“Hamas is an idea.” And you cannot kill an idea.
This is an increasingly popular argument from opponents of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, such as Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.
It is also misleading.
As the Egyptian government demonstrated in its effort to destroy the Muslim Brotherhood, the group that gave rise to Hamas a generation ago, ideas wither without organizations to pursue them.
The Egyptian president and former general, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has spent his decade in office working to suppress the Brotherhood.
His methods are rough and have resulted in sharp condemnation from American progressives.
Yet today the Brotherhood no longer exists in any meaningful form beyond a web page and a few little-known figures claiming to be leaders while living abroad.
Sisi’s thorough decapitation of the group had little to do with winning a war of ideas.
The government arrested Brotherhood leaders and forced some into exile.
It used extensive force against the group’s militant offshoots.
Perhaps most important, it waged a relentless campaign against the Brotherhood’s domestic recruitment sources by shutting down its educational institutions, intercepting funding from abroad and working through state-controlled media to criminalize Brotherhood ideology.
No question, there are still Egyptians who believe in that ideology.
The group spent decades building and indoctrinating a committed base.
But as Cairo squeezed harder and harder, infighting between the Brotherhood’s leaders in the diaspora caused it to splinter.
Israel is fighting the same enemy.
Hamas is an offshoot of the Brotherhood, which was born in Egypt and inspired dozens of radical branches across the Muslim world.
In 2007, Hamas launched a bloody coup against the Palestinian Authority in Gaza.
The clash left 800 Palestinians dead — some executed by being thrown from the top of buildings — but Hamas prevailed decisively.
Hamas’ then-politburo chief, Khaled Meshaal, called it a “military resolution.”
Western leaders often insist various problems have no military solution, but Hamas, like Russian President Vladimir Putin, knows they often do.
After taking Gaza, Hamas was able to use it as a human shield, from behind which it launched five rounds of fighting with Israel, including the Oct. 7 massacre.
Sixteen years under Hamas has been hell for Gazans.