Hamas’ October 7 massacre of Israelis has left a furious debate in its wake that underpins much of the battle taking place over social media, on newspaper op-ed pages, on college campuses, and in the streets where dueling protesters face off. The basic contours of the debate are whether Hamas simply wants to kill Jews and represents nothing more than a new version of Nazism, or whether there is a context of Israeli actions that led to Hamas’ spree of murder and kidnapping. While the most extreme and odious version of this debate can be seen in the repugnant statements that term Hamas’ terrorist attack as a legitimate response to occupation or colonialism, or diatribes that posit that there is no such thing as an innocent Palestinian, far more measured versions exist. For many, this debate is a binary; Hamas is either a completely irrational group that will never cease killing Israelis no matter what it faces in response, or Hamas represents an extremist iteration of Palestinian nationalism that stems from dispossession dating back to 1948 and occupation dating back to 1967.

Part of the difficulty in putting Hamas into a framework that makes sense is that it is not a run-of-the-mill terrorist group seeking a specific objective. It is a deeply ideological group that is organized around an idea rather than an attainable goal, and that makes its actions harder to decode. While it is tempting to view ideological groups as irrational, this is often not the case. It is that their version of what is rational is so colored by their ideological attachments that it has to be viewed from a different angle.

I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation on ideological authoritarian regimes—think of first-generation Communist states, or Kemalist Turkey—and what influences these regimes’ decisions to transition to democracy. In addition to believing deeply in the political ideology that they promote, ideological authoritarian regimes get their legitimacy from safeguarding the political ideology that they have structured the state around, and they treat the ideology itself as a core interest that supersedes everything else. They view threats to the ideology the way that regular states might view security threats and will protect the ideology at any cost. The very simplified version of my innovation (assuming that I was right!) was that ideological regimes will not transition to democracy unless they believe that the ideology will be protected following the transition, and that they treat ideology so seriously that they prioritize the survival of the ideology above their own survival. In other words, ideological regimes will willingly turn over power to someone else and lose all of their status and privileges if the ideology will live on after them. Without understanding that ideological groups treat their ideology as akin to a material interest—not just trying to fulfill the goals that the ideology expresses, but ensuring that the ideology itself spreads and thrives—it is difficult to understand their behavior.

Hamas is a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot, which makes it different from Fatah or other Palestinian nationalist groups. It has deeply held religious ideological beliefs that guide its actions beyond just wanting a Palestinian state in the entire territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and it is in a constant battle for the hearts and minds of Palestinians to adhere to its vision and beliefs. Its goals are thus not only to grow its own power, but to grow the ranks of those who embrace its particular ideology. Hamas would consider a Palestinian state on the entirety of historic Palestine that is not an Islamic state a loss, even if it was the entity ruling that state. Conversely, an Islamic state on the entirety of historic Palestine would be a win, even—and this part is crucial—if Hamas were not the entity ruling it. In Hamas’ ideal world, it would have its vision fulfilled and it would be in power, but it is the first part of this that is ultimately more important given its ideological commitments.

Hamas’ actions and Israel’s response should be viewed against this backdrop. Hamas’ leaders certainly understood what the consequences would be of its inhumane assault aimed at Israeli civilians, and likely factored in that it would mean Hamas’ military capabilities being severely eroded and even the end of its rule in Gaza. That appears at first glance to render the October 7 attack an irrational decision that had no rhyme or reason behind it other than to kill as many Jews as possible. While it absolutely had killing Jews as a primary goal, it had a larger logic to it as well, since Hamas is counting on Israel’s response to give its ideology a boost, even if it means that its own power will be snuffed out. Hamas is counting on an Israeli military response that inflames Palestinians and pushes them in the direction of more militancy and armed confrontation, but it is also counting on an Israeli political response that cuts off any other viable avenues for Palestinians beyond militancy and armed confrontation. 

When Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich calls for the Palestinian olive harvest in the West Bank to be canceled with military enforcement and for Palestinian-free buffer zones to be established around settlements and major West Bank roads, Hamas knows that its nihilistic ideology is boosted. The same goes when Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu casually suggests that Israel drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza, or when Israeli politicians assert that an election that gave Hamas control of the Palestinian parliament over 17 years ago means that every Palestinian in Gaza can be marked for death. In gambling that its ideology will be strengthened but that its survival will be threatened, Hamas made a rational decision under the logic of treating ideology as a material interest, and thus had a goal beyond killing as many Jews as possible.

By the same token, those searching for greater context in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will explain Hamas’ actions are downplaying ideology in a different way. Hamas’ statements and actions across decades belie any claim it has to being an anti-occupation movement, rather than a group devoted not only to wiping out Israel but exterminating every last Jew in the land of Israel. Palestinians’ support for armed struggle and Hamas’ methods have indeed gone up over time as Palestinians lose any hope that a political or diplomatic process with Israel will yield them a state, but it is crucial to point out that Hamas’ methods and approach did not change when they were far less popular with Palestinians. Hamas was blowing up buses during the most optimistic height of the peace process, it was sending suicide bombers into restaurants during the Second Intifada, and it just launched thousands of fighters to kill, torture, and abduct Israelis from communities that were among the most dovish and supportive of Palestinian rights and nationhood. While Hamas does indeed act according to its own logical calculus, that does not mean that different Israeli behavior would have led to different Hamas behavior. Those looking to connect Hamas’ terrorism to Israeli policies in Gaza and the West Bank are the mirror image of those looking to saddle all Palestinians with responsibility for Hamas.

If anyone should not have been lulled by Hamas’ years-long feint into thinking that it had an interest in ruling in Gaza and would respond to the pressures and incentives of economic measures, it is me. I literally wrote a dissertation on the political behavior of ideological groups and argued that ideology should be treated as the highest priority when seeking to explain their behavior, and then somehow threw everything I knew out the window when it came to Hamas and Gaza. While I will certainly be more careful in my analysis going forward, those responsible for dealing with Gaza going forward should also understand that the battle against Hamas is not only about its leaders, fighters, and resources, but about the ideology it espouses. Hamas will have its greatest, albeit posthumous, victory if the group suffers a catastrophic defeat at the same time that the ideas it fosters and represents get an unprecedented boost. Israel can only beat Hamas by doing everything it can to ensure that an alternative path appears viable to Palestinians.