On February 15, the Qatar-funded news organization Al Jazeera gave a platform to two Hamas officials at its 16th annual Al Jazeera Forum. The event, “From the War on Gaza to Change in Syria: Shifting Dynamics in the Middle East,” was organized by the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies.
Osama Hamdan and Basem Naim were the Hamas officials who participated in the conference. Al Jazeera’s website identifies Hamdan as a “leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas)” and Naim as a “member of Hamas’s politburo.”
Along with five other senior leaders of Hamas, Hamdan was listed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) by the US Department of the Treasury in August 2003 after a Hamas suicide attack in Jerusalem killed 23 people and injured 130 others. In the 1990s, Hamdan served as Hamas’s representative to Tehran, a tenure during which he facilitated the military training of Hassan Salamah, a key planner of the 1996 Jaffa Road bus suicide bombings that killed 45 commuters.
In 2020, the UK sanctioned and imposed a travel ban on Hamdan for his affiliation with Hamas. Australia added Hamdan to its registry of persons associated with terrorism in 2013.
The US Treasury designated Naim as an SDGT in November 2024, noting he “holds a leadership role on Hamas’s Council on International Relations.”
On one of the panels praising the massacre, Hamdan said that “the 7th of October was a historical achievement.” He also falsely proclaimed that “a group of no more than a few hundred were able to destroy [the IDF’s Gaza Division] within six hours. This gave the Palestinians the feeling that they can achieve great success if they take the initiative.”
Even though Hamas’s massacre brought about an Israeli response that destroyed hundreds of miles of terror tunnels and the buildings above them, Hamdan portrayed the outcome of the war as “victory” for Gaza, owing to what he referred to as the “resistance.”
“The victory of Gaza, its resoluteness […] had led to an outcome that the philosophy of resistance is a victorious philosophy and the axis [the Iran-led “Axis of Resistance”] was able to wage its war with all its components and was able to enter into new spheres of confrontation such as Yemen, Iraq, and so on and so forth,” Hamdan said.
Hamdan threatened those allied with Israel, presumably including Arab countries that joined the Abraham Accords. “Anyone who wants to work on behalf of Israel will bear the consequences of being Israel’s proxy,” he warned. “This is why the issues of the resistance weapons, the resistance leaders, and our relations with [the countries] supporting the resistance are not up for debate.” Telegraphing Hamas’s goals over the horizon, he continued, “It is not that we will stick to a hardline in the talks. It’s not even up for debate. We will not agree to anyone talking to us about this. I say this loud and clear.”
Hamdan cited Iran, Turkey, and South Africa as countries on which Hamas can “rely” and encouraged nations to move away from alliances with the West. “As Arabs, we are facing a historic opportunity. South Africa has always been supportive of our causes, but since Camp David, we turned sideways. During this war, it made a case against Israel in the ICJ [The International Court of Justice]. The time has come for the Arabs to agree among themselves that they have an opportunity to be released from [Western] hegemony.”
“The idea of resistance is not going to be wiped out,” Hamdan said. “They’re going to continue, and I say that we have an opportunity. I’m not being delusional. No, I’m speaking the truth here. We have the opportunity to expand this axis.”
Hamdan also asserted that only resistance, not peace or negotiations, would be required by the new leadership in Syria. “Even the change that took place in Syria will ultimately align with the resistance because the Golan is occupied, [Syrian] land is occupied, and an additional 400 kilometers of Syrian land were occupied. The Israelis will not withdraw from this land without resistance. Therefore, [Syria] must be in this axis.” Hamdan did not mention Turkey’s occupation of parts of Syria.
During his talk, Basem Naim proclaimed, “[Destruction] was the goal of the enemy from the beginning,” due to what he said were Palestinians “embracing the resistance for so many years, which enabled the resistance to do what they have done in terms of the heroic actions.” Naim expressed these sentiments despite the fact there was a ceasefire in Gaza and peace agreements between Israel and its neighbors prior to October 7, 2023.
Hamdan has been accused of inciting blood libels against Jews after he told the Hamas-affiliated Al Quds TV in 2014, “We all remember how the Jews used to slaughter Christians, in order to mix their blood in their holy matzos. This is not a figment of imagination or something taken from a film. It is a fact, acknowledged by their own books and by historical evidence.” Hamdan also told the Iranian Arabic TV channel Al Kawthar that suicide bombings against Israelis were justified, especially in buses.
Rather than isolate Hamas for its role in the massacre and holding of scores of hostages, Al Jazeera and its patron Qatar are, in effect, normalizing Hamas and its terrorism.
