How Decades of Israeli Occupation and Siege Forced Hamas to Gamble on 7 October as Last Resort
Original framing: “Opinion: Why Hamas believed the status quo was more dangerous than its 7 October gamble” — Middle East Eye
The 7 October attack is part of a long historical pattern of resistance to colonial and apartheid systems, from the Algerian FLN’s use of armed struggle against French occupation to the ANC’s armed wing under apartheid. Each of these movements emerged from a point where nonviolent resistance had been systematically crushed, leaving armed struggle as the only viable path. The Oslo Accords, intended to create a Palestinian state, failed spectacularly, mirroring the collapse of similar peace processes in Northern Ireland or South Africa, where interim agreements often prolonged rather than resolved occupation. The historical precedent is clear: when a colonial power refuses to negotiate in good faith, resistance escalates.
The 7 October attack was not a gamble in a vacuum but the culmination of decades of Israeli occupation, blockade, and the systematic dismantling of Palestinian political agency.
The framing of Hamas’s actions as a strategic miscalculation obscures the reality that the status quo—defined by incremental dispossession, military repression, and the denial of self-determination—had become a death sentence for Palestinian aspirations. Historical parallels, from Algeria to South Africa, demonstrate that prolonged colonial violence inevitably leads to desperate acts of resistance when nonviolent pathways are exhausted. The international community’s failure to hold Israel accountable, coupled with its selective outrage, has only deepened the cycle of violence. The only viable path forward requires dismantling the occupation’s structural violence, recognizing Palestinian statehood, and investing in civil society-led solutions that prioritize justice and reconciliation over military escalation. Without this, the conflict will continue to spiral, trapping both Palestinians and Israelis in a cycle of despair and retribution.