What’s Really Happening in Gaza

L ast Wednesday, Representative Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) drew attention after she chose to fly a flag used by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) outside of her office and, not for the first time, decried Israel as an “apartheid” state. Yet, Tlaib has remained silent amid recent revelations about human-rights abuses perpetrated against Palestinians.

Palestinians in Gaza are standing up to Hamas. For nearly two decades, the terrorist group has maintained an iron grip on its coastal enclave. But rumblings of discontent are growing louder, and one American organization is doing its utmost to make sure they’re heard.

The Center for Peace Communications (CPC) is a New York-based nonprofit that works to “grow peace between peoples” in the Middle East and North Africa. The NGO has recently launched a project called Whispered in Gaza, which seeks to elevate the voices of everyday Gazans living under Hamas rule.

Being a dissident in Gaza is certainly dangerous. In his 2004 book, The Case for Democracy, the Soviet dissident turned Israeli politician Natan Sharansky argued that there were two types of societies: a “free society” and a “fear society.” He formulated a simple test to discern which category a given society fell into: Can one enter a public square and express any opinion without fear of being arrested? And in Gaza, the answer is tragically clear.

Gaza residents who spoke to the CPC for the Whispered in Gaza campaign — a multipart series featuring animated interviews, which use animation and voice-altering technologies to protect the interviewees’ identities — have no illusions about their Hamas rulers. They know the risks of speaking out. But as the CPC’s president, Joseph Braude, has said, they “want these stories to be heard.”

Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2007, when it seized power there after a brief but bloody internecine war with Fatah, the movement that dominates the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank. Fatah’s well-earned reputation for corruption had helped spur many Palestinians to vote for Hamas, a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot and Iranian proxy that promised “reform and change,” in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections. Fatah refused to accept its narrow defeat, leading to a conflict in which Hamas successfully seized Gaza, forever changing both Israel’s security calculus and the lives of everyday Gazans.

Almost immediately after taking control of Gaza, Hamas began launching rockets at Israel, which its charter pledges to destroy. The Islamist group’s ambitions subsequently led both Israel and Egypt to initiate a security blockade of Gaza and sparked four wars. In each of those conflicts, Hamas has used civilians as human shields, storing weaponry, munitions, and operations centers at or near schools, United Nations buildings, hospitals, and even international media outlets such as the Associated Press.

Hamas has also been caught using foreign aid to fund terrorist operations. It has even used donated construction equipment and cement to build so-called “terror tunnels,” through which Hamas operatives can kidnap and attack Israelis. The network of tunnels, which is estimated to cover 300 miles, is intricate. It is also expensive: According to Israel Defense Forces estimates, some individual tunnels cost as much as $3 million to build.

And, as Whispered in Gaza makes clear, Hamas’s commitment to Israel’s destruction also comes at the expense of the people living under its rule.

Hamas, one dissident tells the CPC, didn’t bring the promised “reform and change.” Instead, it “brought looting, theft, oppression, humiliation, nepotism, and unemployment.” Hamas, he notes, is more than just a terrorist group. It also operates like a crime syndicate, extorting civilians. “There isn’t a small business — even tobacco stands — that they don’t have their hands in,” he says.

Hamas has also “made a profit out of” the numerous wars that it has initiated, while “the people suffered,” according to one CPC interviewee. Another remarks that “only the people bear the burden” of these conflicts. Hamas officials are happy to lie low “in their bunkers, their hideouts” while using everyday Gazans as cannon fodder. And at the war’s conclusion, “they tell us it’s a victory.”

Indeed, Hamas’s propaganda is everywhere in Gaza. As one interviewee tells the CPC, “Your own thoughts are taken away from you.” Just walking down the street, he describes encountering drawings and paintings hailing the terrorist group and its leaders, leaving him to wonder if he’s living in “a city or military barracks.” Gaza City has “taken on a vibe of backwardness, inhumanity, and militarism,” he says, and the psychological damage that most Gazans endure due to Hamas rule is “enormous.”

Gaza is run by a kleptocracy that is as corrupt as it is brutal. Despair characterizes many of the accounts, with one woman, “Fatima,” recounting how her brother, a street vendor who sold vegetables but refused to pay Hamas bribes, was forced to flee after members of the group repeatedly beat him and imprisoned him on false charges.

The Times of Israel, which is working with the CPC on the Whispered in Gaza campaign, has noted that a 2018 poll found that 48 percent of Gazans wanted to emigrate. One can hardly blame them.

Those interviewed by the CPC shared their stories with the hope that others will listen. Yet, many who often claim to be “pro-Palestinian” have been noticeably quiet about Hamas’s totalitarian rule.

The members of the so-called Squad — Representatives Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), and Cori Bush (D., Mo.) — are all known for their vociferous criticism of the Jewish state, which they claim persecutes Palestinians. Bush, for example, has accused Israel of inflicting “violent oppression and trauma” on Palestinians. Yet none of them have said a word about the Whispered in Gaza campaign.

Sadly, such selective outrage isn’t new. When Hamas slaughtered dozens of protesters in 2019, the Squad was silent. And the press, like the members of Congress that it hypes, has also seemed oddly uninterested in holding the regime that governs Gaza accountable. The Washington Post, the New York Times, and other major U.S. news organizations have, thus far, been mum about the CPC’s campaign.

Hopefully this will soon change and the whispers in Gaza will inspire strident voices of condemnation, from newsrooms to the halls of power. As Tlaib herself once said, silence about human-rights violations is tantamount to “complicity.” On this, at least, she is right.