"Do you condemn Hamas?" is abinary question that has been widespread in formal and informal debates concerning theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict with regard to the Palestinian political and military organization that rose to power as theGaza Strip government in 2007. Since 2010, pro-Israeli advocates, as well as several news or media personalities, have often directed the question at pro-Palestinian advocates, typically (but not exclusively) in response tocriticism of Israel.
While it was present for a decade beforehand, it was not until after theOctober 7 attacks in 2023 that the question became ubiquitous in international political discussions about the ensuingGaza war,[1] particularly saturatingWestern media and eventually becoming anInternet meme among its critics.[2]
Critics have said that the question minimizes Palestinian suffering,[2] or that supporters of Israel have used the question as a rhetorical tool to absolve Israel or stifle critique of it, or that it is a smear tactic to degrade and silence support for Palestinians.[1][3] For others, it is a legitimate question that addresses what they perceive as a moral failure on the part of those who do not vocalizecondemnation of Hamas.[4]
It has been described by Aleksandra Zoric at theUniversity of Belgrade as "a sophisticated linguistic tool, carefully calibrated to function on multiple levels, as aperformative speech act, a means fornarrative framing, and a mechanism forpublic shaming and the imposition of a specific ideology".[5] Zoric describes the technique as alanguage game with ademand phrased as a question containing apersuasive definition by the questioner, concluding that it can "erode trust in the media and politicians, deepen polarization, and make nuanced and constructive debate on complex issues impossible. Public discourse is reduced to performativevirtue signaling and moral posturing, where the goal is to discredit an opponent, not to understand the problem."[5]
On May 11, 2010, American conservative writerDavid Horowitz directed the question to a student at theUniversity of California, San Diego (UCSD).[6][7] The student who confronted Horowitz was a member of UCSD'sMuslim Student Association, then holding Justice in Palestine Week, which students said Horowitz had referred to as "Hitler Youth Week".[6][7]
The matter of condemning Hamas resurged in 2019, with relation toUS RepresentativeIlhan Omar.[8][failed verification]
During the Gaza war, it became a common question in both Israeli and international media to ask for condemnation of Hamas and the October 7 attacks.[9] Pro-Palestinian activists described the question toThe Forward as a tactic to start the narrative on October 7, omitting the events of preceding years, and is "meant to shut down discussion".[2]Mondoweiss writer James Ray stated that he did not; though he criticized the question as "muddling" expressions of solidarity and obscuring what they call a "colonial context" of the events.[10]Slavoj Žižek similarly dismissed the question as a distraction fromGazan civilian deaths, particularly child deaths.[11] Palestinian-American scholarNoura Erakat wrote that "any condemnation of violence is vapid if it does not begin & end with a condemnation ofIsraeli apartheid,settler colonialism, andoccupation."[12]
The matter of the condemnation of Hamas became important toIsraeli public diplomacy in the Gaza war. Governments,[13][14][15] corporations,[16] and public figures[17] from around the world have issued condemnations. TheYale School of Management'sChief Executive Leadership Institute published a "List of Companies That Have Condemned Hamas's Terrorist Attack on Israel", including over 200 companies, mostly from the North America and Europe.[16][18][19][20]
Piers Morgan has been criticized for his frequent use of the question at the beginning of interviews with pro-Palestinian guests on his showPiers Morgan Uncensored, byMehdi Hasan,Bassem Youssef, and others.[21][22][23] Writing inMiddle East Eye Mohamad Elmasry has described Morgan's use of the question as an example of journalisticframe setting, in which the journalist establishes the tone of the story according to their point-of-view:
"If guests agree with Morgan that Hamas should be condemned, a Palestinian source of evil and conflict has been established from the interview’s outset, and Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza is given justification. If guests refuse to condemn Hamas, however, Morgan can demonise them for failing to denounce 'terrorists'."[22]
Morgan used formerLabour Party (UK) leaderJeremy Corbyn's response to the question on his show to later delegitimize Corbyn's observation that "many in our media are finally waking up to the unspeakable horrors that Palestinians are enduring in Gaza."[24]
By intertwining Austin's concept of illocutionary force, the strategic flouting of Grice's conversational maxims, Wittgenstein's language games, and Stevenson's persuasive definitions, this speech act becomes a powerful tool for controlling political discourse. The theoretical frameworks from the philosophy of language and communication theory have allowed us to reconstruct and better understand this phenomenon. Austin's theory revealed the illocutionary force of the directive and the perlocutionary goals that reach far beyond the answer itself. Grice's cooperative principle showed how refusing a direct answer, through strategies like whataboutism, can be a rational pragmatic move that points to a fundamental injustice in the communicative setup itself. Wittgenstein's language games helped us to understand the political interview as an arena with specific rules, where refusing to answer constitutes an attack on the very legitimacy of the game. Finally, the theories of persuasive definitions, framing, and agenda-setting have exposed the broader media and political context that precedes the question and gives it its power, turning it into the culmination of a carefully orchestrated strategy.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)In a full-page ad published in major Sunday newspapers in Germany with the headline "Never again is now", the 106 undersigned companies, representing the bulk of the country's economy employing millions of workers, denounced antisemitism and Jew hatred.
