🤥 Hamas is ISIS.

Hamas is a local, fully Palestinian, Islamic inspired national resistance movement. Hamas’ main concern is to end the occupation of historic Palestine. There is no link to nihilistic ultra-conservative Wahhabi ideology of ISIS. In fact, Hamas has historically been at odds with such ideologies.

The only militarized fundamentalist group that exists on the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea are the Jewish settlers terrorizing Palestinians and stealing their homes and lands at gunpoint. These violent settlers are backed by a racist, right-wing Israeli government and army that are unaccountable to international law. Hamas, on the other hand, uses armed resistance against a military occupation, sanctioned by UN General Assembly resolution 37/43 in 1982.

ISIS has been very critical of Hamas and considers them to be apostates. This is due to Hamas’ participation in democratic elections, its failure to govern solely in accordance with Shari’a, relations with Iran and other regional states and prioritization of Palestinian liberation. Hamas therefore sought to eradicate ISIS from Gaza, and succeeded.

The outrageous lie that compares Hamas to ISIS is running cover for genocide. The Hamas charter of 2017 emphasizes that Islam “provides an umbrella for the followers of other creeds and religions who can practice their beliefs in security and safety. Hamas also believes that Palestine has always been and will always be a model of coexistence, tolerance and civilizational innovation.”Hamas calls for the resistance of military occupation, a right sanctioned under UN General Assembly resolution 37/43 of 1982. Palestinians have fought for their civil rights and lands for 75 years, well before Hamas even existed.

Netanyahu will keep conflating Hamas with ISIS to position himself as a savior by preying on the West’s worst post 9/11 fears to fuel his racist agenda, and be given carte blanche to behave like the US and others did post 9/11 (read: atrociously, indiscriminately violent and Islamophobic).

The attempt to link Hamas to ISIS is a cynical ploy by Israel to divert attention from the fact that Hamas arose in response to Israel’s oppressive settler colonial apartheid regime, which violates international law and has subjected Gaza to a 16-year siege. It also obfuscates the fact that Israel played an active role in creating and funding Hamas to counter secular Palestinian resistance movements.

The conflation of Hamas with ISIS is ignorant and Islamophobic. It is meant to paint all grievances of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims more generally, as irrational. Anyone with an understanding of the Arab and Muslim world and of Palestinian politics knows this claim is absurd.