A Conversation about Palestine, Hamas, and Settler Colonialism

This is part two of a conversation with Dr Yousef Al Kouri. Part one can be viewed here

Bishop Justin: I wonder, in all our conversations, I don't know if we've ever, I've ever had a proper conversation around Hamas and the role of Hamas. I think, yeah, I'd be really interested in what is Hamas? I mean, we, you know, we, in our country, we are horrified by what happened a couple of years ago, obviously. But, you know, interested to understand, from your perspective, the background on Hamas and how where they fit what? Yeah, what's your view on Hamas?

Dr. Yousef: Yes, it's as simple as that. Hamas is a political movement that presents itself as a liberation movement and part and parcel of the Palestinian movement for liberation. It's not part of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and it's a resistance movement as they present themselves. But Hamas is a recent development in the Palestinian history.

Consider the Palestinian long struggle with Israeli settler colonialism and occupation. Hamas was established only in 1987 and digging deeper into the history of enterprise of Islamism in Palestine, you will notice a very important turning point in the 1970s. In the 1970s, the Israelis allowed for the rise of Islamic radicalism and Islamism in Palestine. This is when documented. And the reason was very simple: to divide and conquer, divide the Palestinian people in order to conquer more of the land and exile more people.

So Hamas came to existence as a political and resistance movement in 1987, and back then it was, I would consider it radical, in its charter. However, in the next 20 years of Hamas's political life in Palestine, shifts can be noticed. First of all, Hamas rejected the Oslo agreement between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Israeli government in 1993, 1994 and thought that those kind of peace agreements will not guarantee the liberation of the Palestinian people. So they rejected the whole Oslo proposal and accord, and soon, actually, it seems that they were correct about it, because Oslo Accords somehow did not guarantee that Palestinians will have statehood, did not guarantee that Palestinians will have the liberation, but unfortunately, made the Palestinian Authority as a security contractor for the Israeli occupation, and cut the expense of the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territory, because now Palestinians have to pay for their own health care, their own education. Meanwhile, in the past, because they were under occupation, the Israelis had to do so.

So Hamas came out of this kind of ideologies as Islamic nationalism and rejection of Oslo Accord and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. But in 2005 after, I would say, the last days of the second Palestinian uprising, or the Second Intifada, and after the assassination of Yasser Arafat, the president of Palestine, the international community asked and advised Palestinians to conduct democratic election in the entire Palestinian occupied territories, and this is what happened. And the international community also assigned a committee to ensure that the election will go smoothly and be democratic. And the head of that committee was Carter, the former president of the USA, Jimmy Carter.

Interestingly, Hamas decided to join the election, which meant that Hamas somehow implied to accept Oslo coverage. And Hamas's program was built on two main themes: faithfulness to the Palestinian cause and transparency. Because between 1994 and 2005, the Israelis somehow denied every term within the Oslo accord that guaranteed that accord would lead to a Palestinian statehood. They continued to establish and expand their settlements. They continued to expand their occupation and military operations in the West Bank and even before 2005 in Gaza. So it was very clear to the majority of the Palestinian people that the PA, the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Oslo accord was a failure, was a win for the Israelis, but was a failure for the Palestinians.

So Hamas was claiming that it will be faithful to the Palestinian people and the Palestinian cause, and will succeed where the PLO and Oslo accord failed. But also the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian Liberation Organization had an issue with corruption that was very clear for the international community, and Hamas claimed that it will be transparent about its government, and that's what secured Hamas the majority in the Palestinian election. So it was a democratic election, and this was actually made very clear by Jimmy Carter and the International Committee that observed the election. And Palestinian people elected Hamas, not because they love Islamism, but because they were tired and sick of Israeli occupation and Palestinian government corruption.

However, soon after we see that Israelis and Americans decided to blockade Gaza entirely. So since 2006, up until today, Gaza is completely blockaded. But there are also many misconceptions about the Palestinian movement in Gaza and also about Hamas, because many on TV would say, like Hamas is anti-semitic, Hamas wants to kill all the Jews, Hamas, Hamas got the Hamas charter. And I wonder if people actually read Hamas charter, or actually read the book about Hamas and the development of Hamas. I'm Palestinian Christian, so I do not support Hamas in any way. I'm not even any acts of Hamas. But I asked people to be critical thinkers, read for themselves, not to rely on news outlets. And majority of the people say, oh, we didn't read the charter. We heard it on the news that Hamas charter, 1988 is anti-semitic. But I told them, do you know that Hamas actually revised their charter in 2017? And if I just display few parts of Hamas charter and hide the word Hamas, I think many people will agree with their statements and the statements made in their charter. This is first.

Second, many people say that Hamas and the Palestinian people want to eradicate the State of Israel, and this is completely false. First of all, the Palestinian Authority and the PLO agreed on a state on 22% of our land. Only 22%. We asked the Israelis: give us 22% to create our own state, and they reject it. Second, Hamas and other Palestinian factions agreed on two-state solution based on the United Nations and international law, which means that Israel has to withdraw to the 1967 borderline and allow for the Palestinian state to exist. So many Palestinian factions, the majority of the Palestinian factions and people somehow agreed on the two-state solution. However, Israel completely ignored the Palestinian desire for self-determination, disagreements with international law, and went on and on concreting its settler colonialism in Palestine, which led to a sort of apartheid regime in the entire Israel Palestine.

And this whole apartheid regime is based on segregation. As Palestinians, we live, most of us live under military law, Israeli military law. We cannot drive on certain roads. We don't have the freedom even to worship, as Christians, to go and worship in Jerusalem anytime we wish. We have to wait and we have to apply and to be dehumanized on Israeli military checkpoints in order to be approved for a permission to visit the Church of Holy Sepulchre. So it's much easier, actually, for you Justin to travel and come and pray in the Church of Holy Sepulchre, compared to me, who lives only a few kilometers away from the Church of Holy Sepulchre. Can you imagine?

So we need to keep in mind the developments that led to October 2023, because history didn't start on October 2023. History started much longer than that, even much longer than 1948 when the British and the Jewish Zionist started to come to Palestine and take land from indigenous people to create their settler colonial project.

So Hamas, let's say between 2006 and 2023, was the government in Gaza. Of course, the Israelis had played a very critical role in allowing money flow to support the Hamas government in Gaza, in order to make sure that this divide and conquer policy continues to be among the Palestinian people, because the Palestinian government in Ramallah and the Palestinian government in the West Bank and Gaza, as much as they tried to unite, always the Israelis played a role in making sure that they would continue to be divided.

So for more than 17 years, the Gaza Strip, place where Hamas governed, was a concentration camp. People weren't allowed in and out of Gaza without Israeli approval. Many goods, including even some basic items, even chocolate, was not allowed into Gaza because the Israelis considered it as luxury goods. So this is the reality of Gaza, and this is the reality of Hamas. And I think it's really important when people think of Gaza, they should not think of Hamas as first, but they have to think about the reality of Gaza for the past 70 years.

Bishop Justin: I suppose many of us in New Zealand, in Aotearoa, we were shocked by the events of two years ago and by the attack of Hamas and the hostage taking. I think we found it really disturbing. I'm interested to understand there's a history to everything that takes place, but also there's an action, there's a moment in history which feels horrendous for those of us watching from the other side of the world.

Dr. Yousef: That's true. And I think it's really important as Christians to stay committed to non-violent way of resistance. This is what I'm committed to. This is what the Christian community, in their ecumenical documents have made it clear, especially Kairos Palestine, we are committed to resist in creative ways, in nonviolent ways. So we refuse the dehumanization, demonization of any group, including our neighbors, who are our enemies. Jesus called us to love our neighbors and to love our enemies. So we are committed to this, and we mourn. We are against any act of violence on Palestinians or the Israelis. But we also understand that there is an oppressed and oppressor dynamics here, which needs also to be highlighted.

Cole: What you're saying there, from what you said before and what I've seen on the ground over the last six months and the times that I've been there, is just the huge wealth, I think often it gets missed in the way that this context is covered in media. The huge wealth of pathways of non-violent resistance that Palestinians engage in and have for decades. Palestinian civil society engaging in protests and demonstrations and petitions and marches. Cities in the north of Israel who have just gone and returned to their land to try to reclaim it, through to simple things, like in the refugee camps, collecting little tear gas canisters and turning them into pieces of jewelry, as this kind of swords to plowshares kind of thing.

And I think for decades, that stuff has gone on, but its effectiveness has depended so heavily on the international community showing up and where they haven't, it has then bolstered movements like Hamas that have gained momentum in lieu of those things not being as productive as they could be because of the lack of international backing to those mechanisms. So I suppose, would it be correct to say what you're saying is, events like October 7 didn't happen in a vacuum. Those things came out of decades of injustice, decades of structural violence that has fueled movements like Hamas gaining traction, and that if we want to prevent future events like October 7 from happening again, we need to address those root issues that led to groups like that being formed in the first place.

Dr. Yousef: I think what's been ignored is the long history of nonviolent resistance and the wealth of it, as you said. But actually, a closer look at the history of Palestine, people will notice that Israel hated the nonviolent resistance movement. One of them was led by a Palestinian Christian. His name is Bishara Awad, and Bishara Awad was exiled because he defended and he stood up and he promoted nonviolent resistance. And this is what happened in Gaza.

Bishop Justin: I can't help but just find it so strange. I mean, I'm obviously incredibly supportive of non-violent resistance. It's so strange, isn't it, that here we are having a conversation. You, particularly descendant of Gaza, living in this incredibly violent context, and you as a Christian are propagating non-violence. And our Christian brothers and sisters around the globe, who potentially don't live in war zones, are propagating war. It is absurd, isn't it, that you can propagate non-violence in the face of such horrendous violence, and those who sit on our couches, drinking our flat whites, we are quite happy, as Christians often, to resort to violence in theory. It's just, I mean, it's just the greatest irony, isn't it? And it's a huge challenge, I think, to those of us listening to this to understand what you're really saying and the challenge that that brings to us, and again, obviously, North American brothers and sisters in Christ and their encouragement maybe of violence, particularly in the connection to the military machine of the US. Yeah, the whole conversation.

Dr. Yousef: But just like I want to be very clear here, it's fascinating how communities that experience relative peace and prosperity can be advocates for war on someone else's land, and take the profit of that because war is very lucrative industry, right? So they don't mind the destruction of our land, death of our people, for their stock market to go up and make harvest some profit.

But I want to say something else, Justin, because we are in the age of social media, and I cannot excuse New Zealand of being far away from Palestine compared to the US, and say like New Zealand has no political power or nothing to do with the military industry in Palestine and against Palestinian people. And I think that's not completely true, because on social media, we get to see, actually, sometimes in news of how parliament members in New Zealand are very supportive and advocate for the Israeli genocide in Gaza and Palestine. And sadly, sometimes these Christians are using a Zionist narrative to justify the murder of our people, the genocide that has been killing the Palestinian church, first and foremost. And I can't comprehend even how this nation that is still also learning about the history of settler colonialism, that nation that embraces the whole idea of indigeneity and tolerance and wants to learn about how to be better, after a long history of settler colonialism, still insists on repeating the same sin, but on someone else's land.

Because the original sin of New Zealand is settler colonialism, and the original sin of Zionism is settler colonialism. However, I think the problem is that many people in New Zealand are not willing to understand that Palestinians are experiencing Israeli Zionist settler colonialism here on the ground that tries to erase the presence of the indigenous people.

Cole: It might be useful for groups who are using this as a resource, just to provide some examples of what that looks like locally. There's been some fantastic news pieces investigating direct involvement that we have as New Zealand recently, as far as organizations like Rocket Labs launching satellites that are then used for Israeli intelligence in the war on Gaza, the response of our government in refusing to grant humanitarian visas to families trapped in Gaza, some of whom, like families of friends of mine, who are sheltering in St. Porphyrios Church and have since died, who would have been eligible for a visa similar to that we created for families in Ukraine.

And again, just the involvement, as far as you've touched on earlier, the religious and biblical language and ideology that gets weaponized to justify what is happening in Gaza, but also the kind of silent complicity, where we often avoid these difficult conversations because it threatens church unity. And I ask to that, what are we uniting over as a church if our conversations and our avoidance of this stuff, we're uniting over the bloodshed and the death and the suffering of our Palestinian brothers and sisters when we refuse to even engage in this conversation to begin with. So I think that's a real challenge for the church, both encountering the act of harm of Zionism, but also encountering the silence. And this is what this hopes to do.

Bishop Justin: Since we started making these videos, we didn't have a ceasefire. I'm really interested in how you perceive the ceasefire. How do you see it? Where do you see it going? What should we be actively thinking in relation to the ceasefire?

Dr. Yousef: So much, of course, I'm grateful for a ceasefire. However, this ceasefire is very fragile, and I would say it's very superficial. In theological terms and even biblical terms, I would consider it such as Pax Romana, which is Rome's peace that came through power, domination and even genocide. It didn't come through peace. And we see that in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. He brings the gospel of peace.

So the kind of peace that we see in Gaza is actually not a real one. And the past two days, more than 100 people were killed by the Israeli war machine amid a ceasefire. So the ceasefire was created in order to offer Israel a coverage to continue its killing of the Palestinian people with almost no accountability. And this is what President Trump said to Netanyahu in his speech in the Israeli Knesset. Trump was rescuing Netanyahu from himself and Israeli war machine by allowing them some coverage under the peace plan.

The Palestinians in Gaza, Hamas and Jihad and others fulfilled their part of the agreement in terms of giving up all the Israeli living hostages and attempting to collect the remains of those who were deceased and to pass them to the Israelis. Israel agreed on those terms and agreed also to allow 600 to 700 trucks of aid to Gaza every day. But since day one, Israel didn't allow that number into Gaza. The maximum number of trucks that was allowed to Gaza, I believe, was 300, so half of the amount agreed upon. But also Israel continues to attack parts of Gaza City, not allowing people to return to certain parts of their homes. They demolished nearly 80% to 90% of all the residential buildings in Gaza City, making Gaza unlivable even in what's called time of ceasefire.

So I'm afraid that the world celebrated the ceasefire unknowingly that Israel continues with a genocide in Gaza, not only that, but also advancing its plan to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people from their hometown.

Bishop Justin: In closing, then, what should we as Christians in Aotearoa do in relation to Israel, Palestine, Gaza, going forward, understanding that there is a so-called peace ceasefire. But what should we be trying to advocate for or being aware of going forward?

Dr. Yousef: Well, yes, I think as Christians, we are first and foremost called to be ambassadors of peace and reconciliation. This is our obligation, and to be ambassadors of peace and reconciliation is to understand that Palestinians are people created in the image of God, and they are loved by God, and deserve to live in liberty, freedom and with dignity. Just to have this basic understanding that Palestinian people are human beings who deserve to live freely.

And for the responsibility of the Christian community in New Zealand, but also beyond, is to be ambassadors of peace and reconciliation, not those who benefit from war and advocate for war and genocide. More practical points: I argue for people to pray and learn, and I prefer prayers to be loud. Prayers as act of protest against those governments who support the genocide, support injustice. I ask people to go and pray loudly in PM's offices who support the Zionist war machine and Israeli genocide in Gaza. Very loud. Let them know that you are protesting in your prayers.

Learn more about what's happening in Palestine. Don't turn a blind eye. Friends and I, we decided, since early days of the genocide, not to unsee any graphic videos or pictures, because we want our heart to continue to be tendered to those who are wounded and those who are killed, even in the ugliest ways. So don't turn a blind eye to these pictures and videos. I know some people have soft hearts, and we all should have soft hearts, but we need to keep and guard our hearts, because when we turn the blind eyes to these kind of violence and brutality, we assume that they don't exist anymore, and we allow ourselves to forget about them. So please, please stay reminded of what's happening in Gaza.

Third, I think governments reflect the nations in many ways, and they are supposed, I assume, in your democratic world, governments should reflect the desires of their nations. So elect people who would actually support the Palestinians' right for self-determination. This is a very important part of it.

And finally, come and see us, come and be with us, here in Palestine. Cole was here. And I believe that those who come to visit Palestine and listen to us and observe our experience and be part of it, will understand the depth of the reality here and the Israeli brutality that we experience on a daily basis.

Bishop Justin: I wonder, Dr. Yousef, one of the challenges that I experience in the world that I inhabit, and in one of your points, which was actually watch, not turning away from the graphicness of it, I suppose, the challenge that I experience is we all inhabit now different news feeds and algorithms. So the people I know who probably are more Zionist orientated, they're feeding themselves the graphic news feeds which tell a different story, and they are feeding news feeds constantly of a reverse narrative to this. And so we're not even on the same images. We're living in different times, I mean, literally, I had an email where somebody said, I can't remember what it was, we're talking about the comment around the United Nations had come out and said there was genocide. What was happening was genocide. And I had somebody email me and say, no, that's not true. On TikTok, we can see that there are cafes opening up in Gaza. Now we've got the UN versus TikTok.

Again, I'm not doing that to belittle somebody. I'm doing that to say this is a big problem, because we are getting our information from completely different places, and I'm often on these conversations where it's like we just live in completely different worlds because of the news we're getting. So the reality is many people won't even be present to this conversation because their news feeds don't allow them to be present to this conversation.

Dr. Yousef: People, unfortunately, don't ask themselves, who's influencing their feeds? Who owns these platforms? And I think just looking up, Netanyahu is meeting with influencers in the US. During the General Assembly meeting, he was bluntly clear that they are buying TikTok. They are advocating with Twitter/X to push Israeli propaganda. So people are believing what they are believing, and what is pushed on them is pure Israeli propaganda.

And by the way, there is also an issue with the whole idea of how people define genocide. Most of the people who say it's not a genocide, ask them, okay, what's the definition of genocide? And most probably, they are fed with an Israeli definition of genocide. There is one that only applies genocide to gas chambers and experiences such as the Holocaust. But not all genocides looked like the Holocaust, and what the Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing is a genocide, not only a genocide, but also actually multi-dimensions of genocidal acts.

One of them is, and I call it, and I published papers about it, is Ecclesialcide, the destruction of the church in Gaza, because we lost 5% of the Christian population killed by Israel. We lost more than 45% of the Palestinian Christian population in Gaza because they were forced out of their hometowns by the Israeli military and the Israeli genocide in Gaza. These are genocidal acts, and I think people need to educate themselves better and more.

Something that I do regularly, and my wife hates, is I'm listening to people that I disagree the most with. Like every day, I spend time listening to people that I disagree with the most, because I need to learn. I need to think, oh, there are different perspectives around me, and I need to learn what's happening. And unfortunately, people are not bothering themselves even to look to the other side, but we must.

And foremost, I would like to say, as Christians, we are to be informed not by whatever platform of news we prefer, but we are supposed to be transformed by the good news of Jesus.

Bishop Justin: Thank you for your time. We deeply appreciate, we've gone a little bit over time, but there was so much richness in that conversation. I feel embarrassed. Normally, when we finish one of these, I ask the person to pray for us, even though your world needs so much more prayer than our world. It's the same world, but if you know what I mean. So I wonder if we can ask you to pray for, maybe for us and for the courage of God, the Spirit of God, to mobilise the church, to be present in these situations.

Dr. Yousef: So it's an honour to do so. Dear Lord, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Lord, we know that you are a just and loving God. We know that you care for your creation and love all people. Lord, my prayer is not only for Palestine and the Palestinian people, but also for the people of New Zealand and the church of New Zealand. May they live by your word, may they have the prophetic courage to speak truth to power, may they proclaim the good news of Jesus and embody it to their community and beyond.

At this time, Lord, I'm thankful, deeply thankful for Justin, and Cole and all those prophets in New Zealand who've been speaking up and been advocating and protesting. Lord, may your kingdom come and will be done in New Zealand, in Palestine and beyond, in Jesus' name.