A Top U.K. Official Displayed the Terrifying Ignorance of the World’s Leaders on Gaza

Head of the Political Bureau of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, left, and the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, right, greet people as they attend an event held to mark the 30th anniversary of Hamas, at Al-Katiba Square on December 14, 2017 in Gaza City, Gaza.

Do the people who run the world know the most basic facts about the world? This urgent question is raised by a recent column on the Israeli attack on Gaza by the British politician Ben Wallace, who, until a few months ago, was the United Kingdom’s defense minister. Terrifyingly enough, the answer appears to be no.

The problem is that Wallace places great significance on Hamas’s original 1988 charter, which is explicitly antisemitic and rejects any coexistence with Israel. But he doesn’t appear to know Hamas issued a new charter in 2017. In it, Hamas affirms that its “conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion.” And, while the revised charter rejects the legitimacy of Zionism, it accepts “the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.” This reference to the lines of June 4, 1967 — before Israel captured the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the Six-Day War — is regarded as accepting the existence of Israel within the borders it had at that time.

This is not some arcane knowledge available to but a few. You could have learned about it by reading any newspaper at the time, such as, for instance, The Telegraph — the publication that ran Wallace’s column.

Wallace’s failure to cite Hamas’s prevailing charter is especially irksome because his overall point is completely reasonable. He references the aftermath of 1972’s Bloody Sunday, when British troops in Northern Ireland killed 14 demonstrators, and writes, “As sure as night follows day, history shows us that radicalisation follows oppression.” Now, Wallace says, Israel is on the same path, and its “tactics will fuel the conflict for another 50 years. … All the action will have achieved is the extinction, not of the extremists, but the voice of the moderate Palestinians who do want a two-state solution.” 

However, Wallace adds that “[Hamas’s] charter reads like the constitution of a jihadist Salafi organisation. It is anti-Semitic and anti-democratic. It isn’t interested in peaceful co-existence with Israel, or Egypt, for that matter.” Moreover, “You can’t have a ceasefire with Hamas unless they are prepared to declare one; even then they would have to pledge to modify their charter to do so.”

Given Wallace’s wording, it’s unlikely that he was being consciously deceptive in his failure to note the 2017 revision; he almost certainly does not know that it exists. (Wallace is still in the British Parliament, and his Westminster office passed along questions about this to him, but he did not respond.)

This is significant for two reasons.

First, Hamas’s prevailing charter — i.e., the 2017 one — does not pose some insurmountable barrier to a two-state solution and peace. Moreover, while it’s unpopular to point this out, Hamas leaders have signaled a willingness to accept a two-state solution on many occasions. In 2009, the United States Institute of Peace, a think tank funded by the federal government, concluded that “Hamas has been carefully and consciously adjusting its political program for years and has sent repeated signals that it may be ready to begin a process of coexisting with Israel.” It’s easy to point to the vicious October 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas and say it was obviously never willing to accept a two-state solution. However, the harsh truth is that the attacks and the Israeli response have increased U.S. interest in the establishment of a Palestinian state. It’s possible that parts of Hamas do in fact want a two-state solution, and understand us better than we understand ourselves.

Second, we have to accept that many of the people at the top of the world’s power structures simply have no idea what they’re talking about. Jimmy Carter once wrote that he wished that he had learned the history of U.S. aggression in Central America before he became president; the people of Central America probably wish that too. 

Likewise, Palestinians would be happier if people like Wallace, whose tenure as the U.K.’s defense minister lasted four years, could achieve a Wikipedia-level knowledge of their history. For extra credit, Wallace could even learn the basics of the Likud party, currently chaired by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Its original 1977 party platform declares that “between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”

But, of course, there is no pressure on Wallace and his ilk to become acquainted with facts. All the pressure pushes them in the other direction. For instance, for his banal observations of reality about oppression breeding radicalization, Wallace has been accused of potentially “stoking antisemitic hate.”

It’s distressing to have to point out these facts about Hamas, which is, from any secular, progressive perspective, unsavory in the extreme. But while no one has to defend Hamas, it’s important to defend reality. We desperately need the people in charge to understand what it is, so at least they won’t destroy the world by accident.