One can be deeply critical of Israeli policies without being an apologist for Hamas. And it is clear that many who protest Israel’s actions or decry its military strategy do not share Hamas’ murderous aims. But there is a harder truth to confront when the world focuses its outrage almost entirely on Israel while giving Hamas only a token rebuke, or none at all.
Because that approach enables the very organization that is the singular obstacle to peace in Gaza.
Hamas is not misunderstood. It is a terrorist organization devoted to death, mayhem and the permanent destruction of Israel. It crushes dissent among its own people, exploits their suffering as political currency and thrives on the misery it creates. No government can live in peace with such a neighbor in power.
The humanitarian disaster in Gaza is undeniable, and Israel’s leadership has often been tone deaf to the political and diplomatic challenges it poses. But the picture is incomplete without acknowledging Hamas’ deliberate role in deepening that disaster. A new report from NGO Monitor, shared with Jewish Insider, details how Hamas has for years controlled the distribution of aid, including millions in cash from U.N. agencies and NGOs funded by European governments, to reinforce the terror group’s grip on power.
Aid recipients have been chosen by Gaza’s Ministry of Social Development, run since 2019 by politburo member Ghazi Hamad, a U.S.-designated terrorist who, after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, promised “a second, a third, a fourth … one-millionth” such attack.
In 2023 alone, the European Union gave nearly $20 million, France over $9 million and Spain nearly $2 million, ostensibly to aid “the most vulnerable families.” In practice, NGO Monitor says, Western donors used the Palestinian Authority’s ministry in Ramallah as a conduit, while Hamas in Gaza decided who got the benefits. Even Oxfam’s own 2022 analysis acknowledged “collaboration” between the PA and Hamas in administering aid.
This is not humanitarian relief — it is political patronage. The BBC reports Hamas has amassed roughly $700 million in cash during the war but paid out only $7 million in salaries. Loyalists get food packages, while the wider population is left scrambling. Hamas even takes “withdrawal fees” of up to 20% from humanitarian cash assistance, turning charity into yet another revenue stream.
Hamas’ strategy is ruthless: keep Gaza desperate. Poverty and despair fuel resentment toward Israel, which Hamas then channels into support for its “resistance.” And international outrage at Israel helps keep money flowing, without meaningful safeguards to prevent Hamas from benefiting.
The result is a global discourse in which Israel is under intense and constant pressure, while Hamas recruits, rearms, restocks and refuses to disarm or relinquish control. That imbalance makes peace harder, not easier.
While criticism of Israel’s next steps in Gaza may be warranted, the failure to apply maximum pressure on Hamas to step aside — and putting in place a mechanism to make that happen — ensures that Gaza’s people will remain trapped in the same destructive cycle.
Justice for Palestinians requires confronting not only Israeli mistakes but also the cynical exploitation by the group that claims to lead them. Turning a blind eye to Hamas is not neutrality. It is enabling. And enabling Hamas is enabling endless war.
