WASHINGTON TIMES
They brought the enemy to its knees. They humiliated the Israeli leadership. Palestinians will naturally support it,” Mr. Elgindy told The Washington Times in an interview. “That doesn’t mean if there were an election tomorrow, [Palestinians] would cast a ballot for Hamas. But if there were [such an election], I think they would win in this moment.”
“The reality is that Hamas is popular not for killing civilians, but for dealing a heavy blow to their occupiers,” Mr. Elgindy said. “And there’s just no way around that reality. People can’t just explain it away.”
Such opinions aren’t limited to Gaza, where Hamas has ruled since 2006, when it won the last set of elections in the enclave and then engaged in a bloody conflict to drive out the more moderate Fatah Party. Fatah is the largest political party in the Palestinian Authority, but since the internal clash with Hamas, its influence has largely been limited to the West Bank.
Hamas’ Gaza victory in 2006 triggered deep unease in Washington, where the George W. Bush administration had supported the notion of democratic elections in Gaza in the hope that Fatah would win. The administration was caught flat-footed when Hamas, which had been designated by the State Department as a “foreign terrorist organization” since 1997, came out on top.
Despite Hamas’ reign of terror during the decades since, the group has maintained support from several key regional powers. Some who even have close ties to the West eagerly promote a narrative that Hamas is less a rabid, antisemitic Islamic extremist organization than a collection of freedom fighters driven by the goal of reclaiming land ripped from the hands of the Palestinians by Israel and its allies decades ago
“Hamas is not a terrorist organization, it is a liberation group, ‘mujahideen’ waging a battle to protect its lands and people,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said in a speech to Turkish lawmakers in the wake of the group’s Oct. 7 assault on Israel.
“The perpetrators of the massacre and the destruction taking place in Gaza are those providing unlimited support for Israel,” Mr. Erdogan said. “Israel’s attacks on Gaza, for both itself and those supporting them, amount to murder and mental illness.”
Israel pushed back immediately. “Israel wholeheartedly rejects the Turkish president’s harsh words about the terrorist organization Hamas,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat wrote on social media. “Hamas is a despicable terrorist organization worse than [the Islamic State] that brutally and intentionally murders babies, children, women and the elderly.”
Another sign of the messy way Hamas operates as both a political movement and an armed force: Qatar, which cultivates good relations with the United States, earning the designation of a non-NATO ally and is the site of a vital Central Command forward military base at Al-Udeid, also since 2012 has played host to the Hamas political office in Doha. Top Hamas figures, including leader Ismail Haniyeh and former leader Khaled Meshaal travel routinely to the Qatari capital to conduct party business.
