Hamas has named Yahya Sinwar as new leader after Ismail Haniyeh’s killing in Tehran.
It is widely expected that Iran and Hezbollah will retaliate against Israel. The State Department has refused to acknowledge that Iran has a right to defend itself.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently said: “Nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger even though it might be justified.”
ASSAF KFOURY, kfoury@bu.edu
Kfoury recently wrote the piece “Hamas: From Candidate Enforcer to Implacable Foe,” published by the International Union of Scientists. He acted as translator for Noam Chomsky in their visits to the region, which included meetings with Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah and Hamas leader Haniyeh. Earlier this year, he was featured on the IPA news release “Hamas: A ‘Golem’ that Emerged from Israel’s ‘Divide and Rule’ Strategy.”
Kfoury can address the evolution of Hamas and Hezbollah, and their latest moves. He scrutinizes a number of myths regarding the groups. For example, Joe Biden has claimed that Hamas is “Driven by ancient desire to wipeout the Jewish people off the face of the Earth.”
But the Hamas Charter from 2017 states: “Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.”
See recent pieces from Jeremy Scahill at Drop Site News: “On the Record with Hamas” and “Palestinian Islamic Jihad: ‘Oslo Is Over.’”
See Kfoury’s past pieces including “Meeting Nasrallah” (2006) and “Why Gaza?” (2012). He is editor of Inside Lebanon: Journey to a Shattered Land with Noam and Carol Chomsky.