A Palestinian Agnostic Speaks Out
Gabriel grew up in Gaza. In this war, he lost his family and his faith.
He blames Hamas and the media.
For the past several weeks, I have been corresponding with a millennial Palestinian man we’ll call “Gabriel” (name changed to protect identity). Gabriel spent the first 27 years of his life in the Gaza strip. After graduating from the Islamic University of Gaza, he pursued his Master’s degree in a Central European country, where he currently resides.
I found Gabriel though a now-deleted post on a Middle Eastern forum where he, as a lifelong Gazan, angrily condemned Hamas and the Western media for siding with them. While his posts didn’t gain much traction, I was intrigued by his opinions and contacted him. Gabriel was hard to pin down, often ignoring my messages for weeks, but eventually agreed to provide confirmation of his identity, as well as his dissident views on several topics: why he believes the worldwide media sides with Hamas, why he became a Palestinian agnostic, and what both Israelis and Palestinians need to sacrifice in order to achieve peace.
Gabriel’s perspective made my jaw drop; he has the most clear-eyed view of this conflict I’ve heard from anyone. He is one of the few, on either side, who is willing to hold his own side accountable. And while he knows firsthand the horrors of war, I found profound his ability to recognize the humanity of both Jews and Palestinians. Amid the cesspool of propaganda, overwhelming emotions, and bad intentions that comprise the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Gabriel is an actual voice for peace. Maybe one of the only genuine ones.
In order to protect Gabriel’s life, we have not only changed his name, but several identifying details. We have extensively corroborated his identity through direct messages and through his social media profiles, which date back over a decade and show him growing up in beaches, streets, and other locations in Gaza City. He currently maintains an active social media presence where he mourns the members of his family killed due to the current war.
After internal discussion, we have decided to present Gabriel’s views completely unfiltered, with minor edits only added in to provide context or fix grammar. Thus, this interview will include “politically incorrect’ views of Gabriel’s, such as saying “the Jews want to end Al-Aqsa mosque,” which is a reflection of his mindset as a Gazan and a reference to the real threat posed to the mosque by a subset of extremist Jews. We only ask that you give his perspective a chance, as Gabriel also believes that recognition of Israel is the first step for Palestinian peace. Regardless of what side you stand on, we hope that this interview informs your understanding of this conflict more than nearly anything else you’ve read.
On His Origins
I am a Palestinian, born as a refugee in the Bureij camp, and I left Gaza to complete my master’s studies in [REDACTED]. In this war, I lost my father, my mother, and my sisters, along with 22 of my family. We did not support Hamas, but despite that, the IDF bombed the area where my family was located to assassinate a Hamas leader who was hidden nearby.
On Media Bias Towards Hamas
Yes, the media is biased towards Hamas. For example, Al Jazeera, which is considered one of the most influential channels in the world and particularly influential in Arab opinion. Together with the Qatari government (which funds Al Jazeera), the Muslim Brotherhood organization is exploiting the agitation of the Arab peoples against the rulers and spreading the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. All of this is for one goal, which is to win power for the Arab rulers to carry on the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. [In order] to achieve the desired dream of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is to establish an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East, the planners need a cause to be advanced.
[They are focused on] convincing the largest number of Arab peoples of the sincerity of the Brotherhood’s goal, which is to help the Palestinians, but what is happening behind the scenes is they are exploiting the suffering of the Palestinians for a special agenda that is not in the interest of establishing a Palestinian state. This was said frankly by Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a Hamas official. [He said] “Palestine is just a means that we use to reach a greater goal.”
The media did not cover what was happening in Gaza before this war, when marches called “We Want to Live” took place against Hamas and demanded that Hamas leave power and leave the government to the Palestinian Authority. They were suppressed by Hamas police. [The media also did not cover] when more than 30,000 travel visas to Turkey were printed due to poor living conditions or when people were lining up in queues to register to go to work inside Israel.
All of these events indicate clear support from the media for Hamas, even though Hamas is a coercive, dictatorial government in Gaza. But the media played another role in polishing this organization and making it the only savior of the Palestinian people. They convinced the Palestinians that the peace agreement (Oslo Accords) between Palestine and Israel signed by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat had failed miserably. The success of this agreement was a loss for the Muslim Brotherhood organization because then they [could] not find anything in which to exploit the emotions of the Arab peoples to win their minds and influence them according to their agenda.
Therefore, these media channels incited people against the Palestinian Authority…[they showed] that Hamas has strong popularity and had weapons with which it can defend the Palestinian people, while the Palestinian Authority was weak and conspiring against the Palestinians. That is when Hamas overthrew the government in Gaza (in 2007) and took control of Gaza by force of arms.
These media channels were the cause of the fall of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. Until now, they [have been] trying to incite people against the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Many West Bank residents strongly support Hamas because it forced Israel to release prisoners from the West Bank. They see Hamas as a national resistance project for the sake of Palestine, and now Hamas is focused on winning in the West Bank.
All of this played a major role in convincing the Palestinians that peace cannot be achieved between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and the only solution is to continue fighting, and the best defender is Hamas, [which was portrayed by the media as] the victor in all the wars in Gaza. The truth is that Hamas is an Islamic organization affiliated with the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, and has brought nothing but division and destruction to the Palestinian people, but people outside Gaza see it in a different way because of the biased media.
What is really happening on the ground is different from what the media reports. We do not see the losses of Hamas. We only see the losses of Israel and the suffering of the Gazans, and these two things contribute to spreading the [pro-Hamas] ideology. Israel's losses mean the victory of Hamas, and an increase in its strength and popularity. The suffering of the Gazans and images of killing and destruction lead to the Palestinians losing faith in peace with Israel.
Everything I said before are not allegations, but facts that I personally witnessed in previous wars.
On What Each Side Needs to Sacrifice for Peace
Israel
Despite the recent events in the past few months, the Palestinian Authority still holds some hope to revive negotiations towards reaching an agreement that ends the occupation of the West Bank, withdraws from illegal settlements, and grants Palestinians their rights. This would ultimately lead to the desired peace agreement signed in 1993, commonly known as the Oslo Accords. As mentioned before, the extreme Israeli right-wing represented by the current Netanyahu government and Hamas on the Palestinian side are the factors that derailed these negotiations. Both parties rely on extremist religious beliefs that hinder the achievement of genuine peace between the two states.
Even though Palestine cannot currently be considered a state, it is merely a weak authority with limited options, mainly cooperating with Israel. In my opinion, after all that has happened, it is Israel that decides whether it wants peace and an end to this conflict. Israel possesses the relationships and military power that surpass all the Arab nations combined. However, I believe that the current Israeli government is not seeking that.
If we want to end this conflict [for good], Israel must make significant sacrifices, including withdrawing from the West Bank, a very challenging step but not impossible, as it happened in Gaza in 2005. This includes recognizing a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, something Netanyahu rejects, and giving East Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority. These three points are the major obstacles to achieving peace between the two peoples, without forgetting that the Jewish people must abandon this extreme religious government as it is part of the problem.
Yes, Israel wants to eliminate Hamas, and many Palestinians desire that as well. But what comes after that? Honestly, we do not know.
Palestine
As for the Palestinians, it is now clear that Hamas is not suitable to be part of the government or represent the Palestinian people. It will exploit religious tools, emotions, and religious sentiments to demonstrate that true peace cannot be achieved with Jews. The Jews are seeking to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque, and according to [Muslim] religious prophecies, Israel will end in 2027, with Muslims prevailing over Jews in the end times.
I believe that as Palestinians, we must accept the current reality, leave these religious myths behind, and return to the old agreements that were originally accepted by the Palestinian people themselves during that period, despite the concessions included in those agreements, such as disarmament and having a purely civilian government under international supervision. In my opinion, these were significant sacrifices and concessions that Hamas did not accept, but the Palestine Liberation Organization did.
In the end, as Palestinians, we must acknowledge the failure of military solutions and accept the defeat of Hamas at some point. We must recognize that the existence of a religious movement like Hamas is not in the interest of Palestinians. Another one of the concessions that we must make as Palestinians is to recognize the existence of Israel, because Hamas does not recognize Israel at all and does not negotiate with it directly.
On Becoming a Palestinian Agnostic
Personally, I was a Muslim for 27 years and left it when I left Gaza. Now, I consider myself agnostic. I always believe that the cause of the fundamental problem stems from the difference in religions, which is the belief that others do not deserve life simply because of their personal beliefs. [Such as believing] a non-Muslim can be killed, and a Muslim is better than an infidel, or that the Jew does not deserve to be like the Jew and be free from these religious matters.
Therefore, leaving religion made me look at the conflict from another perspective that I could not have when I was convinced of Hamas’ ideology and supported what it was doing. The only solution, in my belief, is secularism and liberalism to establish a modern state in Palestine, but it is very difficult to convince the Palestinians of that because, for them, Hamas is the first defender of the Islamic religion and Islamic sanctities.
Yes, Hamas’s ideology must be eliminated because it is dangerous. It does not care about the number of victims in its wars and calls them collateral losses, as Khaled Meshaal said. It considers the Gazans a tool to justify its own agenda affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood organization.
I have suffered a lot because of this war. I lost hope in my people. I became a traitor because I defend our human rights. I lose hope when I see Gazans chanting “Allah Akbur“ when they fire rockets, kill civilians, when they die, when they bury the dead bodies, when they see hostages, when they see the bodies of Jews, they always chant, “Allah Akbur.” This religion is a curse on us and on the Palestinian people, who always sanctify death, and Hamas exploits this religion and the believing civilians for Iranian political interests.
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