Gaza: You Say You Want a Revolution.

  • While there have been civilian protests and demonstrations in Gaza over the past four to six weeks, there are indications that these are as much against the war as they are against Hamas.
  • Ordinary Gazans are operating in survival mode, with little time or energy for anything else. And Hamas does not hesitate to deal harshly with dissent.
  • Popular pressure on Hamas in Gaza is unlikely to have any short- to medium-term effect on the tempo of related protest in Canada, particularly on the anti-Israel / anti-Zionist side.
  • The apparent failure of Gazan civilians to mount a popular uprising against Hamas is a major contributing factor to the “no innocents in Gaza” narrative.
  • The narrative will not only harden attitudes as the war in Gaza continues with no end in sight. It will also serve as a “radicalization narrative,” for diaspora groups, and their supporters, on both sides of the conflict.

Hamas v. The People.

One of the many questions emerging in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, is why the people of Gaza have not swept Hamas away in a massive popular uprising. After all, it is a brutal and corrupt terrorist organization that has spent almost 20 years subjugating Gazans. It has transformed the territory into a massive armed camp. It has turned Gazans into little more than a population of human shields, and diverted masses of money and foreign aid (to say nothing of funding from corrupt charitable organizations and its state sponsor, Iran) into its own offshore bank accounts. And long before October 7, Gazans starved, died of exposure in the figurative and literal darkness of a failed state, and bore the brunt of years of Israeli reprisals for Hamas rocket attacks. Meanwhile, the perpetrators of those attacks hid in tunnels constructed out of building material intended for Gazan homes and civic infrastructure.

No Innocents in Gaza?

This perceived failure of ordinary Palestinians in Gaza to rise up may seem to make them the authors of their own misfortune. To Israeli scholar, Dahlia Scheindlin, however, this is a “deeply dishonest claim,” one that has contributed to a perception, widespread not only in Israel, but in American and European political establishments, that “there are no innocents in Gaza.”

The Lessons of History.

The calculus seems elementary: “We are suffering under a repugnant regime; therefore, let’s get rid of the regime.” But recent history, especially in the Arabic-speaking Middle East and North Africa, shows how difficult, if not foolhardy, that can be. The so-called Arab Spring is a cautionary tale in this regard. Beginning with an act of self-immolation by a Tunisian fruit vendor protesting corruption in Tunisia in 2011, within months it had spread across the entire region, manifesting in everything from mass street protests and demonstrations to regime change in Libya, Egypt and Yemen. 

At first, the Arab Spring held out hope that meaningful change was possible in a region long characterized by despotism, poor governance, and corruption. And it seemed to be an alternative to the violence and chaos represented by Islamist extremist groups like Al-Qaeda and its various affiliates and hangers-on. But in less than a decade, the optimism of the Arab Spring had given way to despair. For almost all of the countries affected, key indicators around democracy, standard of living, press freedom, and corruption had remained unchanged or, in many cases, worsened. Meanwhile, civil conflict and foreign intervention in places like Libya, Syria and Yemen exacerbated existing instability and created a global refugee crisis. This, along with the rise of armed extremist groups and the collapse or brutal repression of “mainstream” Islamist groups, gave rise to an environment of sustained chaos in which ISIS (and the Houthi insurgency, among others) took root and flourished. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum, especially in the Middle East. And while it is hard to imagine anything worse than Hamas in Gaza, recent events in Syria (discussed in previous CIBs) are proof that anything is possible.

Making Some Noise, But…

This is not to say that Gazans have been silent. In late March, anti-Hamas protests broke out in Gaza after the health ministry there announced that the death toll in the conflict with Israel had surpassed 50,000 souls (whether this figure includes Hamas terrorists remains in dispute).  Some accounts suggest that individual protests involved at least “hundreds” of Gazans, urging Hamas to relinquish power and to release Israeli hostages in order to bring about an end to the war.  Closer analysis, however, reveals real ambiguity. Some participants were more opposed to the war than they were to Hamas itself. Others stated the obvious fact that Hamas was a ubiquitous presence in Gazan society: “Hamas exists in every family, even among those in the streets.”  There was also evidence that Hamas itself was responding brutally, including allegations that it tortured at least one man to death for his role in the protests.

Hamas in Charge.

Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, after an internationally supervised democratic election in which Gazans rejected rule by Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah (the ruling party in the West Bank), widely viewed as irredeemably corrupt. Hamas immediately imposed an “egregious…Taliban-like” Islamist totalitarian regime that, with the sponsorship and support of Iran, whose regional proxy it is, tolerates no dissent and no departure from strict Islamic norms. It is also a regime that, however repugnant its strategy and tactics, has evaded and eluded one of the world’s most effective fighting forces for more than a year and a half. Hamas is not only entrenched, but powerful, well-armed, disciplined and more than able to put down any serious challenge to its hegemony in Gaza. 

If there is a true “anti-Hamas underground” in Gaza, it faces tremendous challenges. A survey conducted by the Arab Barometer polling group just prior to October 7, 2023 indicated that a significant majority of Gazans were frustrated with Hamas’s ineffective governance and did not align with the group’s ideology. But given the demonstrably enthusiastic participation of Gazan civilians in the October 7 attacks and the subsequent ritual humiliation of Israeli hostages, it is highly probable that Hamas continues to enjoy (or coerce) the support of at least a plurality of Gazans.

Mere Survival.

Like Hamas, Gazans have been at war for more than a year and a half. Unlike Hamas, they have not been able to hide in tunnels or rotate out for R&R in Qatar. And however casualty statistics are being manipulated, Gazan civilians have died in the tens of thousands and Gaza itself has been transformed into a howling wasteland. In an environment like this, mere survival becomes the priority; protest and the possibility of regime change are distant fantasies, if indeed they figure in any Gazan’s consciousness at all.

The Choice? No Choice.

And what is the alternative? Gazans are caught between the Scylla of Hamas’ eliminationist ideology and the Charybdis of an Israeli regime whose finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, stated on Monday that returning Israeli hostages is “…not the most important goal…” and that the endgame is to relocate Gazans and take full control of the Gaza Strip. Outsiders expect Gazans to be either “superhuman,” by rising up in revolt against Hamas; or “inhuman,” by seeming to acquiesce to Hamas in their desire simply to come out of this alive. With their choice being essentially between death and destruction, most Gazans are third string players in a zero-sum game. 

And So?

While Gazan Palestinians do seem to be bringing some popular pressure to bear on Hamas, indicators suggest that Hamas rule is unlikely to collapse suddenly. An unknown factor is the progress of US / Iranian nuclear negotiations and whether Iran can be persuaded to withdraw support from its various “sub-state” regional allies, like Hamas. 

Pressure on Hamas (or even the possibility, however remote, of a popular uprising) is unlikely to have any effect on pro-Palestinian / anti-Israel sentiment here in Canada. The tempo of protest, particularly on the anti-Israel / anti-Zionist side, is unlikely to change perceptibly over the short- to medium-term. 

Meanwhile, the “no innocents in Gaza” narrative will perpetuate as long as the war continues (and probably long after), and Gazans fail to rise successfully against Hamas, even if that is an impossible expectation. This narrative – which is essentially one of radicalization – will exacerbate conflict between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel factions outside of the region, fuelling the cycle of everything from campus protest to vandalism, to random violence and assaults.

 Attitudes are hardening and conflict between diaspora groups and their partisans is so destructive and so traumatic that it is difficult to see any meaningful resolution, whether on the ground in the Middle East or globally. 

This assessment is based on information current as of 1200 hours on April 21, 2025.