Hamas: The New Anarchists With The Old Delusions

There has been a good deal of speculation as to why Hamas would have attacked Israel with such barbarity and wanton cruelty as to leave Israel no alternative but to counterattack with equal ferocity.  Hamas could not have helped but recognize that they were goading the Israelis to rain destruction down on their own people.

In addition to unspeakable atrocities against innocent civilians, including babies, the Hamas “fighters” kidnapped scores of Israelis, many of whom were attending a festival whose aim was to promote peace.  There was speculation that the goal of these abductions was to prompt an exchange of prisoners for hostages.

If true, that was a sideshow.  To understand Hamas’s thinking, it is more instructive to go back more than a century when similar acts were undertaken, like these, in the name of justice and an end to oppression by the privileged against those who had been rendered powerless through the force of a corrupt political system.

In the Anarchist movement that ebbed and flowed in the second half of the 19th century and early 20th, first in Europe and eventually in the United States, one of the favored tactics was “propaganda of the deed,” an act of violence that would, Anarchists were convinced, incite a wider uprising, in this case by workers, the poor, and the downtrodden. 

And deeds there were—Anarchists set off bombs in theaters and public places, attacked government officials and private citizens, and assassinated fully six heads of state between 1894 and 1912.  Included in that number were two Spanish premiers, one French president, the Italian king, Empress Elisabeth of Austria, and, in 1901, President William McKinley.  When questioned as to why he had shot McKinley, Leon Czolgosz replied simply, “I done my duty.”

Significantly, none of these were carried out by clandestine assassins.  Each was immediately apprehended, bragging of the murder he had just committed.  Four were executed and the other two committed suicide in prison.  All died unrepentant, praising anarchism and voicing the firm belief that their act would spark worldwide revolution, after which the working class and the poor would create a fair and just society.

It seems that Hamas has adopted a similar playbook, a conclusion that is easy to reach because—they told us so.

On August 25, Hamas second in command, Saleh al-Arouri, who operates out of Beirut, sat for an interview by a Lebanese newsman.  He did not hide the group’s intentions.  “We are preparing for an all-out war, and we are closely discussing the prospects of this war with all relevant parties.” 

That an “all-out war” would cost the lives of many of his followers was not a problem. “We are believers, and we hope to conclude our lives with martyrdom, which we hold in high esteem, and that is the great victory in our eyes.”

Al-Arouri justified the coming attack by repeating the same list of grievances Hamas had cited in the past, including the spate of new settlements in the West Bank and Israel’s control of what Arabs refer to as the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. But Hamas’s ambitions this time went far beyond the usual resistance.  They intended to foment a full-blown regional war.

“If we reach the point of an all-out confrontation, Israel will face an unprecedented defeat in its history, and we are confident of that.”  In support of that aim, a delegation from Hamas, which is Sunni, met with the leader of Shia Hezbollah in April in Beirut, to discuss a joint “axis of resistance” against Israel.

Still, even Al Jazeera, which reported on the invasion without a single mention of slaughtered Israeli civilians, admitted that Hamas “does not appear to have a long-term end game.” 

But, also according to Al Jazeera, although Hamas boasted that the attack was two years in the making, the timing was dictated by, of all things, a movement for the end of indiscriminate violence in the Middle East.  “The Hamas leadership felt compelled to act due to the acceleration of Arab-Israeli normalisation. In recent years, this process further diminished the significance of the Palestinian issue for Arab leaders who became less keen on pressuring Israel on this matter.”

As with the Anarchists, Hamas was determined to restore that significance through their own version of “propaganda of the deed.”

The problem for Hamas in adopting the Anarchist game plan, however, is they did not bother to check out what happened next.  The working class and the poor did not rise up and the support Anarchists expected from adherents on either side of the Atlantic did not materialize.  In the end, rather than spur class warfare, the Anarchists spurred only repression, which fell heaviest on those in whose interest they were purported to be acting. 

If Hamas’s invasion of Israel will have the same counterproductive result is uncertain, but at this juncture it appears as if they, like the Anarchists, have fatally miscalculated.  Hezbollah has not joined the fighting in any serious way, nor has the Palestinian Authority.  Condemnation of their actions has been widespread and, after what promises to be a bloody and costly war in which innocent Palestinians in Gaza will be the clear losers, Israel is likely to emerge stronger rather than weaker, and viewed as more justified in behavior for which it has been roundly criticized in the past.

The lesson for Hamas, which they surely will not learn, is that if you are going to copy a strategy, make sure it is one that worked.