Since Hamas launched its devastating attack on Israel, one of the common arguments found on social media is that this was in fact an act of resistance. In this narrative, Hamas is framed as a group of freedom fighters, inherently rooted in the local population, struggling for freedom from a stronger power.
It is a romanticised view of the group that seeks to place it in a tradition of what many would consider to be legitimate violence, following from precedents like the Irish Republican Army of the early 1900s or the Viet Cong’s fight against the US army.
It is an argument that has been commonly deployed by sections of the left who, in their eagerness to support the Palestinian cause or to cast Israel as the absolute villains of the story, have chosen to skate over the true nature of Hamas.
Hamas is not a noble rebellion in the name of truth, democracy and freedom. It is an Islamist, anti-Semitic group that fights to establish a theocratic state. Their aim is to create a Tehran-on-sea; a society devoid of human rights, intolerant of minorities and repressive towards women, with no political freedom and harsh persecution against dissenters.
Were this truly an army of guerilla fighters engaged in a liberation war, we could at least identify military goals and strategies. But where is the military value in kidnapping and murdering civilians? Where is the military value in butchering people attending a music concert?
The deliberate targeting of civilians and the indiscriminate use of violence in the name of political ideology is not an ambiguous act; it is terrorism.
For external supporters of Palestinian freedom, recognising and, if necessary, reconciling with this fact is the single most important thing that can be done to help the Palestinian cause.
It does not mean excusing the acts committed by certain Israeli governments or pretending that there is no occupation or repression of Palestinians. But it does mean understanding that not all acts committed in the name of Palestine are intrinsically good.
For if Hamas is given its desire, its crimes whitewashed by the suffering of others, and allowed to be the standard bearer of all Palestinians, then international support for Palestinians will only decline.
Already in the wake of this attack we have seen many European countries suspend aid to Gaza and the EU will review all the support it gives to the Palestinian territories. From being a controversial and divisive issue, support for Palestinians could become impossible if it becomes entwined with support for terrorism.
We may be standing on the precipice of total international isolation for Palestinians.
And if events unfold in that way, then it will be a gift to the far-right and Islamophobic forces around the world who truly desire to see Palestine erased as a political entity, submerged under a total occupation by Israeli forces.
Indeed, it is for this very reason that these groups are the only others who also join in with the practice of conjoining Hamas with broader Palestinian society, seeing it as the perfect justification for much more extensive attacks.
Palestinians, just like Israelis, have the right to a free and independent state, without fear of violence of persecution. They even have a limited right to resistance, both with and without violence, against external oppression. But there is no basis in ethics or international norms for unlimited aggression against civilians and non-military targets.
If the Palestinian liberation movement is to be successful, then one part of that is for external actors to call out the extremist elements of that movement, to combine support for Palestinian democracy with a zero tolerance approach towards terrorism. Excusing or defending that terrorism is nothing but a route to failure.