Hamas Doesn’t Represent Palestinians — The Great Responsibility Laundering

Victor Satya | TOI Blogs | May 30, 2026

Hamas terrorists carry to the Red Cross one of four coffins said to hold a body of a slain Israeli hostage, in the southern Gaza Strip’s Khan Younis, February 20, 2025. Screengrab via Youtube.

There is a peculiar rule governing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nobody wrote it down. Nobody voted on it. Yet journalists, activists, diplomats, academics, and social media commentators appear to know it by heart.

The rule is simple.

When Israelis do something, Israel did it.

When Palestinians do something, we are immediately informed that Palestinians had nothing to do with it.

It was Hamas.

Or Islamic Jihad.

Or militants.

The Israeli side, apparently, enjoys collective responsibility down to the molecular level. Every Israeli action is treated as a reflection of the entire nation, its culture and its values. Meanwhile, Palestinians are granted a remarkable exemption from this principle. Their actions are forever attributed to some separate entity, some faction, some organization, some group that represents nobody in particular.

An Israeli military operation becomes “Israel attacks Gaza.”

A terrorist attack becomes “Hamas attacks Israel.”

One side is a nation. The other side is an unfortunate bystander to its own politics.

This peculiar asymmetry has become one of the most successful public relations operations of modern times. It has managed to convince much of the world that Israelis possess agency while Palestinians merely possess circumstances.

Take October 7.

Thousands of terrorists crossed into Israel. They murdered families, raped women, kidnapped civilians, and committed atrocities so barbaric that some of the footage looked less like a modern war and more like a medieval invasion accidentally uploaded to Telegram. The response from much of the international commentariat was fascinating. We were informed that Hamas does not represent the Palestinians.

Now, of course, it is true that not every Palestinian supports Hamas. It would dishonest to claim otherwise. Just as it would be absurd to judge every Israeli by the actions of every extremist within Israeli society.

But here is the question nobody seems eager to ask, if Hamas is separate from Palestinian society, then a few awkward questions arise.

Where does Hamas find support?
Who attends its rallies?
Who celebrates its victories?
Who cheers when hostages are paraded through the streets?
Who hands their children Hamas headbands and toy rifles?
Who fills opinion polls showing significant support for October 7?

Organizations do not emerge from a vacuum. They emerge from societies. They recruit from societies. They are supported by societies. They are financed, sheltered, celebrated, tolerated, or rejected by societies.

This is where the conversation suddenly becomes uncomfortable.

Because the same people who insist that Hamas has absolutely nothing to do with Palestinian society often become strangely reluctant to discuss polling data, educational materials, public celebrations, or widespread expressions of support for October 7. We are always invited to maintain a strict separation between Palestinian society and the movements operating within it. The relationship between the two must never be examined too closely. The curtain must remain closed.

The illusion must continue.

Part of the reason for this is that many observers insist on viewing Palestinian society through a Western lens. They imagine a population primarily concerned with affordable housing, healthcare reform, environmental sustainability, and perhaps the occasional debate about bicycle lanes.

Reality occasionally intrudes on this fantasy.

One such intrusion is the small matter of educational materials glorifying “martyrs.”

Another is public celebrations following terrorist attacks.

Another is the persistent popularity of organizations openly dedicated to Israel’s destruction.

Another is the Palestinian Authority’s long-running practice of rewarding those imprisoned for attacks on Israelis.

Yet somehow none of this is supposed to tell us anything about Palestinian society itself. Nothing to see here, move along. This is where another curious phenomenon emerges. Whenever Israeli society produces something ugly, it is immediately and correctly examined.

Extremist rhetoric? Discussed.
Settler violence? Discussed.
Controversial government policies? Discussed.

Israeli society is expected to confront its failures, its radicals, and its moral shortcomings.

Good.

It should.

Every society should.

What is strange is the belief that Palestinians should be exempt from the same standard.

Suddenly scrutiny becomes prejudice.
Analysis becomes Islamophobia.
Expectations become discrimination.

The result is a strange form of intellectual colonialism in which Palestinians are treated as the only people on earth who possess no meaningful responsibility for the ideas circulating within their own society.

The irony is staggering. Those who consider themselves defenders of Palestinian dignity often strip Palestinians of the very thing that dignity requires: agency.

Because agency includes responsibility.

A society cannot be taken seriously if it is never held accountable for anything. And peace cannot emerge from a conversation built on permanent denial. There is also the matter of language. Language is perhaps the most powerful weapon in this conflict. When Israel conducts a military operation against terrorists embedded within civilian areas, headlines often read as though context itself has been outlawed.

A missile strikes a target.
The target disappears.
The terrorist commander disappears.
The weapons cache disappears.
The command center disappears.

All that remains is Israel.

Somewhere between the battlefield and the newsroom, Hamas undergoes a miraculous process of journalistic evaporation.

A terrorist enters a building.
A missile hits the building.
The terrorist vanishes from the headline.

David Copperfield would be impressed.

This matters because wars are increasingly fought through narratives. And on that battlefield Israel has often been remarkably ineffective. Military victories can be achieved through superior firepower. Narrative victories require something else entirely.

They require clarity.

The central question is not whether Palestinians are collectively guilty. They are not.

The central question is why collective responsibility is assigned so differently depending on which side is being discussed. If Israelis can be judged as a society, Palestinians can be discussed as a society. If Israelis can be asked difficult questions about extremism, Palestinians can be asked difficult questions about extremism. If Israelis are expected to confront destructive ideas within their midst, Palestinians should not be protected from confronting destructive ideas within theirs. No lasting peace will emerge from a narrative that insists Israel is always a nation while Palestinians are forever just innocent spectators watching events unfold around them.

And so, the next time someone insists that Hamas has nothing to do with Palestinians, ask them a simple question: if Hamas is not Palestinian, then whose sons fill its ranks, whose streets celebrate its victories, whose schools glorify its “martyrs,” and whose polls repeatedly reward its violence? The silence that follows is usually the sound of a narrative colliding head-on with reality.