Hamas is better than us.
October 7th anniversary. Part One.
This headline could get me jail time if, as reported, the New Zealand government is planning to take the same authoritarian turn that the UK has sunk to with its proscription of Palestine Action. It would represent another dangerous conflation of protest with terrorism.
“Hamas is better than us” is clearly heretical in terms of the Western propaganda canon but well-supported by the global majority. Should the New Zealand government amend the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 along those lines I will continue to repeat the observations I make here. It’s called free speech and speaking truth to power. The occasion of multiple Western states recognizing Palestine necessitates us taking a hard look at the sub-texts and the players involved.
“Hamas is a brutal terror organization”, genocidal Israel is our ally
In announcing that the United Kingdom formally recognizes Palestine as a state, Prime Minister Keir Starmer made clear this week that the Palestinian people will have little effective say in who runs that state; that will remain the prerogative of Israel and its powerful white Western allies.
“Let's be frank,” Starmer said on 21 September 2025, ”Hamas is a brutal terror organization. A call for a genuine two-state solution is the exact opposite of their hateful vision. We are clear. This solution is not a reward for Hamas because it means Hamas can have no future, no role in government, no role in security. We have already proscribed and sanctioned Hamas, and we will go further.”
That view of Hamas accords with the dominant Western narrative but it hardly represents a commitment to democracy – the ability of a free and independent people to choose their leaders. Britain – which played such a central role in the disaster for Palestinians, from the Balfour Declaration, the Mandate period, all the way to the killing fields of Gaza today – is in no position to lecture anyone on good governance.
Also, exactly when this Palestinian state is to be created and what its borders will be are, of course, matters to be left to some dimly conceived future – which is just as Israel and the West have always liked it.
Hamas is the last legally elected government in Palestine
The reality – like it or not – is that Hamas won the last free and fair elections held in the entire Palestinian Territories in 2006 — as much for their effective supply of social services as their determined resistance to the Occupation. With the help of the US and Israel, Fatah militarily overturned the election results in the West Bank but failed in Gaza. President Mahmoud Abbas remains deeply unpopular and, at 90, must surely go. Marwan Barghouti, held in brutal captivity along with thousands of other hostages to Israel, is the most popular leader in Palestine.
The most recent polling by both Western and Middle Eastern research companies shows Hamas remains the most popular grouping. Throughout the Middle East Hamas has the respect of the overwhelming majority of people because of their steadfast resistance to Israel’s decades-long project of ethnic cleansing, land thieving, genocide and the creation of a Greater Israel – a project aided and abetted by our countries. Most people in West Asia see Israel and the Western elites as vastly “worse” than Hamas and as the real terrorists. Even in the US, the tide is turning, with an unprecedented 60% versus 40% of voters aged 18–24 showing support for Hamas over Israel, according to The Harvard Harris Poll.
Cuddling up to baby killers
The collective West has armed Israel provided refuelling facilities and intelligence sharing, along with trade and political support throughout the genocide. This violates obligations as signatories to the 1948 Genocide Convention in terms of failing to “prevent and punish the crime of genocide”. Rather than lecturing the world, our leaders should all be standing before a war crimes tribunal.
Keir Starmer gave a warm welcome to Israeli President Herzog last week whilst continuing to send the UK Police out to arrest hundreds of citizens who held cardboard signs saying “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”, now deemed an offence under the Terrorism Act (2006). Herzog is one of multiple Israeli leaders on record as saying there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, not even babies.
It is worth remembering that just last week the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said Israel's government is responsible for four of the five acts prohibited under the 1948 Genocide Convention. The Inquiry concluded that Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, have incited the commission of genocide. Genocide is state terrorism; Israel is ipso facto a terrorist state.
Ignoring decades of crimes against Palestinians created October 7th
On October 7th many war crimes were committed; they do not pass anywhere close to the threshold of genocide. As I pointed out in an April 2024 article, “It’s time to de-demonise Hamas”: 95% of the victims of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict prior to October 7th were Palestinian. I wrote: “By our failure to respond to the persecution of the Palestinians we helped create the conditions for October 7. It begs the question: what is so wrong with our own culture that we can live in a world that tolerates genocide being committed by our closest allies and, rather than reflect on what it says about us, so many simply parrot the Israeli-Pentagon lines about Hamas.”
Genocide is “the crime of crimes”. It is clear that states like the UK, Germany, France and, above all the US, are parties to genocide. Other states like New Zealand and Australia have long been genocide enablers. On that low bar alone, Hamas is better than us.
Starmer referred to Hamas’s hateful vision for Israel-Palestine. I have read the Hamas Charter multiple times (the current 2017 version, not the 1980s version) and I do not find in it expressions of a hateful vision. I also recommend reading Azzam Tamimi’s Hamas from Within to get a more balanced view of the movement. What I hear most from Palestinians is a steadfast, steely determination that a captive people will one day achieve liberation and coexistence with people of all faiths.
The violence of October 7th did not erupt from nowhere, nor did those who launched it (Hamas) control all the actions, including serious crimes, that occurred that day. That will be the subject of my next article.
Western ear-splitting hypocrisy will drive us all deaf
Consistency, philosophers tell us, is the cornerstone of rationality. Israel is clearly a racist, fascist state that is committing genocide, the worst possible form of terrorism. Israel is also a close ally of nearly all Western countries. Yet we are told: “Hamas are terrorists and therefore we can't possibly deal with them”.
If we wish to live in a world where international law is applied fairly and is not simply a sham tool deployed by the powerful to bludgeon the weak then we must address this inconsistency, not least because the lives of millions of innocent people turn on how we resolve this conceptual fallacy.
Let’s start with general principles. Do you believe the Genocide Convention should be upheld? Do you believe all those who are determined to have a credible case to answer should stand trial? Does that apply to white English-speaking countries and other allies of the United States? Should it apply to all countries, even the United States? There would be something profoundly wrong with anyone who answers “No” to these questions. But here, as you guessed, is the problem: we don’t live in a world where international laws are applicable to the United States or its powerful allies, particularly Israel and the English-speaking ones.
Until we amend these faults, I will continue to assert that Hamas is better than us.
Eugene Doyle