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.
. . .
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.
Yeah no shit Hamas is an authoritarian corrupt movement. That still doesn’t justify the genocide on Palestinians and the apartheid, occupation and systematic rape, abuse, torture, and also the Israeli mass surveillance that is used to blackmail people or even track them down to murder them.
If anything Hamas is the product of the systematic marginalization and humiliation of the Palestinians
If anything, it makes the current conflict even worse: Not only have gazans been forced to suffer from israeli occupation, they have also been systematically oppressed by Hamas and now they’re being slaughtered for their sake. I wouldn’t be surprised if this pushed more people towards Hamas or other terrorist organizations in the long run.
They’re being slaughtered because the goal of israel is to ethnically cleanse Gaza and expand the israeli Lebensraum.
Hamas is not the target, just the excuse.
Yeah. There’s, sadly, room in the world for more than one murderous government. I also have no doubt that, if Hamas had the opportunity, they would kill all Israelis. But that is still no excuse for the ongoing slaughter the IDF is committing. An atrocity remains an atrocity.
Looks like there’s a multi-pronged attempt to shift the narrative to “see? Hamas is bad, so Israel is justified” today based on articles being posted.
People say the same thing literally any time there’s a negative story about Hamas. That isn’t how this story is framed. Israeli policy (blockade) and military are not portrayed as a relative good at all. It also speaks directly against a narrative by some Israelis that Palestinians bear collective responsibility for the actions of Hamas.
The idea that we must help Hamas cover up their crimes is a bad one, however well-intentioned. If they don’t want their crimes and misdeeds reported by the world, they should consider not committing any.
Some people can’t think critically nor handle any nuance. It needs to be black and white for them, which is why they can’t fathom a world where people recognize that Hamas is trash without also thinking Israel is justified.
The irony being that their thought process is identical to the people who claim any criticism of Israel is anti semitism.
The position that this article somehow benefits Gaza is undermined by the fact that all the sources are from the IDF. There is little difference between this article and your local newspaper uncritically reprinting the police departments press releases.
“Their unelected leadership was spying on Palestinians, hence we’re justified in mass murdering Palestinians to get them”
I mean, it’s the kind of excuse that worked for America’s invasion of Iraq to the point that even nowadays there are still plenty of useful idiots justifying the resulting estimated 1.4 million Iraqui dead with “Saddam was a murderous dictator” (and yet in all those years caused 1/100 of the deaths America did in far less time)
As long as people keep falling for any old bollocks then any old bollocks is exactly what they will be given
We can talk all day about how bad Israel is, but these guys aren’t good guys either
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No.
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Literal terrorists? Gtfoh
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Jesus get lost kid
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😂😂
You’re just a stupid child, not even worth a counter argument. Go back to school little boy
Still no. Hamas lied about the numbers. Gona have to realize that at some point, hamas lies about everything.
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This dipshit is probably an edgy teenager. Not even worth engaging with people like this
Hamas or not, Israel has gone too far.
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.
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.
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.
Oh, look, a Look-over-there New York Times article about how it’s the merelly authoritarian on the “other” side that are worse than the full blown Genocidal Fascists murdering an entire population - men, women and children, lots and lots of children - whilst claiming they’re only going after said autoritarians.
I did NAZI that coming.
Oh look New York Times is trying to win another Pullitzer Prize.
Reminder that Leaked NYT Gaza Memo Tells Journalists to Avoid Words “Genocide,” “Ethnic Cleansing,” and “Occupied Territory”
Running a hamas hit piece during Israel’s genocide. You know it’s going to be legacy media.
Regardless of how bad Israel is, Hamas is trash. Are we just supposed to pretend or ignore this fact because we are disgusted by Israel?
Americans have to take a side and treat everything like sports, didn’t you know?
How do you know the poster is American?
It just doesn’t seem like the most relevant headline right now, “Hamas still also bad” is a bit water is wet.
“This just in: the run of the mill authoritarians on the ‘other’ side are bad” while a new bunch of Nazis are aiming at a new Holocaust of an entire population.
It all has the heavy stink of the pro-Holocaust propagandists desperatelly trying to distract public opinion with a bit of whataboutism.
The article talks about how a lot of what was going on was “largely unknown.” This is quite literally new information were hearing about in this piece.
Everyday we hear about the horrors Israel is inflicting on Palestine, that’s certainly a “water is wet” thing right now. I hope you don’t think they should stop reporting on this.
What are you talking about? The article includes new information that has been uncovered, it’s far from “Hamas is also still bad”. Do you think they shouldn’t report new information on Hamas?
Has NYT only just figured out now that the nuance was never in Hamas being “the good guys” or not?
Hamas may be better than Israel right now in that they’re not actively pulling a genocide, but nobody apart from Hamas thinks Hamas are really the good guys in this - but Hamas being a horrid government doesn’t then somehow justify Israel’s genocide against the “Everyday Palestinians” Hamas are oppressing.Paywall and the archive doesn’t work…
But it sounds like this was pretty tame compared to other countries.
Shit, Israel goes into Gaza and abducts people for torture and long imprisonment without charges based on social media and claimed statements to informants…
And this says Hamas followed people to see if they were having an affair?
And kept files on people? Some journalists?
Hasn’t Israel killed more journalists than even Russia the last couple years?
I don’t see what’s surprising or concerning here. And I don’t see where the article is getting their info either. Are they just repeating IDF propaganda again?
Nevermind, I googled it.
The author is from multiple propaganda outlets in Israel, and belongs to pro-Israel “think tank”…
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/experts/adam-rasgon
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Institute_for_Near_East_Policy
Although WINEP plays down its links to Israel and claims that it provides a ‘balanced and realistic’ perspective on Middle East issues, this is not the case. In fact, WINEP is funded and run by individuals who are deeply committed to advancing Israel’s agenda … Many of its personnel are genuine scholars or experienced former officials, but they are hardly neutral observers on most Middle East issues and there is little diversity of views within WINEP’s ranks."[43]
Not only funded by AIPAC, but started be people with a bunch of AIPAC connections.
The Israeli Shin Bet does pretty much the same domestic espionage and there’s rightwing patrols in ultra orthodox neighborhoods as well monitoring for illicit relationships etc.
I’d be more surprised by a country that’s didn’t spy on it’s population.
The archive link is good, but archive.is is having performance problems today.
Governments spy on their own citizens? This is more shocking than learning Ivy League unis give preference to legacy students
Oh my god that’s awful.
Nearly as bad as an agency that does that to their own people and that of another nation.
Not seeing a lot of similar articles about Shin Bet though. Wonder why…
The NYT is garbage state propaganda with no more journalistic credibility than the Enquirer
Please. Of course the NYT are far from infallible, but “no more journalistic credibility than the Enquirer” is just a ridiculous statement. There’s a lot to criticize about their reporting on Gaza, but at the same time they’ve published some of the rawest and most eye-opening coverage of the situation in Gaza I’ve come across.
The NYT definitely has problems, but saying it has the same credibility as the Enquirer just makes you look ill informed. 🤡
Oh look, the NYT manufacturing consent for the military industrial complex. What a surprise.
Two things can be true at once. Israel can be violating human rights with their war in Gaza, and Hamas can be an oppressive piece of shit.
This is a false equivalency. The NYT has historically been complicit in manufacturing consent for US foreign policy interests with coverage framing and agenda-setting. By choosing what stories to cover and how to cover them, they can promote certain perspectives while downplaying others. Another user in this thread already pointed out that the author of this article is a pro-Israel propagandist.
yeah nobody remind em of the WMD fiasco
I feel like some internal US whataboutisms would actually be appropriate here.
