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UK Paper Attempts to Understand the ‘Real Hamas’
“What is the real Hamas?” is the question that journalist Joshua Leifer seeks to answer in a 6,000-word Guardian feature that examines the evolution of Hamas and explores the capacity in which the terror group could have a hand in governing the Gaza Strip after the war.
The piece opens with Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin — described as an “architect” of the deal to free kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011 — who until the October 7 Hamas massacre had kept in almost constant contact with Hamas leadership, including senior official Ghazi Hamad.
Readers could be forgiven for thinking that Baskin is an influential figure in Israeli politics, a perception that contrasts sharply with reality. His view that Hamas could have been a potential partner for peace was not widely shared.
Glossing over the opinions of counter-terrorism experts and US and Israeli security analysts, all of whom see Hamas as a group “defined by its violent hostility to Israel’s existence,” Leifer quickly turns to an “opposing, more heterogeneous camp, comprised of academics and thinktankers, many of them Palestinian” who view Hamas as a “multifarious, complex political actor, divided between radical and moderating tendencies.”
These heterogeneous, Palestinian viewpoints comprise the bulk of the piece.
Sins of Omission
However, the major sin committed by Leifer is one of omission. It’s what he doesn’t say that is particularly striking.
For example, readers are introduced to “Palestinian scholar” Tareq Baconi, who dispels the notion that Palestinians are not broadly supportive of Hamas:
But if “Hamas were to disappear tomorrow,” he said, the Israeli blockade on Gaza and military rule in the West Bank would remain. “There’s this tendency to suggest that this is a war between Israel and Hamas rather than a war between Israel and Palestinians, which places Hamas outside of Palestinians,” he added. “It’s an inability to address the political drivers animating Palestinians.’”
It is a point that Leifer initially steers away from, although he acknowledges later the simple fact that the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank (71% according to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research) believe the October 7 massacre was justified.
Leifer’s presentation of Baconi as a moderate, thoughtful voice deviates from the reality that Baconi has previously justified Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians, whom he has deemed “settlers.”
Then there is the way Leifer uses the fanaticism of Hamas to make other Palestinian political factions seem less extreme.
Khaled Elgindy, a former adviser to the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership on negotiations with Israel, is quoted saying that he thinks Hamas would have to be a part of a postwar settlement, primarily because he “believes that Palestinian politics could contain Hamas’s rejectionism alongside the Palestinian Authority’s cooperation with Israel, just as Israeli politics includes parties that support and those that oppose engagement with the Palestinian Authority.”
Remarkably, Leifer failed to challenge the risible claim that Hamas is the only driver of Palestinian rejectionism when the Palestinian Authority has repeatedly turned down agreements that would have seen the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
Trust @guardian to turn a tragic traffic accident into a charge that “an Israeli truck killed four Palestinian workers.”
But that’s only one problem with the newspaper’s long read about Hamas. https://t.co/4xVlGWU4i7 pic.twitter.com/C1KNg5XLoG
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) March 21, 2024
The brief history of Hamas that appears midway through the piece also contains some worrying omissions.
Readers are told that the group was formed “against the backdrop of the first intifada, the popular Palestinian uprising [that] ignited when an Israeli truck killed four Palestinian workers in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp.”
But readers are not told that the truck crash was a tragic accident caused by a mechanical failure.
Readers are told how Sheikh Ahmad Yassin was the group’s “spiritual leader” and that he was “diminutive and softly spoken.”
But readers are not told that Yassin called suicide bombing a “religious obligation” and was a terrorist mastermind.
Readers are given the opinion of Azzam Tamimi, who is merely described as an “author” of a book about Hamas.
But readers are not told that Tamimi could more accurately be described as a Hamas supporter who once argued Palestinian suicide bombings are for a “noble cause,” and that he would also perpetrate one if he “had the opportunity.”
Leifer’s piece is illuminating at points, including his brief exploration of the theory that a major reason for Israel’s failure to prevent October 7 stemmed from not taking Hamas’ maximalist rhetoric seriously. However, the devil is in the details, and Leifer’s omission of critical facts undermines what could have been a comprehensive understanding of Hamas.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post UK Paper Attempts to Understand the ‘Real Hamas’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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French Officials Replant Olive Trees to Honor Murdered Jew Ilan Halimi After Vandalized Memorial
A crowd gathers at the Jardin Ilan Halimi in Paris on Feb. 14, 2021, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Halimi’s kidnapping and murder. Photo: Reuters/Xose Bouzas/Hans Lucas
More than a month and a half after the olive tree planted to honor Ilan Halimi was vandalized and cut down, French authorities are continuing efforts to replant olive trees in memory of the young Jewish man who was brutally tortured to death in 2006.
On Tuesday, local officials unveiled a commemorative plaque in the garden of Paris City Hall and planted a new tree to honor Halimi’s memory.
“This tree is a symbol of life,” said Ariel Weil, mayor of Paris Centre. “Next year will mark the tragic 20th anniversary of Ilan Halimi’s murder.”
“At the time, he was barely a young man. At 23, full of passion and the energy of youth, he pursued the promise of love — but met a tragic death instead,” Weil continued. “With this tree, however, it is Ilan Halimi’s life that is being planted in our garden.”
Last week, the southern French town of Pollestres also planted a new olive tree in honor of Halimi, calling it “a symbol of peace and remembrance” and a stand against hatred and antisemitism.
“We aim to promote values against barbarism, racism, and antisemitism, and I must say that right now, there is a climate of hatred between communities,” said Jean-Charles Moriconi, the town’s mayor.
“I believe that to unite everyone, we need gestures like this — proof that when something is torn down or destroyed, it will be replanted,” he continued.
Last month, French authorities planted the first olive tree in Saint-Ouen, a northern suburb of Paris in the Île-de-France region, two weeks after Halimi’s previous memorial was vandalized.
Hervé Chevreau, mayor of the northern Paris suburb Épinay, announced that several olive trees will be replanted in Halimi’s memory, praising “a remarkable outpouring of solidarity” reflected in the donations.
Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) — the main representative body of French Jews — praised these gestures as a powerful symbol of “the deep roots of the Jewish people in the [French Republic], and in the history of France,” saying that “no one will be able to uproot them.”
Halimi was abducted, held captive, and tortured in January 2006 by a gang of about 20 people in a low-income housing estate in the Paris suburb of Bagneux.
Three weeks later, he was found in Essonne, south of Paris, naked, gagged, and handcuffed, with clear signs of torture and burns. The 23-year-old died on the way to the hospital.
In 2011, an olive tree was planted in Halimi’s memory. In August, the memorial was found felled — probably with a chainsaw — in Epinay-sur-Seine.
Halimi’s memory has faced attacks before, with two other trees planted in his honor vandalized in 2019 in Essonne.
Shortly after this latest attack, two 19-year-old Tunisian twin brothers, undocumented and with prior convictions for theft and violence, were arrested for allegedly vandalizing and cutting down Halimi’s memorial.
Both brothers appeared in criminal court and were remanded in custody pending their trial, scheduled for Oct. 22.
They will face trial on charges of “aggravated destruction of property” and “desecration of a monument dedicated to the memory of the dead on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion,” offenses that, according to prosecutors, carry a sentence of up to two years in prison.
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Israel Diverts Gaza Flotilla Ships, Says ‘Greta Thunberg Safe’
Sailing boats, part of the Global Sumud Flotilla aiming to reach Gaza and break Israel’s naval blockade, sail off Koufonisi islet, Greece, Sept. 26, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stefanos Rapanis
Several vessels of the international flotilla heading to Gaza have been stopped and their passengers are being transferred to an Israeli port, the Israeli foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate campaigner, and her friends are “safe and healthy,” the foreign ministry said in a post on X alongside a video that appeared to show Thunberg and several masked and armed Israeli military personnel.
The flotilla’s organizers said that Israeli military personnel intercepted and boarded the ships, which aim to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza — the Palestinian enclave that has been ruled by the terrorist group Hamas for nearly two decades — and deliver some aid there.
Some 20 vessels were seen approaching the flotilla earlier on Wednesday night, multiple people on board said, as passengers put on life vests and braced for a takeover.
“Multiple vessels … were illegally intercepted and boarded by Israeli Occupation Forces in international waters,” the organizers said in a statement. “We are diligently working to account for all participants and crew.”
It said that its communications were jammed before boarding began, which interfered with cameras that were providing live streams from various boats and communications between vessels.
The Global Sumud Flotilla, which consists of more than 40 civilian boats carrying about 500 parliamentarians, lawyers, and activists including Thunberg, is trying to break Israel‘s blockade despite repeated warnings from Israel to turn back.
It is about 70 nautical miles off the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, inside a zone that Israel is policing to stop any boats approaching.
A live video feed from one of the boats in the flotilla showed passengers in life vests sitting on deck.
It is not clear how many of the boats had been intercepted or stopped. Some passengers said their vessels continued to advance.
Organizers remained defiant, saying in the statement that the flotilla “will continue undeterred.”
The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment about intercepting the vessels.
Its foreign ministry earlier said the navy had warned the flotilla it was approaching an active combat zone and violating a lawful blockade, and asked them to change course.
The ministry said that it reiterated the offer to transfer any aid peacefully through safe channels to Gaza.
TRYING TO BREAK THE BLOCKADE
The flotilla is the latest sea-borne attempt to break Israel‘s blockade of Gaza.
The flotilla had been hoping to arrive in Gaza on Thursday morning if it was not intercepted.
This was the second time the flotilla was approached on Wednesday. Before dawn, the mission’s organizers said two Israeli “warships” had approached fast and encircled two of the flotilla’s boats. All navigation and communication devices went down in what one organizer on board described as a “cyber attack.”
A video post on the flotilla’s Instagram page showed the silhouette of what appeared to be a military vessel with a gun turret near the civilian boats.
Reuters confirmed that the video was filmed from the flotilla, but could not confirm the identity of the other vessel in the video or when the video was taken.
Last week members of the flotilla claimed the mission was attacked by drones, which reportedly dropped stun grenades and itching powder on the vessels, causing damage but no injuries.
Israel did not comment on that attack, but has said it will use any means to prevent the boats from reaching Gaza, arguing that its naval blockade is legal as it battles Hamas terrorists in the coastal enclave.
Italy and Spain deployed naval ships to help with any rescue or humanitarian needs but stopped following the flotilla once it got within 150 nautical miles (278 km) of Gaza for safety reasons. Turkish drones have also followed the boats.
Italy and Greece on Wednesday jointly called on Israel not to hurt the activists aboard and called on the flotilla to hand over its aid to the Catholic Church for indirect delivery to Gaza – a plea the flotilla has previously rejected.
Israeli officials have repeatedly denounced the mission as a stunt.
“This systematic refusal [to hand over the aid] demonstrates that the objective is not humanitarian, but provocative. They are not seeking to help, they are seeking an incident,” Jonathan Peled, the Israeli ambassador to Italy, said in a post on X.
PAST ATTEMPTS TO DELIVER AID
Israel has imposed a naval blockade on Gaza since Hamas took control of the coastal enclave in 2007 and there have been several previous attempts by activists to deliver aid by sea.
In 2010, nine activists were killed after Israeli soldiers boarded a flotilla of six ships manned by 700 pro-Palestinian activists from 50 countries.
In June this year, Israeli naval forces detained Thunberg and 11 crew members from a small ship organized by a pro-Palestinian group called the Freedom Flotilla Coalition as they approached Gaza.
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FBI Cuts Ties With Anti-Defamation League, FBI Director Says
FBI Director Kash Patel attends the signing of an executive order by US President Donald Trump on a deal that would divest TikTok’s US operations from ByteDance from its Chinese owner ByteDance, at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Sept. 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The FBI said on Wednesday it had cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish group that tracks antisemitism, after Republicans criticized the group for including slain activist Charlie Kirk’s organization in a glossary on extremism.
In a social media post, FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau “won’t partner with political fronts masquerading as watchdogs.”
The ADL did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was not immediately clear what sort of ties the FBI had with the ADL.
Patel’s announcement followed criticism of the ADL by right-wing activists and leaders, including billionaire Elon Musk, over its inclusion of Kirk’s Turning Point USA in a “Glossary of Extremism and Hate” on its website. Kirk was assassinated on a college campus in September.
After that criticism, the ADL removed the entire glossary from its website. The glossary had said that Turning Point USA had a history of “bigoted statements,” a charge the group rejects.