Transcript

Alex Kane: Hi, I’m Alex Kane, the senior reporter at Jewish Currents. The following bonus episode is from our friends at the Israel/Palestine-focused podcast, unsettled. In unsettled, producer Ilana Levinson interviews Tareq Baconi, the author of the book Hamas Contained: the Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance. It’s an insightful analysis of Israel’s brazen assassination of Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, and what the killing means for ceasefire talks.

But before we get into that, one last thing: Jewish Currents’ themed issue on the state of Florida is coming out soon. We’re offering a special deal for On the Nose listeners. Subscribe to the magazine using the all caps code ONTHENOSE50—that’s ONTHENOSE50 in all caps—and get 50% off our normal subscription rate. The Florida issue is a deep look at the past and present of the Sunshine State and its role as ground zero of ascended American autocracy. We dive deep into the Florida that Governor Ron DeSantis has remade in his image—a laboratory for the multifarious designs of the right—and consider the ways that these cruel innovations threaten us all. Alright, here’s Ilana interviewing Tareq,

Ilana Levinson: So it’s a couple days now after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh. What was your initial reaction to that news?

Tareq Baconi: My initial reaction took me back to 2003 and the Second Intifada, this moment in time when I was doing my research where I was going through all of the movement’s documentation. I saw that there was this moment in time when they were very close to a ceasefire in 2003, and Hamas was pulling back from its campaigns of suicide bombings, and there were all these negotiations to try to implement a ceasefire, and the main interlocutor in those negotiations was a Hamas senior leader called Ismail Abu Shanab. And literally hours before a ceasefire was reached, he was executed by the Israelis. And I remember, when I was doing the research, thinking there’s no bigger proof to show that the Israeli regime—at the time, under Ariel Sharon’s leadership—there’s no bigger proof that they’re really trying to undermine any kind of ceasefire from being reached. Because here’s a movement that’s really trying to push its military wing in the direction of some kind of ceasefire, for whatever temporary period it would have been, and then the main interlocutor is taken out.

Fast forward 21 years, and it’s exactly the same. You have this regime, now under Benjamin Netanyahu, taking out the key interlocutor. And so my immediate reaction was actually dismay, because I’d known that there’s no chance that the Netanyahu government wants a ceasefire; to see it so brazenly executed in terms of taking out the key negotiator on the other side, and doing that in an outright declaration of war by invading the sovereignty of another state—It felt very, very familiar but also really destabilizing. It was this immediate recognition that this is what they’re doing to make sure that there’s no ceasefire, so the genocide will continue for some time.

IL: Who was Ismail Haniyeh? What did he care about and how did he rise to power?

TB: Ismail Haniyeh has a long history within the movement, so he was actually one of the people who was very close to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin is the founder of the movement and the spiritual leader of the movement. So throughout the early ’80s and ’90s, he really was the anchor, spiritually, for all of the people who were joining what was then a very young movement. Ismail Haniyeh was, in many ways, his right-hand man, someone who was close to him and actually survived one of the assassination attempts against Sheikh Yassin. I do think that he was popular but in a quieter way, if that makes sense. People viewed him as someone who was quite humble and very much of the community that he was in. He was born and raised in the al-Shati refugee camp, and he continued to live there, even as he became more senior in Hamas. But in many ways, he’s also someone who’s been overshadowed, at least until recently, by two characters: One being Yahya Sinwar, and the kind of power that he has and the command that he has of the military wing; and Khaled Mashal, who has a very powerful persona, is a very charismatic leader, and was, at least on the diplomatic stage, certainly regionally, the face of Hamas for many years.

And so when Ismail Haniyeh came to the position he was in when he was executed, as the leader of the political wing, he really had big shoes to fill in terms of operating between figures like Khaled Mashal and Yahya Sinwar and others. But I think that he’s been very adept, actually, in his role at managing the different centers of gravity in Hamas—so between strengthening the military wing in the Gaza Strip, and for the past few years, from his base in Doha, being part of the political leadership. And I think he’s also someone who, especially now after his execution, has a very symbolic resonance for Palestinians because most of his family has been wiped out by Israeli execution—so his children and his grandchildren. And this is obviously a Palestinian story in Gaza: that families are erased, whole families at a time. So he also becomes the symbol of the ongoing Nakba; that he’s not only executed as a leader—his children are all executed. His grandchildren are all executed. This becomes also very symbolic in terms of what he’s giving for the struggle. If we’re looking at the kind of response that his execution has brought up, I do think that his popularity can’t be denied. Now we see masses in the thousands—and not just among Palestinians, but in places like Doha, and Istanbul, and Amman—and so I do think that he was obviously seen as the lynchpin of the movement, at least outwardly, in terms of its diplomatic potential and capabilities.

IL: What has been the Palestinian public’s response to his assassination?

TB: So I’d say there’s a few things that are happening. One is that there’s a lot of tension in the region. People are really nervous about where this takes us, both in Palestine and beyond. I think there’s this idea that the Israeli regime is really trying to push the region into outright war and is trying to do that in a way that implicates the US directly—that there are options for a ceasefire on the table, and instead of that, we have attacks on two other sovereign states, and really quite brazen attacks at that. I think the region is very tense. So I think there’s fear. I think there’s grief, as they said, about who Ismail Haniyeh was but also what he represents—the fact that not only are all families being erased but also leaders who are at the head of these movements that are engaged in fighting back against the genocide. They’re being executed.

And I think there’s just a sense of wondering when and what kind of resolution will be forthcoming. I’m not the only one who thinks that this was a very clear message that the Israelis don’t want a ceasefire. And so there’s this sinking feeling, collectively, about: What does this mean? Does this mean more months of this assault? What would that look like? How much more can people take? I think everyone was hoping for this ceasefire moment, even though it’s very clear that the hope that people had in the first few months has given way to a lot of skepticism and a sense that this is transitioning into a war of attrition. And I also think it’s not a coincidence that we see now, also, more calls for resistance, and more calls for some old, and more calls for fighting back. And I think this is why these executions fail: because I think it heightens people’s resolve to fight back.

IL: And is that how we should understand the objectives of the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh—to throw a wrench in these peace negotiations? Or what objectives might Israel have in assassinating Ismail Haniyeh?

TB: So the objective that’s declared, and the one that the Israeli regime would make, is that this is how they weaken Hamas: by executing its top leadership, but also by executing people who were involved in October 7. And I have a lot of thoughts about the level of involvement of someone like Ismail Haniyeh—which we don’t have to get into—but that’s the claim that they will put forward: that this is their effort to try to weaken Hamas. And this is, of course, the objective that Netanyahu has declared from the beginning: that there will be no ceasefire, at least no permanent ceasefire, until Hamas is completely weakened, and it is no longer the party in charge of governing the Gaza Strip. So that would be the military objective that would be declared by Netanyahu’s government.

However, we know two things. A: We know that Hamas, as an organization, as with other anti-colonial organizations, are very capable of surviving and resurrecting a new kind of leadership and surviving this kind of blow. Generally, extra-judicial assassinations of this nature don’t work on anti-colonial movements. And in Hamas’s case, we have proof: In 2003 and 2004, going back to the period I was just talking about, the Israeli regime executed Sheikh Yassin, Abdul Aziz al-Rantisi—and that happened immediately after the execution of Ismail Abu Shanab. Those are the cofounders of Hamas, the top leadership. Less than 18 months later, Hamas was sweeping in democratic elections, was sweeping into victory. So the idea that this weakens Hamas is just nonsensical. A new leadership will be produced, and this will create a martyr out of Ismail Haniyeh and will strengthen the resistance in some ways.

So even though that’s a declared objective of the Israeli regime, I don’t think, tactically, it’s accurate. And so from my reading, the objective of weakening Hamas is one that even the Israeli military establishment understands to be untrue, or at least far-fetched, that Hamas could be completely dismantled. And so I take those objectives, or those declared objectives, with a grain of salt. I do think that, for someone like Netanyahu, the far more paramount objective is undermining ceasefire negotiations. So this way, there’s no deal on the table that he or his government can be pushed into. All of the internal policymaking that he has to do to maintain this coalition (which is a very fragile coalition) intact, and now, he doesn’t need to bring a ceasefire deal to them. The key interlocutor on the other side has been removed, so he’s relatively free to maintain the genocide until something else obstructs that policy. I don’t see what that could be in the immediate sense.

IL: And you started to say that you had some doubts about the involvement of Ismail Haniyeh in the October 7 attacks. I’d love for you to say more about those doubts and why you think they’re important, because I think a lot of people don’t understand the ways that Hamas has a military wing and a political arm, as well. And so, it is important that Ismail Haniyeh was the political leader of Hamas. Does that matter?

TB: Yes, it does. It does matter. Based on my understanding of how the movement functions, especially after the campaign of extrajudicial executions that I was just talking about. During the Second Intifada and afterwards, the movement took a number of decisions in terms of restructuring how the organization functions. One of them is that the military wing is a more clandestine part of the organization, so it’s underground. What that means is that the movement continues to be a very democratic movement. So the strategic decisions are made at the highest level in a way that includes all the different constituencies. The military wing, the prisoners, those on the inside, those on the outside, the political wing; they all collectively agree on the strategy of the movement. Should they be pursuing a ceasefire? Should they be escalating? Should they be trying to take some kind of strategic intervention? Those decisions are made collectively, but the execution of those decisions by the military wing is only the purview of the military wing.

So if that is correct, my reading of how the decisions happened on October 7 was that some months or years before October 7, the movement collectively would have decided that there is no point in remaining stuck in the equilibrium that had been established with the Israeli regime since 2007, since that blockade. Therefore, the movement should go on the offensive, in some kind of manner, that would challenge that blockade, or challenge that equilibrium. That decision, Ismail Haniyeh, as the head of the political wing, would have been firmly a part of. What that operation would have been and how that operation would have been executed, I don’t think Ismail Haniyeh or the political wing would have had any knowledge of.

IL: And so why does that matter, in terms of his assassination? Why should we take that into account?

TB: Well, I guess two reasons. First reason is you’re taking out leaders who are on the political side of things, who could be providing input for the movement writ large (including the military wing) on different kinds of strategies and policies. They are the constituency that would be needed to lobby internally for a ceasefire. So you’re essentially saying that those leaders who are in charge of putting forward the diplomatic face of Hamas, or are the politicians who would be needed to bring Hamas into a moment of pulling back or a moment of restraint, you’re taking those out. You’re essentially saying that we have no strategy of engaging with the movement politically or diplomatically. This is only a military game for us. So it’s shifting the balance of power internally for Hamas to the military wing, that’s basically also increasingly understanding this to be only a military game.

IL: So what does this mean for the ceasefire talks?

TB: I don’t think there are ceasefire talks that are going to produce any kind of real resolution. Look, the ceasefire negotiations were already at a stalemate before any execution. The main stumbling block was that any resolution towards a ceasefire from the Israeli side had to be temporary because there could be no real discussion of a permanent ceasefire until Hamas was, essentially, entirely dismantled (which is an unachievable goal). And for Hamas, there would be no reason for them to accept a temporary ceasefire, and give up all the captives, and give up all of their cards, if they know that the intent on the other side is to continue the genocide as soon as that term ends.

So that block, that gap between the two negotiating parties, for me, was already unbridgeable. As far as I was reading the ceasefire negotiations, I thought that the only way for success would be for the Israeli government to recognize that the objective of completely destroying Hamas is unachievable, and for them to hit the movement strongly enough in a manner that they can then say: Look, the movement has been irreparably damaged, now we can, we can redefine what destroying Hamas means, and suggest that this is what we’ve always meant, and accept some kind of permanent ceasefire. Until we got to that place, I didn’t think that there could be any kind of actual ceasefire on the table.

Now the Israelis might come and say: Well, we have just dealt that blow to Hamas, we have really weakened them with Ismail Haniyeh’s departure, so now Hamas will have to come to the table and accept a temporary ceasefire, or even show that the permanent ceasefire is now possible if they lay down their arms. But that’s not the reality on the military front. It’s very clear that Hamas still has fighting capabilities, and it’s still clear that the Israelis believe that they need to be dealing more blows to Hamas. The past week has been one of the bloodiest since October 7. It doesn’t seem to me that the Israelis have really moved in the direction of thinking that this is one way of achieving a ceasefire. So it just confirms my suspicions, at least, that the intention from this was always to undermine the ceasefire negotiations, and maintain a strong military offensive, and to continue in the pursuit of this goal of destroying Hamas.

IL: Iran has vowed to retaliate for the assassination of Haniyeh on their soil. What do you think that will look like, and are we nearing a regional war?

TB: I mean, I think it’s very difficult to say anything with any degree of certainty now, but I do think that we are nearer to a regional escalation than we have been in the past. I think the attack that Israel did was a brazen declaration of war. And I think the fact that even though it was that kind of act that a country like the US is saying “Now we must mobilize to act in Israel’s right to self-defense,” is a warped view of what just happened. We have a country that’s carrying out the declaration of war, and suddenly, it’s a country that has to act in self-defense.

It’s incredible to me, this double-speak and this continued American trust to maintain Israel’s ability to act with no accountability and with full impunity. It’s pouring fuel on fire. So I do think that we are in a very risky and very tense situation at the moment. I continue to believe that neither Hezbollah nor Iran wants a full regional war, and for a long time, I thought that Israel doesn’t want a regional war either because its military is already overstretched and because they haven’t been able to achieve their goals in Gaza. But I cannot square that assumption about the Israelis with what just happened in terms of the execution of Ismael. It leaves me thinking that actually, at least on the level of Benjamin Netanyahu, there is a desire to expand this, and to escalate this, and maybe even to actually embroil the US into an all-out configuration. I imagine that the Iranians or Hezbollah would still try to retaliate. I do think they will have to, in a way that allows them to still push back against a full war. But nothing that’s coming out of the rhetoric from the Israelis or Americans gives me any sense that they are on the same page of wanting to avoid a regional escalation.

IL: Hamas had been signaling in recent weeks the desire to enter into a unity government with its long-time rival, Fatah. What does this mean for the future of those plans? And how do you understand those plans in general?

TB: I think those plans—I approach them with a certain degree of skepticism, but I also am very grateful that these conversations are still happening. So the skepticism is that these plans, in some ways, are still happening within the context of the unity governments within the Palestinian Authority—which, as far as I’m concerned, is an institution that’s a central pillar of Israeli apartheid. So as long as we continue to be confined to the Palestinian Authority, I think we are undermining our capability as a people to resist colonization and to resist Israeli apartheid. And we’ve been here before. We’ve seen reconciliation talks in the past before, which don’t necessarily lead to anything. But there are two things for me that are points of encouragement. Number one is the fact that this was moderated by China, which, in some ways, is suggesting that there is an international stage and international players that are weakening the American stranglehold on Palestinian politics. Because we know that the US is interested only in providing impunity to the Israeli regime, and so we’re beginning to see countries that are pushing back. And we see that in the form of South Africa taking the lead at the ICJ; Namibia taking out the German position in terms of fighting back against charges of genocide; and then we see China rising to provide a possible platform for engagement on the international stage with the Palestinian file. So that, for me, is something that we should be watching quite closely.

TB: And the other is in the text of the reconciliation agreement itself,—the spirit of which I agree with. The Palestinian factions do need to transcend their differences and come back into some kind of unified position. But in the text of the agreement itself, they reaffirmed two rights that, for me, are at the heart of the Palestinian struggle for liberation. The first is UN Resolution 194, which is the right of return for Palestinian refugees, and the second is the right to self-determination. And so both of these: the right to return and the right of self-determination? That’s everything. That’s what the Palestinian struggle is. We want to go back into a non-partitioned Palestine, and we want justice. And so that gives the political tools for us to begin expanding into a form of unity that transcends just the Palestinian Authority and starts operating on the level of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, on the level of liberation for the entirety of the people. And so I think, as Palestinians, this is our biggest challenge now. How do we build the political platform that unites all the parties around our red lines? And our red lines are clear: It’s one people fighting for one land, and we’re all united in struggle for that goal. And so if we begin to develop the political messaging and the political apparatus around those points, then I think we begin moving in the right direction.

IL: I’m hearing you talking about one people fighting for one land, and I’m just thinking about how it seems like that is also Israel’s objective: to fight for one land. And as we’re getting further and further away from ceasefire negotiations, I’m just wondering if this ever ends. Do we ever get a ceasefire?

TB: I think that’s a really solid point, and I think it’s really important to unpack it. I think that there is no middle ground in the moment that we’re in now. There’s no going back to a status quo of talking about partitioning the land into two states or going back into some middling reality. I think there’s only two outcomes from this moment in time, and I think the Israeli political establishment (and especially the right-wing political parties) understands very well: that the two outcomes are either the full extermination of Palestinians and the full expulsion of Palestine—so maintaining a Jewish supremacist regime from the river to the sea—or (and this is the outcome that I’m fighting for) fighting for a political reality between the river and the sea that is just, and that is grounded in values of equality and freedom, and that’s inclusive, and that’s able to provide a just future for the people living in that space.

And so if we’re looking at the goals, I do think that yes, absolutely, the Zionists will come out and say: We’re one people fighting for this land. They’re very clear, also, about what their vision is. Their vision is a Jewish supremacist state. And that’s not the vision that I ascribe to when I talk about one people fighting for one land. What I’m talking about is an inclusive vision that’s grounded in decolonial values. It’s a vision that is dismantling the regime of supremacy and providing a more just political framework for people to live in that space. And it’s also a political program that is inspired by other anti-colonial struggles. What does it mean to move from this moment of ugliness, and colonialism, and death, and genocide, and put forward a vision, and a political message, and a political narrative that is grounded in values of justice? That language, for me, is language that’s pushing back against the idea that Palestine can be divided into two states, or that we can be fragmented into many people. It’s to push back against a century of colonialism in Palestine, and to try to heal; to try to heal the people, to overcome the fragmentation that’s been imposed on them, but also to to heal the land. To think of this land as a singular entity or a singular land and to imagine what a new life could look like on that. So, yes, I think that we’re both, in terms of one people for one land, coming at this in similar narratives, but I think the values embedded in that are very different.

IL: As you look to the future, as you continue to watch these events unfold, what are you looking at?

TB: Honestly now, and for the past 10 months, it’s this almost impossible balancing act of wanting very urgently and working very urgently in a very limited and extremely ineffective capacity to try to contribute to a ceasefire, to ending the genocide, and to beginning to get to a place where Palestinians can catch their breath (especially those in Gaza), and can begin to recover from the darkness of the past 10 months. And this is something I think we’ll be living with and unpacking for the rest of our lives, as Palestinians—and not just Palestinians, as allies, also, who watched a genocide live-streamed on our phones. So it’s existing in the urgency of the moment, of trying to end this senseless violence, but also recognizing on a longer-term trajectory. That, yes, this exceeded the violence of the Nakba, but it also completely shattered the paradigm that Israel is invincible, or that the Palestinians have been defeated, or that this is something that the international community or the peoples of the world don’t care about.

We now know: Not only do people care about this, it’s literally mobilizing the globe and every institution and every household. We have immense power. It’s kind of incredible to see so much mobilization, more than I could have ever imagined in my lifetime, and yet see the limitations of that mobilization. And the mobilization not just on the level of grassroots, which is immense and incredible, but also in terms of institutional and diplomatic mobilization, and legal mobilization. What we’re seeing on the ICG, the ICC, the UNGA, the protests that are preventing ships from docking in ports—the level of mobilization is bigger than I could have ever imagined in terms of a movement, and in terms of legal and diplomatic power. And yet, the empire is still very effective at doing what it’s doing, and the Israeli regime is able to maintain a genocide with full impunity and with zero accountability. And I find that staggering. If all of this mobilization is still not bringing this regime to a pause or to a point of reflection, then we really all need to be thinking about how we develop political power more effectively and how we more impactfully or intentionally alter the balance of powers.

I think this is our moment to mobilize for the future that we’ve been fighting for. Because the alternative, I think, is very clearly extermination. So we don’t really have a choice.

IL: On Tuesday, August 6, Hamas named Yahya Sinwar as the replacement for Ismail Haniyeh. Sinwar is credited as the architect for the October 7 attacks, and his rise signals a shift toward a more hardline approach. This week in Gaza, dozens were killed after Israeli attacks on schools, which Israel claims were being used by Hamas.

To hear more from Tareq Baconi, listen to unsettled’s episode about Hamas in our four-part series on Gaza. We also spoke with Tareq in October of 2023 in an episode that was also aired on On the Nose. You can find those episodes in the show notes. This episode was a collaboration between On the Nose and unsettled. It was produced by me, Ilana Levinson, with Emily Bell, Arielle Angel, and Alex Kane. Music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions.

AK: And that’s our show. Thanks so much to Ilana and the team at unsettled. If you like what you heard, check out more unsettled podcast episodes wherever you get your podcasts, or at their website, UnsettledPod.com. And if you like Jewish Currents, you can get more of our work at JewishCurrents.org and by subscribing to the magazine. Don’t forget: Our special Florida issue is coming soon, and you can get 50% off our normal subscription rate by subscribing with the code ONTHENOSE50 in all caps. Thanks for listening—we’ll see you next time.