Secret Hamas Files Show How It Spied on Everyday Palestinians
Secret Hamas Files Show How It Spied on Everyday Palestinians
Hamas monitored political activity, online posts, and apparently even love lives. Palestinians were stuck between an Israeli blockade and a repressive security force.
The Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has for years overseen a secret police force in Gaza that conducted surveillance on everyday Palestinians and built files on young people, journalists and those who questioned the government, according to intelligence officials and a trove of internal documents reviewed by The New York Times.
The unit, known as the General Security Service, relied on a network of Gaza informants, some of whom reported their own neighbors to the police. People landed in security files for attending protests or publicly criticizing Hamas. In some cases, the records suggest that the authorities followed people to determine if they were carrying on romantic relationships outside marriage.
Hamas has long run an oppressive system of governance in Gaza, and many Palestinians there know that security officials watch them closely. But a 62-slide presentation on the activities of the General Security Service, delivered only weeks before the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, reveals the degree to which the largely unknown unit penetrated the lives of Palestinians.
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Everyday Gazans were stuck — behind the wall of Israel’s crippling blockade and under the thumb and constant watch of a security force. That dilemma continues today, with the added threat of Israeli ground troops and airstrikes.
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Everyday Palestinians? What genius propagandist came up with that one? Israel doesn't seem to make the distinction.
My thoughts exactly. Nearly everyone agrees that Hamas is bad; what we object to is the grossly excessive violence being applied to all Palestinians.
When people shout “Free Palestine” they conveniently forget that if there is no check on Hamas, and if Hamas achieves its goal (and destroys Israel and its population), there would be tyrannical Islamist theocracy in its place. I do not know if there is better way to remove Hamas, I am not a military specialist. Biden advocates for precision strikes, but it might be just the election year maneuvering. But I know for sure, that Palestinians will not be free with Hamas in power. And if Israel lives situation as is and removes its troops, the same thing will be repeated again in future with blood on all sides.
I don't know what the solution is either, but I do know that brutalizing and displacing the entire population won't make the average Palestinian friendlier to the Israeli cause. Say what you will about the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but at least they attempted to be more surgical.
Anything else is more surgical than basically unconcentrated carpet bombing of the Gaza cities a few times over. But yeah, at least the U.S. had a bit of "hearts and minds" approach.
The U.S. also had local opposition fighters to help them gain sympathy from the local population, and we were actually trying to nation build.
You can say that Fatah is basically that for Israel, but they aren't fighting in Gaza. If the fighting in Gaza was being done by Fatah, then global perceptions would probably be a lot different.
It would also probably involve less civilian deaths as Fatah would be much less likely just to bomb a neighborhood to get 10 Hamas fighters as opposed to actually fighting for it and taking casualties which is what Israel is currently doing.
Of course, this couldn't happen under the current Israeli government. They barely trust Fatah with enough weapons to be policemen in the West Bank, let alone enough to take a city of 2 million.
"local" is a relative word their "local" fighters were generally ppl from north who didn't even speak pashto who were looking for a paycheck by joining the army , and were seen as foreign usa backed fighters themselves. .The english translators army hired required translators themselves in a lot of the rural areas because they didn't speak pashto just like the westerners. . Thats why they folded and lost very easily once us support ended. They had very few truly "local" fighting force that were from the areas they were supposed to defend. fatah vs hamas conflict inside gaza is a bit more complicated than just language geogrpaphical and cultural barriers and is still ongoing despite peoples opposition to hamas and the current situation.
Yeahhhh Afghanistan was a shitshow. We were actually nation-building, not just nation rebuilding like we did in Iraq, a lot harder to create a national identity out of several tribes and ethnic groups than it is to change/"modernize" a nation like we did in Iraq.
Even Iraq had that issue with the sectarianism, but atleast almost everyone spoke the same language (sorry Kurds). Iraq had also had a national identity beat into them by the monarchy and then the Baathists, which probably helped as well. Afghanistan never really had that.
there are many more tribes languages and groups in iraq though. That is why they are pretty federated as well and usa only controls and occupies certain areas not all of it today. the westerners only know about kurds mostly and don't really understand the differences between other groups ( kurds I think were mentioned heavily in your media during the 80s and again in 2010s ( also they occupy some of the oil rich areas )Not everyone ( yes I know you said almost ) speak the same language or share the same identitity or even the same arabic dialect . From turkmens ( 5-6 mio) to assyrians to the yezids shabaks marsh arabs (7-8 mio) to different sub tribes of same tribes etc... etc... etc. and even more arab groups with totally different world views and politics that come from vastly different regions. so that ALMOST is a big overstatement in terms of how different iraqis are + the fact that you basically gave the country to the iranian backed political groups which forms the backbone of a lot of political parties - security forces and businesses clashing with the rest of the very diverse iraqi society whether shia or sunni.
Yeah I was aware of the other ethnic/religious groups in Iraq, but haven't done enough research into them (except the Yazidis, ISIS made us get exposed to them in the west). I know about the Iraqi kurds and the factionalist fights they have, so it would make sense if the rest of the country was similar.
My point was really that a state structure already existed in Iraq, all the U.S. had to do was seize it while not damaging it too much in the process. (Or doing something stupid like idk firing the entire military and all the teachers and anyone remotely tied to Baathism) Afghanistan would've taken far, far, far, more effort.
the fact that you basically gave the country to the iranian backed political groups which forms the backbone of a lot of political parties - security forces and businesses clashing with the rest of the very diverse iraqi society whether shia or sunni.
Possibly a bigger mistake than invading in the first place. Not completely sure how it could've been avoided without an endless occupation, but there had to have been a better solution than letting them fund opposition groups, and then letting them be one of the key military components against ISIS with the PMF system.
Well the point I am trying to emphasize is the state structure you keep mentioning was already an oppressive subjugation machine created with "to an extent" cia support, favoring certain groups and erasing the culture language and needs of all of the rest (mostly non arabs or not the right kind of arabs) . Because before that there was General Qasim and he wanted to side with social-democrats and the iraqi communist party. That is way he was assassinated in 63 by the ba'athist with cia and egyptian support, back then ba'athist were the more acceptable option for the west and then in 79 Saddam took over did the ba'ath party purge which took the country to full on authoritarianism and severed ties between iraq and syria ( making them both more susceptible to outside intrusions ). There wasn't an identity , just a lot of massacres and people who are afraid of speaking out or acting out ( or their villages got bulldozed gassed.) . Saddam was the state structure it wasn't like some organic thing existed through a shared nationalist identity.
No. Hamas was not popular until Israel stepped up its attacks on Palestinians and the corrupt Abbas and Fatah party did nothing in response.
If you want Hamas to go away, you need to actually empower moderates. Abbas lost all political credibility when he promised Palestinian statehood in exchange for nonviolence and couldn’t deliver. Israeli military opened fire on nonviolent protestors and got no consequences for it. Frustrated, the people turned to rightwing parties. Same as what happened in Israel.
If you want Hamas to stop being popular then you need to stop proving them right. Give people freedoms and security. Because the Israeli government has proved that diplomacy doesn’t work, nonviolence doesn’t work, and protest doesn’t work; the IDF still throws people out of houses and steals land. Abbas offered some deep concessions for peace that made him unpopular with his people (giving up Jerusalem, permanently giving up right of return) and Netanyahu refused without even a counteroffer. He wanted Hamas and rightwing parties to rise so he could justify his violent policies. He intentionally undermined Palestinian moderates and put himself into this mess.
Support for Hamas and other extremist groups is a direct result of generations of oppression in an apartheid state.
The problem is how to separate Hamas from a free Palestine going forward. Hamas claims that they would have no reason to fight if Palestinians get their freedom, and would transition to a peaceful government.
Obviously, that is extremely doubtful given all the other examples in history of militant resistances gaining full control.
I posed this question last time lemmy raised internet pitchforks when the US voted against Palestine joining the UN. Who would represent Palestine? Would people seriously be ok with a Hamas representative speaking for Palestine, or even just the western bank subsect?
who would represent Palestine?
The PLO, just as they are right now and have been for 30 years. Not Hamas.
You fell for the propaganda push I see
No one is asking for Israel to tear down its walls and emplacements when they shout Free Palestine. Ironically, Bibi knowing but still not taking appropriate defensive measures for the Hamas attack on october, assuming he didn't fund and encourage it directly as some of his interactions with Hamas would suggest, is what caused and keeps causing blood on the other side of the border, too.
There are plenty that are calling for exactly that.
In this current rogue and genociding state? Yeah some increase in wanting that. Normally? No, all everyone wants is Israel to stop the genocide and give back most of the land it had stole over the decades, not a disregard for an Israeli state to exist, nor even somewhere completely else if they can share the land fairly.
Priorities. Getting rid of a colonizer is more important right now
The NYT has been shown to be biased against Palestinians, so this, unfortunately, doesn't surprise me anymore. I used to trust the NYT as one of the more trustworthy sources, but am reluctant to give them any traffic anymore. It feels like, at least in the US, the right-wing crazies have won because "mainstream media" (all media, frankly) really is starting to feel untrustworthy.
I strongly dislike nearly everything about this timeline.
I think it’s less “right wing” per se and more that the news networks are corporate conglomerates with a narrative they want to propagate.
They also want to access to the politicians, who are in turn beholden to their donors. The politicians won’t give them access unless the media are willing to also subjugate themselves to the donor class narratives.
I think it’s more about the money on politics and the ruling that corporations are people and money is free speech that is the problem.
I think the media is corporations, which advocative for neoliberal policies in general, and because they want access to the politicians they have to be on board drinking the donor kool aid.
Just an anecdote but I find this doesn't align at all with what I've personally read from the NYT. I've been following their Gaza coverage pretty closely, and I really feel like it's been highlighting the injustice of what's going on quite well. Some of those articles describing the things happening to Palestinians literally brought tears to my eyes.
Their comment sections are pretty consistently full of genocide apologists flaming them for supposedly spreading Hamas propaganda too.
To be honest, I can somewhat understand that a major news outlet would want to avoid words like "genocide" even though I personally think there's no doubt that it's the right word to use. The debate around using these words is too toxic, and using them would quickly tip discourse even further into bullshit semantic arguments, in turn distracting from what's being reported.
Everyday Palestinians = Hamas' meat shields.
Everyday Palestinians = Israeli war crime victims.
They're also victims of Hamas' war crimes, because using civilians as shields and conducting military operations from civilian locations are also war crimes. If Hamas can even be accused of such, being a terror organization rather than a legitimate government.
Hamas is as legitimate a government as any other authoritarian government is.
Israel is certainly acting a terror organisation rather than a legitimate government these days.