Do you condemn Hamas?

Do you condemn eight decades of Israeli colonialism? Do you condemn the genocide? Do you condemn mass killing, detention, and torture of Palestinians?

I refuse to renounce Palestinian resistance in order to be permitted to speak about decades of Israeli colonization, occupation, and apartheid. The demand functions to shift attention from the oppressor to the oppressed and absolve Israel of responsibility for the conditions that produced resistance in the first place.

Hamas emerged in 1987 as part of the broader Palestinian liberation movement resisting decades of Israeli colonialism and occupation. Palestinian resistance did not begin with Hamas and will continue as long as colonial rule, occupation, and apartheid persist. Demanding otherwise is demanding that Palestinians accept their own subjugation.

Resistance to colonial domination is not only a natural response but also a right explicitly recognized under international law. That recognition was secured through the struggles of anti-colonial movements, which challenged attempts by colonial powers to criminalize and delegitimize their armed liberation struggles.

This claim creates a false equivalence between a nuclear settler-colonial power with one of the most advanced militaries in the world, backed by major global powers, and a colonized people with the right to resist occupation. These are not comparable actors. One enforces an illegal system of domination. The other resists it.

The demand to "condemn Hamas" reveals a racist double standard. When white Europeans resist occupation, they are celebrated, armed, and supported. When colonized peoples in the Global South resist occupation, they are criminalized as terrorists. The difference is not the principle of resistance, but who is resisting and whom they are resisting.

Resistance against colonial rule is not unique to Palestine. From the ANC in South Africa and the FLN in Algeria to the Mau Mau in Kenya, anti-colonial movements repeatedly resorted to armed struggle against their oppressors and were branded "terrorists" in the process. Such labels have historically served colonial interests rather than moral or legal principles.