Governments love simple narratives. They tell us that if you remove a single actor, the whole board clears. Right now, international politicians talk about Gaza's future as an equation with one variable: Hamas. Eradicate the group, dismantle its tunnels, exile its leaders, and peace magically follows.
It's a comforting illusion. It's also entirely wrong.
Gaza's profound crisis didn't start on October 7, 2023. It didn't begin when Hamas won elections in 2006. The roots stretch back decades before any of today's militant factions existed. When hundreds of Palestinian villages were depopulated during the 1948 Nakba, or when military occupation began in 1967, the structural grievances that fuel modern resistance were firmly planted. Hamas is a symptom, not the root disease.
If you want to understand why destroying a militant group won't bring stability, look at history. Local resistance movements in Palestine didn't emerge in a vacuum. They grew out of ongoing displacement, statelessness, and the systematic denial of self-determination. Ignoring these historical realities guarantees that any postwar blueprint will collapse.
Western commentary often frames Palestinian statehood as a reward for militancy. That framing is backward. The right to self-determination is enshrined in international law, independent of any political faction's actions or crimes. Conflating the entire civilian population of Gaza with a single political entity ignores basic demographics. Nearly half of Gaza's population is under 18. Most residents weren't even old enough to vote when the 2006 elections took place. Polling data from organizations like the Arab Barometer consistently show that local trust in militant governance is limited, with many civilians pointing to internal pressures and daily survival as their primary concerns.
Yet, diplomatic negotiations remain deadlocked. The demand for total disarmament as an absolute precondition for a permanent truce creates an impossible threshold. It freezes diplomacy in place while ground realities deteriorate.
Security cannot be achieved through perpetual subjugation. As history repeatedly shows, oppressing another nation eventually corrodes the security of the oppressor. True stability requires confronting the political core of the conflict rather than hiding behind military slogans.
Real solutions demand honest diplomacy, accountability from all sides, and a willingness to negotiate with adversaries instead of waiting for them to vanish. Until international actors tackle the structural causes of Palestinian statelessness, discussions about governing Gaza with or without specific factions will remain hollow exercises in avoidance.
