Hamas Has Clearly Won

My interview with Qods News Agency

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Tehran, Qodsna - Between January 1978 and February 11, 1979, the Muslim revolutionary people of Iran, under the wise leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Founder of the Islamic Revolution, voiced their oppositions against the secular and US-backed rule of Mohamad Reza Shah.

Today, after 46 years, the Islamic Republic of Iran, under the leadership of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei is at the forefront of the fight against global arrogance and oppressive powers like the United States and the Zionist Regime.

Qodsna interviewed with Kevin Barrett, an Islamic scholar and former American academic, on the occasion of 46th victory anniversary of the Islamic Revolution of Iran. The full interview comes as follows:

Qodsna: As you now, Hamas and Israel reached a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza. The agreement provides for the release of Israeli hostages held there during 15 months of conflict that devastated the enclave and killed tens of thousands of Palestinians. Many experts as well as Israeli experts and officials confess that Hamas has won the Gaza war and prevented Israel from achieving its goals (including destroying Hamas and releasing the hostages) and described the war as a disastrous Israeli failure in Gaza. What is your opinion about this?

Kevin Barrett: Hamas has clearly won, as I predicted it would in October 2023. Netanyahu made the catastrophic mistake of defining the war’s goals as completely eliminating Hamas and getting Israeli captives back by military means. Both goals were obviously impossible. Hamas is an acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement.” Since Islamic resistance to Zionism is an idea supported by more than a billion people worldwide, and ideas are bulletproof in any case, Netanyahu’s vow to “destroy Hamas” was almost darkly comical in its absurdity.

Even crazier was Netanyahu's stated goal of getting Israeli captives back alive through military force. While hostage-rescue operations against poorly-prepared adversaries occasionally succeed, they more often result in the deaths of the very captives they were meant to rescue. When those holding the captives are well-prepared, as is the case in Gaza, successful rescues are very rare. So Netanyahu’s stated war aim was a lunatic fantasy from the very beginning.

Why did the Likud leader set himself up for inevitable catastrophic failure? The answer, according to intelligence professionals who have profiled him, is that Netanyahu is as foolish and reckless as he is arrogant. Col. Jim Hanke, then US military attaché in Israel, recorded Netanyahu speaking at Fink’s Bar in Al-Quds in 1990:

“If we get caught they will just replace us with persons of the same cloth. So it doesn’t matter what you do. America is a Golden Calf and we will suck it dry, chop it up, and sell it off piece by piece until there is nothing left but the world’s biggest welfare state that we will create and control. Why? Because it’s god’s will and America is big enough to take the hit so we can do it again again and again. This is what we do to countries that we hate. We destroy them very slowly and make them suffer for refusing to be our slaves.” -https://www.theinteldrop.org/2024/02/04/1990-clandestine-recording-transcribed-of-netanyahu-at-finks-bar-in-jerusalem/

Netanyahu’s arrogant recklessness is also evidenced by his history of taking bribes and kickbacks. He is currently being prosecuted in three separate corruption cases and facing a likely 10-year prison sentence. Had he not pushed Israel into an open-ended war, which created a de facto permanent state of emergency, he would have been deposed and gone to prison in late 2023.

While Netanyahu’s declared war aims were absurd, his undeclared aim was to rain as much collective punishment as possible on Gazan civilians, under the pretext of “fighting Hamas.” He couldn’t stop out of fear that he would leave the prime minister’s office in handcuffs. So he continued Israel’s genocidal massacre of Gazans for 15 months, and the longer it went on, the more devastating Israel’s defeat, both militarily and in the eyes of global public opinion. If he resumes the genocide by breaking the ceasefire treaty, as seems likely, that defeat will only grow bigger.

Qodsna: The Zionist regime has committed the most serious atrocities during its 75 years of occupation. Indiscriminate and deliberate attacks against civilians, particularly women and children, targeting journalists, aid workers and other protected persons, civilian infrastructures including hospitals, mosques, churches, schools, refugee camps, residential buildings, ambulances, and places affiliated with the United Nations and other international organizations, are just parts of those atrocities. How do you see the necessity of considering the Legal aspects of Zionist regime’s war on Gaza in International assemblies?

Kevin Barrett: The Israeli massacre of Gazans and destruction of their homes and infrastructure is the most clearcut and copiously-documented case of the crime of genocide in all of human history. Even before the current onslaught, Israel was clearly guilty of genocide, as explained in detail by such international law experts as Professor Francis Boyle of the University of Illinois. But 15-month obliteration of Gaza went far beyond other episodes of the slow-motion genocide of Palestine. The Zionists failed to maintain any pretense of an actual military operation. Instead, they rained destruction on civilian targets. The purpose was obviously collective punishment, not “defeating Hamas” or “freeing the hostages.” Additionally, Zionist leaders voiced their intentions to completely eliminate the civilian population of Gaza, by massacring much of the population and expelling the remainder. Only Egypt's refusal to countenance a flood of refugees prevented the Zionists from seriously attempting the murder and expulsion of the entire population of Gaza.

Normally, the hardest element of genocide to prove in court is intent. Politicians, religious and military leaders, ordinary officers and soldiers, and citizens of a genocidal nation typically refrain from making public statements that can be used to prove their intent to commit genocide. Israel has broken with that tradition and become openly and indeed boastfully genocidal. From PM Netanyahu’s orders to “exterminate Amalek” to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s description of Palestinians as “human animals” to the countless genocidal statements, pictures, and actions documented in both traditional and social media by Israeli leaders, soldiers, and citizens, it seems likely that the Israeli nation as such could easily be convicted of genocide. (Polls show that over 90% of Israeli Jews support the genocide.)

Certainly leaders such as Netanyahu and Gallant, as well as extremist ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, are sitting ducks for genocide prosecutions. That is why the International Court of Justice, despite its Western orientation and consequent pro-Israel bias, has been forced to issue a ruling agreeing provisionally with South Africa that Israel is indeed committing genocide. And that is why the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.

Qodsna: The anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran is coming up. what is the impact of Imam Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution of Iran on the Palestinian issue?

Kevin Barrett: The Islamic Revolution freed West Asia’s biggest nation to break free of Western control and openly support the liberation of Palestine. Every other regional government, with the exception of Yemen's, has to some degree succumbed to Western pressure and tempered its support for Palestine. Governments in the region have to various degrees obeyed their Western masters despite the near-unanimous support for Palestinian resistance among the region’s half-billion people.

The 1979 Islamic Revolution focused special attention on the issue of Occupied al-Quds. While it is widely agreed-upon by independent Muslim thinkers that all Muslims have a sacred duty to struggle to free Jerusalem al-Quds from Zionist occupation, the governments of most Muslim-majority countries have surrendered to Western-based Zionist power and denied or obfuscated this duty. The Islamic Republic of Iran, by contrast, has not. On the contrary, it has morally and materially supported the Palestinian Resistance, while using intellectual and media power to broadcast the truth about the ongoing Zionist genocide of the holy land. Imam Khomeini’s August 7 1979 declaration of the last Friday of Ramadan as Quds Day, which has inspired massive annual demonstrations worldwide, stands as a prime example of the Islamic Republic’s commitment to the most important cause in today’s Muslim world.

Qodsna: Many experts believe that Iran's Islamic Revolution played a significant role in Islamic awakening and led to the revival of the Palestinian issue and the formation of Islamic resistance movements. What is your opinion about this?

Kevin Barrett: Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979 was the most consequential event of the Islamic Awakening, itself the most important historical event of the second half of the 20th century CE. The Islamic Awakening amounted to postcolonial Muslim-majority nations’ rediscovery of their authentic Islamically-based heritage, the rejection of Western colonially-imposed models, and their determination to show that Islam could be not only the most vibrant and best-preserved religious tradition, but also a basis of society and governance in the modern world.

Of the various movements that grew out of the Islamic Awakening, the Palestinian resistance movements were the most fruitful, and they have been steadfastly supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran. While Islamic movements based on Salafi interpretations of Islam, especially those that seek to overthrow governments of Muslim countries, have erred in the direction of divisiveness, the Palestinian Islamic resistance has united the Muslim Ummah, and Islamic Iran has thrown its weight behind this unifying vision. If, in the distant or not-so-distant future, the Zionist occupiers are expelled and Palestine returns to its traditional status as a Holy Land that is Islamically-administered on behalf of all relevant major faith traditions—and perhaps even becoming the capital of a reunited Islamic Ummah—the vision and persistence of Imam Khomeini and his Islamic Revolutionary successors will deserve much of the credit.