By now you’ve probably read the New York Times’ latest masterpiece of balanced reporting: “Why Hamas Refuses to Give Up.” It’s an old Western genre—call it The Case of the Stubborn Native.
Here’s the plot: Israel has bombed Gaza to rubble, killed over 60,000 Palestinians, starved a population, cut off electricity, water, and food, and promised to “destroy Hamas.” Naturally, the sensible thing for Palestinians to do is wave a white flag, hand over their weapons, and wait quietly for whatever comes next—exile, mass graves, or both.
But alas, Hamas doesn’t follow the script. Instead, the group insists on existing, which, for Western reporters, is the real crime.
The Great Mystery of Palestinian Stubbornness
The Times frames Hamas’s refusal to surrender as an “ideological problem.” As if it’s incomprehensible why a people would refuse to lay down their arms against an army that:
- Is the best-equipped military in the Middle East,
- Has the full backing of the United States and Europe,
- And—tiny detail here—possesses the region’s only nuclear arsenal.
Yes, you read that right. Palestinians, a stateless population corralled into a strip of land smaller than New York City, are told they cannot have a regular army. They cannot have tanks, aircraft, missiles, or a navy. They cannot even have shovels without being accused of digging “terror tunnels.”
Yet they are expected to face down a nuclear-armed state with “courage” defined as surrender. Readers, is it not shocking? Isn’t it?
Surrender as a Western Fantasy
We are told Hamas is reckless because its resistance has brought destruction. That line would almost be convincing—if surrender had ever brought Palestinians peace.
Remember Oslo? Remember the PA’s “security coordination” with Israel? Remember the promises of a state? Those concessions gave Palestinians more settlements, more checkpoints, and less land every year.
So when the NYT wrings its hands asking, “Why won’t Hamas give up?” the answer is painfully obvious: because surrender has always meant erasure. No people in history has ever politely voted itself out of existence.
Journalism as Echo Chamber
Rasgon’s article rehearses the standard notes: Hamas leaders talk of “martyrdom” and “honor,” analysts warn of diplomatic strategy, displaced civilians criticize Hamas for inviting catastrophe. All of it fits neatly into the Western moral frame: Hamas as the irrational obstacle to peace, Israel as the reluctant punisher.
But here’s what’s missing: If Israel really wanted peace, it could have ended the occupation decades ago. If Israel wanted coexistence, it wouldn’t blockade food, bomb hospitals, and bulldoze entire neighborhoods. If Israel wanted Hamas gone, it might stop creating the very conditions that keep fueling resistance.
Instead, the NYT trains its spotlight on the question of Palestinian stubbornness, never daring to ask why the world’s most advanced army, armed to the teeth with American weapons and nuclear warheads, is so terrified of a movement it constantly declares “destroyed.”
The Real Inconvenient Truth
Why won’t Hamas surrender? Because surrender in Gaza is not the end of war—it’s the end of Palestine.
And maybe—just maybe—the bigger scandal is not Hamas’s refusal to give up, but the fact that millions of civilians, denied even the right to a regular army, are expected to submit to an occupation enforced by F-35s, Merkava tanks, and the shadow of a nuclear bomb.
That’s not a peace plan. That’s a blueprint for annihilation.
So the real mystery isn’t Hamas’s refusal. It’s why the New York Times keeps treating Palestinian survival as the world’s greatest inconvenience.
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