave complete control of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority in 2005 and Hamas seized control of it, Hamas proceeded to bombard with thousands of rockets, mortars and other terrorist attacks.

In recent years, Israel, despite the ongoing terrorist attacks by Hamas and other terror groups, took a series of steps to ease restrictions on the Gaza Strip. These measures included issuing permits for working in Israel to thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. As of October 7, 2023, an estimated 18,000 – 18,500 residents of the Gaza Strip held work permits issued by the Israeli authorities to enable them to work in Israel, where their pay is five times higher than in Gaza. As noted last month:

“Many of those workers to whom Israel opened its doors were apparently working in Israel by day, and by night returning to Gaza and providing Hamas with highly detailed maps and drawings of every house in Israel’s border communities, and reports about everyone in them, including the pet dogs.”

Israel can only conclude that “no good deed goes unpunished.”

Hamas also claims it launched its attack on Israel because of the “seven million Palestinians living in extreme conditions in refugee camps who wish to return to their lands.”

If the “refugees” are living in extreme conditions, it is because their leaders have failed to permit the building of new homes for them or to improve their living conditions. There is no reason why “refugee camps” continue to exist under the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, under Hamas in the Gaza Strip or anyplace else. No one prevented these two parties from facilitating the building of new homes for the “refugees.”

Sadly, both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have always had an interest in keeping their people living in “refugee camps” to intensify their “victimhood” and make them “better beggars” for the CNN television crews. That way Israel can be blamed, not the Arab leaders. Palestinian officials also seem still to be hoping that one day they will be able to flood Israel with millions of Palestinians as part of a plan to eliminate Israel and turn the Jews into a minority in their own country.

The same abuse applies to the Arab countries hosting Palestinian “refugees”: Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. What have these countries done to integrate their Palestinian brethren since 1948? Nothing. There is no reason why Palestinians living in an Arab country should be treated as “refugees” or a second-class citizens for nearly 80 years.

Here is what Human Rights Watch had to say about the conditions of Palestinian “refugees” in Lebanon:

“In Lebanon, many Palestinians are preoccupied with basic survival, overwhelmed by poor physical conditions in the refugee camps, pervasive poverty, high unemployment and underemployment, and inadequate medical services. Successive Lebanese governments have consistently opposed the permanent resettlement of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, and state policies reflect this stance, denying virtually all social and economic rights. In addition, the state has prohibited the expansion of existing refugee camps, which contributes to overcrowding and illegal and unsafe building of additional stories on existing structures.

“One of the most frequently heard complaints from Palestinians in Lebanon concerns restrictions on the right to work. Palestinians, like other foreigners, must obtain annual work permits from the labor ministry in order to be employed legally. Possession of a work permit affords foreign workers protection under Lebanon’s labor law with respect to workers rights and benefits. However, these permits are extremely difficult for Palestinians to obtain: permits are issued annually to Palestinians by the hundreds while for other foreign workers in Lebanon they are issued by the thousands. (Hundreds of thousands of Syrian workers in Lebanon, in contrast, require no work permits.) The difficulty in obtaining work permits forces many Palestinians into the underground economy and leaves others open to exploitation by private employers. For example, a Palestinian teacher with fourteen years’ experience and a university degree from Egypt told Human Rights Watch that Palestinians can obtain teaching jobs in private schools in Lebanon without a work permit, but they earn salaries significantly lower than their Lebanese counterparts and have no job security or worker benefits. The situation of women workers is particularly difficult. Palestinian women who work in the garment industry in Beirut and Sidon, for example, are paid below the minimum wage and earn half the salary of Lebanese citizens. Because the Palestinians do not have work permits, they do not receive the benefits provided to Lebanese employees, including medical insurance.

“In addition, various legal barriers prohibit Palestinians from practicing in Lebanon as doctors, pharmacists, engineers, lawyers or journalists. Laws, decrees, and regulations of professional associations specify that members must hold Lebanese nationality for at least ten years or that there must be reciprocity of treatment for Lebanese professionals in the country of citizenship of the foreign professional applying to practice in Lebanon. For example, the journalists’ syndicate restricts membership to those who have been Lebanese citizens for at least ten years, as does the bar association. Medical, pharmacy, and engineering associations in Lebanon all have regulations that require reciprocal treatment as conditions for membership, which by definition excludes Palestinians who are stateless. These rules open the door for exploitation of some Palestinian professionals, such as engineers…”

Hamas, in its document, is actually stating that it sent its men to murder, rape and kidnap Jews because Israel refused to open its borders to millions of Palestinian “refugees” who are told to murder Jews and destroy the only Jewish state.

Finally, Hamas argues that it launched its attack because of the international community and world powers seeking to “prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

This claim, of course, is completely false. In fact, most of the international community, including the United States, the EU, Russia and China, have long been pushing hard for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

If anyone is to blame for the failure of the “two-state solution,” it is Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. The leaders of the PA were presented with multiple opportunities to create a state of their own, but each time declined Israel’s offer of peace without so much as a counteroffer.

Instead of working to establish a state for their people, Palestinian leaders Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas were more concerned with maintaining their positions of authority and benefiting themselves and their cohorts.

Hamas, for its part, has opposed the “two-state solution” because it seeks to establish an Islamist terror state in place of Israel.

For this reason, it is laughable to hear Hamas lament the failure of the “two-state solution.” This is an organization whose charter openly calls for waging Jihad (holy war) to obliterate Israel. This is an organization that has ceaselessly voiced opposition to the “two-state solution” or any peace process with Israel. Hamas has repeatedly vowed to pursue Jihad, an armed struggle, against Israel:

“Resistance and jihad for the liberation of Palestine will remain a legitimate right, a duty and an honour for all the sons and daughters of our people and our Ummah.” – Article 23, of the “new, improved” Hamas Charter of 2017.

Hamas’s attempt to defend its crimes against Israelis should be seen as part of its attempts to mislead and fool the international community. Hamas wants the world to believe that its attack was an act of self-defense against Israel. It wants everyone to believe that Israel is responsible for the attack because of its purported “plans” against a mosque in Jerusalem.

The October 7 massacre was orchestrated by Hamas with the sole intent of slaughtering as many Jews as possible as part of its Jihad to destroy Israel. Period.