Most experts agree that Israel can probably eliminate the military portion of Hamas in Gaza, but not the ideology without a political component like a two-state solution for both Israel and Palestine.

After Hamas’s brutal massacre against Israelis on October 7, 2023 where over 1,200 peoples were killed with 240 being kidnapped and held in Gaza, most of the international community leaders were backing Israel’s goals, the destruction of the Hamas’s ability to govern the Gaza Strip or to pose a future military threat from the Gaza Strip to Israeli civilians.

It’s understandable that the US President Joe Biden’s administration would be supportive. After all, this has been a decades’ old saga where the IDF Israel military finds itself engaging with Hamas due to its frequent attacks on Israel, only to have the international community push Israel into a cease fire, as in 2021, 2014, 2009, etc., just to have the above cycle repeated over and over again. For example, for the Israel-Hamas conflict that ended around 2014, there were 9 cease fires and this also when PM Netanyahu was in charge.

But now President Joe Biden’s administration is recalibrating its outright support of Israel’s attack on Hamas, in part because of what appears to be its scorched earth military tactics resulting in a high civilian death toll of about 19,000 Palestinians in Gaza, of whom about 70% has been women and children, 2 million citizens displaced and homeless with about 18% of Gaza’s infrastructure demolished, as humanitarian aid has been distributed like drops in a bucket. All of this destruction within a couple of months has been arising from the frequent use of heavy weapons, including so-called “bunker buster” (dumb) bombs aimed at destroying Hamas’ strategic tunnel network – and strikes on residential districts where Israel says Hamas has hidden militant bases, rocket launch pads and weaponry within and under apartment blocks and hospitals.

As per a Washington Post report, “Israel has deployed over 22,000 bombs in a 6-week time period after October 7, 2023. It’s estimated that Israel has dropped roughly one U.S.-supplied bomb on Gaza for every 100 residents in just six weeks — an astonishing show of force in such a short period of time.”

See: Under Rules of War, ‘Proportionality’ in Gaza Is Not About Evening the Score/ NYT …

So, while Hamas has as its goal, the elimination of Israel (Jews), the current right wing Israeli government has acted for decades to prevent the possibility of Israelis and Palestinians living in peaceful prosperity, side by side. What the Israeli right-wing governing body really wants, is for all Palestinians to be gone from its territory. This is why I’m convinced that both HAMAS and the Israeli prime minister with his extreme right coalition members must be made to exit the political stage for there to be any chance for peace.

While it is obvious that Hamas cannot continue to have a leading role in governing Gaza, it’s Israel’s refusal to accept the two-state solution which only guarantees continued efforts by Hamas to destroy Israel.

The below must-read report depicts the brutality of the Iranian backed Hamas rule in Gaza, the same group that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has propped up for years in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority governing body in the West Bank. See: Hamas executed 23 Palestinians under cover of Gaza conflict/ Guardian, …

Recent articles published by Snopes and the Guardian provide some historical context to the Hamas saga in Gaza…

Here’re excerpts from the Snopes article, “What Is Hamas and What Is Its Role in Gaza?,” by Taija Perry Cook:

Hamas – an acronym for Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah (Islamic Resistance Movement) – is a militant group founded in 1987 during what Palestinians refer to as the first intifada (an Arabic word meaning rebellion or uprising) against Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories – the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Hamas rules one of those territories, the Gaza Strip, while the Palestinian Authority (PA) maintains governance of the West Bank. Israel maintains security control over both territories.

Hamas’ primary aim, according to its 1988 charter, is to resist Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories and establish an Islamic Palestinian state in its place. Since 1997, the U.S. has designated Hamas a terrorist organization, due to its vow to overthrow Israel – a longtime U.S. economic and political ally – and the group’s deadly attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers.

According to the group’s 2017 updated document of principles and objectives, “Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.”

Iran, Qatar, Syria, and Turkey are Hamas’s biggest economic and political allies.

Hamas governs in accordance with sharia-based Palestinian Basic Law. It is a common misconception that the majority of Gazans elected Hamas, a claim we have previously reported on. While is it true that Hamas won the majority of legislative  seats using plurality voting, the first and only election ever held in Gaza took place in 2006. Given that approximately 44% of the current Gazan population is under the age of 18, and that many more were not yet of voting age at the time of the election, the current population does not necessarily have the same political interests as those held by the voting population in 2006.

After the 2006 election, a brief civil war ensued in which Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, in April 2014 Hamas effectively “renounced its governing role” in Gaza by forming an agreement with Fatah [a rival political party that constitutes the Palestinian Authority] that outlined the formation of a new Palestinian Authority cabinet “composed entirely of nonpartisan ministers.” Because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the new agreement on the grounds that Fatah (the Palestinian Authority) was jeopardizing a future peace agreement with Israel, the cabinet sworn in on June 2, 2014, was “unable to carry out the administration of the Gaza Strip.” According to Haaretz, an Israeli news outlet, Netanyahu said at the time that such an agreement “will not strengthen peace, it will strengthen terror.”

The 2014 unity agreement between Hamas and Fatah/ Palestinian Authority didn’t succeed. As per Tamara Cofman Wittes, director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, “the implications depended on the precise terms of the reconciliation. “If, and it is a big ‘if,’ Hamas comes under the P.L.O. umbrella in such a way that it accedes to the P.L.O.’s recognition of Israel and the P.L.O.’s signed agreements with Israel,” she said, “that would be historic.” “What would make it horrible is if Hamas were to join the P.L.O. without those kinds of commitments.”

See: Netanyahu Urges World to Say ‘No’ to New Palestinian Government/ Haaretz 2014…

As per the October 12, 2023 Guardian report, “What is Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza?” by Peter Beaumont:

“An acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas was founded as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1987 on 3 pillars: religion, charity and the fight against Israel – although arguably its earliest enemy was Fatah, Yasser Arafat’s rival Palestinian faction (PLO, Palestinian Authority).”

“Under one of its key founders, the group’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, it held an uncompromising view.”

“As the movement’s founding charter made clear, Hamas was dedicated from the start to extinguishing the existence of the state of Israel. It saw armed violence as part of that struggle, modelling its early armed wing on the fedayeen, Palestinian armed groups that emerged in the 1950s after the establishment of the state of Israel.”

“That armed wing would come to be known as the Izz ad-Din al Qassam brigades [al-Qassam brigades] who from their very beginning embraced the use of terror tactics against Israel, carrying out their first suicide bombing in 1993 in conjunction with Islamic Jihad.”

“But the movement attracts substantial popular support, and also incorporates teachers, surgeons, urban planners and police in its civil administration of Gaza.”

“The reality is Hamas is many things. While it runs Gaza’s health service, it is also a sinister organisation committed to the mass murder of Israelis. It administers the education service while its police have broken the bones of children caught wearing scarfs signalling family affiliation with the rival Fatah (Palestinian Authority) movement.”

“It runs the courts while, during the 2014 Gaza war, its forces abducted, tortured and murdered Palestinians accused of “collaborating” with Israel and others.”

The armed wing

“For most people Hamas is represented by its armed wing, responsible for the brutal massacre (in Israel on October 7, 2023).”

“After the 1993 Oslo peace accords, Hamas (along with Palestinian Islamic Jihad) deployed suicide bombings as its initial weapon of choice against the peace deal, a tactic that would be seen regularly during the second intifada.”

“Meanwhile, the Qassam brigades grew stronger in Gaza – becoming the substantial, well-armed and well-trained paramilitary force of today.”

“The Qassam brigades are today believed to count on several tens of thousands under arms including small boat forces, combat divers, a new paraglider force and drone operators.”

Hamas in power in Gaza

“The turning point for Hamas came in 2007. After a period of deadly anarchy in Gaza, after the 2006 Palestinian elections in which Hamas-backed candidates won the largest share of the vote, it seized power in the coastal enclave by force.”

“In power, Hamas, which had built its appeal on lacking the corruption of its rival Fatah (Palestinian Authority in the West Bank), proved to be brutal and often greedy.”

“The messaging from senior figures in the political bureau in this period was contradictory. As Yassin and his fellow founder Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi had done before their assassinations by Israel in 2004, Hamas leaders would suggest the possibility of a long cessation of hostilities with Israel – known as a hudna.”

“That would suggest they could be pragmatic (but) the threat of violence against Israel (and Jews) was never far from the surface”.

“What would forge Hamas into its current shape was the blockade imposed by Israel in 2007 and the subsequent Gaza wars.”

“Largely shut off from the world, the Qassam brigades – which gained experience and adapted new technology and tactics learned from fighting with Israel – grew both in size and importance.”

“Violence became self-fulfilling. War with Israel legitimized Hamas’s role in Palestinian society and the wider Middle East.”

“After the 2008 Gaza conflict, support for Hamas rose sharply among the wider Palestinian society in comparison with non-conflict periods – not least in Gaza, where the shortcomings of its rule are more exposed.”

“Hamas has at times shown itself susceptible to outside pressure: as recently as 2017, the group updated its founding charter to finesse its traditional calls for the destruction of Israel – reportedly under pressure from Egypt, the traditional interlocutor between Hamas and Israel.”

“This year a Hamas delegation visited Moscow and Saudi Arabia (for the first time in seven years) as it sought a wider international hearing.”

“Hamas has never balked at using terrorism – indeed it has celebrated it but last weekend’s murderous rampage (of October 7, 2023) denotes something else.”

“In a hardline organisation, the most hardline of the hardliners appear to be in the driving seat, representing the growing influence in recent years of the military wing’s shadowy head Mohammed Deif – Israel’s number one target – and the apparent decision by the current head of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, to align himself with a policy of all-out war after being the driving force behind Hamas’s effort to improve its external relations.”

See: How Netanyahu’s Hamas policy came back to haunt him/ CBC …