The Ideological Cost of Hamas’ War
The war that erupted after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel marked yet another installment of conflict and crisis in the Middle East, again spilling over and into other countries around the world. Hamas militants stormed Israeli communities, killing more than 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostages. In response, Israel’s military response left Gaza in ruins, with tens of thousands of dead. Yet beneath the rubble lies a deeper truth: Hamas has sacrificed the Palestinian people on the altar of its own militant ideology, transforming a legitimate struggle for self-determination into a perpetual war for survival and relevance.
Hamas was elected in 2006 during the last Palestinian legislative vote ever held. What began as a populist movement promising reform quickly devolved into authoritarian rule. Hamas silenced opposition and ruled through fear, more like a mafia organization than a government. Instead of building institutions and improving lives, it diverted international aid toward tunnels, rockets, and indoctrination. Gaza became a fortress rather than a functioning society. The group’s leaders, many living comfortably in the Gulf, have long treated Palestinian suffering as political capital. The greater the destruction, the more they could portray themselves as defenders of Islam and Palestine.
Many supporters on opposite sides have ironically come to agree that this is indeed a war of religion, which is not only false but dangerous in how it feeds narratives designed to sustain the grievances that make this a never-ending conflict. The October 7 attacks were not acts of liberation. They were calculated provocations by a movement desperate to restore its fading legitimacy. Hamas knew that provoking Israel’s overwhelming response would generate outrage, sympathy, and renewed credibility among Palestinians and parts of the Muslim world. Every airstrike, every civilian death became fuel for its propaganda machine. This strategy of victimhood is central to its survival; it thrives on the suffering of the very people it claims to protect.
Hudnah, Not Peace
In classical Islamic law, a hudnah or truce was a legitimate and moral instrument intended to preserve life and open pathways to diplomacy. The Qur’an explicitly commands: “If they incline to peace, then incline to it also, and rely upon Allah” (8:61). The Prophet Muhammad (Alayhissalaam) honored this principle in the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, a 10-year peace pact with the Quraysh of Mecca that he upheld faithfully, even when its terms seemed disadvantageous. For centuries, Muslim jurists across all schools of law agreed that ceasefires and treaties must serve the public good (maslahah), be entered with integrity, and be honored without deceit. Breaking them without cause was forbidden.
Over time, this legal framework became a cornerstone of Islamic diplomacy. Scholars like Imam al-Shafi‘i and Ibn Qudamah emphasized that deception or betrayal violated divine commands to fulfill covenants. A hudnah could be limited in duration but renewed if it brought safety, stability, or the protection of civilians. In traditional Islam, peace was not a sign of weakness; it was an act of moral strength.
Modern Islamist movements, however, have weaponized this concept. For groups like Hamas, Al-Qaeda, and the Taliban, a hudnah is not peace but a tactical pause. They invoke the Prophet Alayhissalaam’s example at Hudaybiyyah yet strip it of its moral core, portraying it instead as a precedent for temporary truces to regroup and rearm. When Hamas leaders speak of a “five-year ceasefire,” they are not envisioning coexistence, they are buying time. As Hamas Politburo member Mohammed Nazzal admitted in a Reuters interview, the group “cannot commit” to disarmament and intends to retain “security control” of Gaza during any transitional phase.
Underlying this distortion is a supremacist worldview that sees non-Muslim counterparts not as partners in peace, but as temporary adversaries to be outmaneuvered. For Islamists, honor lies in defiance, not diplomacy. Thus, every ceasefire becomes another phase in an ideological war that can never end. Meanwhile, Hamas’ propaganda machine continues to churn out narratives of heroism and victimhood, manipulating perception in both the Arab world and the West. Western protestors chanting in solidarity often amplify Hamas’ messaging, repeating slogans crafted to promote a particular narrative of enmity and conflict.
In truth, the authentic Islamic tradition views a hudnah as a moral bridge toward peace, not a ladder back to war. Hamas’ corruption of this concept mirrors the zealotry of the early Khawarij, the extremist sect condemned by the Prophet Alayhissalaam for their self-righteousness and their misuse of religion to justify rebellion. What Hamas calls resistance is, in fact, a betrayal of the very Islamic principles it claims to uphold. It’s why the former Dean of Shariah Law at Gaza Islamic University wrote a scathing fatwa against them along these lines.
Iran’s Waiting Game
Hamas’ resilience cannot be understood without its patron. Iran provides weapons, funding, and training through its Revolutionary Guard Corps and views Hamas and the Houthi as a proxy in its wider contest with Israel and the West. Hamas is a convenient tool, a means to strike at Israel indirectly while maintaining ideological credibility among hardliners. It also allows Tehran to posture as the “true defender of Islam” within the Muslim world. There’s a reason why the Ayatollahs’ posters are appearing at pro-Palestinian protests in Western cities.
This context explains Hamas’ recent offer of a “five-year ceasefire.” It is not a genuine peace initiative but a tactical maneuver. The group’s strategy is to wait out President Trump’s term in office, assuming that a future U.S. administration will be more lenient or distracted, allowing Iran to rearm and reposition its proxies. Iran, humiliated by strikes on its facilities and senior commanders, is recalibrating. Once political conditions shift, Tehran will simply give the signal to restart operations. Hamas’ talk of “rebuilding Gaza” is less about humanitarian recovery and more about reconstituting its military infrastructure under international cover.
Meanwhile, Arab governments are walking a tightrope. States like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE are under public pressure to show solidarity with Gaza even as they pursue normalization with Israel. They know Hamas’ Islamist ideology threatens regional stability, yet they cannot appear indifferent to Palestinian suffering. Social media, flooded with real and AI-generated images of destruction, has amplified anger among their citizens, forcing leaders to balance diplomacy with emotion. Many analysts believe Iran deliberately unleashed Hamas to derail the Abraham Accords, which were on track to be signed before the October 7 attacks, a move that successfully set back its adversaries’ progress for years.
The Path Forward
If there is to be any sustainable peace in Gaza, it cannot possibly come through Hamas. The group has disqualified itself as a governing body by prioritizing terrorism over justice and propaganda over progress. The path forward must involve regional and Muslim-led stabilization. Arab and Muslim nations, supported by the international community, should lead a transitional mission in Gaza—an arrangement that combines regional legitimacy with international oversight.
Such a mission could operate under the Palestinian Authority’s political umbrella but be staffed by security forces from credible regional partners like Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and select Gulf states. These forces would oversee disarmament, reconstruction, and the re-establishment of civil governance, while Western nations provide funding, technical aid, and training. The goal would be to restore order, prevent Iranian interference, and allow Gaza’s people to rebuild without fear of Hamas’ return. It would also refute the narrative of war on Islam, and portray it for what it truly is: a fight against fascist extremists who live off of perpetual suffering and war.
Palestinians deserve leadership that values real life over false martyrdom. The youth of Gaza need education and opportunity, not indoctrination. It can be done within a generation, but there are grievances from this war alone, on both sides, that will fuel radicalization for generations. The Muslim world must enforce Islam’s rules of engagement over nationalist politics and reject the blasphemy of politicizing religion. The reality is that Hamas’ vision is not resistance; it is ruin. Ending its rule is not betrayal of Palestine, it is the first step toward genuine liberation. Real peace will not come from another hudnah or hollow truce, but from freeing Gaza from those who turned its suffering into a strategy.