Most Gazans Have Already Abandoned Hamas, and a Disarmament Window Is Opening
Gaza-born policy scholar Alkhatib argues from four layers of opposition, two polls and demographic data that most Gazans turned against Hamas long ago and that Hamas may be forced into phased disarmament — but host Russ's pessimism is a sharp counterpoint: for Hamas, disarmament equals political suicide.
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The argument · timestamps estimated from transcript position
Gazans bear responsibility too; occupation is no blanket excuse
Alkhatib says he deliberately wrote the book short and conversational because there is already too much information about Gaza and no one reads long academic works anymore. The book is written for four audiences at once: the pro-Israel community, the pro-Palestinian community, Arab and Muslim Americans, and Palestinians themselves. The title itself is a judgment: Gazans are Hamas's hostages, notwithstanding radicalization and peripheral support for some of Hamas's past actions. He demands that Palestinians acknowledge they still have agency, responsibility and accountability under asymmetric power, rather than using "occupation" or "1948" as a shield. Russ responds that the book is only about 85 pages, yet taught him a great deal despite his sense that he had read a lot of the relevant material.
— Ahmed Fouad AlkhatibThe day Hamas seized power, he was applying for asylum
Alkhatib was born in 1990, shuttled back and forth to Gaza with his family in the late 1990s, moved back permanently in 2000, and went to the United States as an exchange student at 15. He remembers the optimism at the tail end of the Oslo process: his family got its first landline and mobile phone, and he saw state institutions appearing in Gaza with his own eyes. Then came the failure of the 2000 Camp David talks, the outbreak of the Second Intifada, and Gaza turning the other way. On June 14, 2007 — the same day Hamas took over Gaza by force and drove the Palestinian Authority out — he happened to be interviewing for a political asylum claim, and became the first Gazan granted asylum in the United States because of Hamas's control of Gaza. He sees that date coincidence as the point where his personal fate and Gaza's fate synchronized.
— Ahmed Fouad AlkhatibThe 2006 election was handed over by the US itself
Alkhatib obtained confidential discussion materials from that period from a PLO official: before the 2006 election, the Palestinian Authority explicitly warned the Bush administration and Rice that Hamas would win, but the US still pushed the election forward. Hamas senior figure Zahar allegedly later bragged that they deliberately had supporters underreport their support during Shikaki's polling so the US would not cancel the election over high poll numbers. Alkhatib says Shikaki's polls were manipulated for a long time, and Hamas documents found by the IDF in Gaza in August 2024 also show Hamas correcting poll results and inflating the margin of error to 20% to 40% to pad its support. That election turned Hamas from a resistance movement into a governing authority ruling Gaza at the same time, and was the beginning of the path to October 7.
— Ahmed Fouad AlkhatibOne people, two paths: rockets in Gaza, a state in the West Bank
This is the episode's framing passage: after Hamas's takeover, Gaza and the West Bank became two contrasting experiments. Hamas turned Gaza into a "fortress of armed resistance," using aid money and funds from Qatar and Iran to build tunnels and rockets while outsourcing civilian life to the UN and international NGOs; the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, under Salam Fayyad, built professionalized security forces and genuine state institutions. Alkhatib's criticism cuts both ways: Hamas's costs need no spelling out, while Israel's Netanyahu government, in order to keep the Palestinians divided, tolerated settlement expansion and undermined the Palestinian Authority's legitimacy — effectively extending the life of Hamas's narrative. He invokes the "South Korea vs. North Korea" analogy: had the West Bank moderates been strongly supported at the time, things would have gone very differently.
— Ahmed Fouad AlkhatibWith outside funding cut off, Hamas has only disarmament left
Alkhatib's optimism that Hamas will eventually partially disarm comes from hard constraints: Iran and Hezbollah are preoccupied with their own survival, Qatar's LNG exports have been frozen by US-Iran conflict and can no longer supply Hamas, and Hamas has lost most of its combat-experienced members and nearly all of its senior political and military leadership, leaving it only the option of being forced to accept "phased disarmament." Russ's response marks a clear point of disagreement: if the other side knows you want it to disappear, any concession is fake, because disarmament means the end of its control and its lifeline. Alkhatib acknowledges there will be militias and tribal revenge, but argues Gazan society has already distanced itself from Hamas ideologically, and that the narrative shift will arrive earlier than the political one.
— Ahmed Fouad AlkhatibHamas is a lightweight version of ISIS and the Taliban
Alkhatib divides Gazan opposition to Hamas into four layers: the shallowest is "you destroyed Gaza, and we pay for your suicidal nihilism"; the second is Hamas members enriching themselves during the war through aid and overseas fundraising, even paying bribes to leave Gaza and then calling from abroad for the population to keep resisting; the third is the whole of Hamas's twenty-year rule, including suicide bombings and the sabotage of the two-state solution; the fourth is the Interior Ministry's daily oppression of ordinary people, from banning women from smoking hookah on the beach to Sinwar's 2020 attempt to legislate that women need a male guardian's approval to leave Gaza. His conclusion is blunt: Hamas is a "lightweight version of ISIS and the Taliban," only more attentive to PR, because PR is what keeps NGO and UN money flowing in.
— Ahmed Fouad AlkhatibPoll numbers in a police state are not worth trusting
Russ offers a methodological point: in a police state, poll numbers are meaningless because people dare not tell the truth, so he has always been extremely skeptical of Shikaki's polls. Alkhatib offers substitute data: a poll commissioned by the Tony Blair Institute and conducted by Jim Zogby shows 93% of Gazans want Hamas to leave, and 86% hold Hamas equally responsible for Gaza's destruction. Demographics support his judgment: 70% of Gazans have never left Gaza, nearly two-thirds of the population is under 30, and they have known only Hamas rule and learned about the world through smartphones. He argues the largest group is not ideologized resisters but ordinary people driven by economic interest, and they are the most reliable foundation for peace.
— Ahmed Fouad AlkhatibThe danger is not Gazans, it is Hamas as an organization
Responding to the argument that many October 7 attackers had worked in Israel or received medical treatment there and then betrayed people who treated them well, Alkhatib concedes that against a prewar population of 2.3 million that is a minority, but the problem is not individual cases, it is structure: as long as Hamas retains the capacity for intelligence, recruitment and launching attacks, any interaction can be exploited under coercion. Once disarmament and transitional governance are achieved in Gaza, the risk will not go to zero, but will fall exponentially to a manageable level. Russ uses postwar demilitarization in Japan and Germany as positive historical cases, but doubts the conditions for external administration can be met this time. The core of their disagreement shifts from "can Gazans be trusted" to "will Hamas as an organization disappear entirely."
— Ahmed Fouad AlkhatibIn their own words · checked verbatim
The narrative component of the conflict is, I would argue, even more significant than the politics and geopolitics, and I think that's about to change.
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib36:48
Hamas is basically ISIS and Taliban light--a few degrees below.
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib44:32
We are lovers of life. We're not martyrdom projects. We don't love death more than your love for life and this cultism.
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib1:04:28
One of my goals is: I think it is beyond necessary at this point to essentially reinvent Palestinian identity.
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib1:04:28
I'm lonely, but I am far, far from being alone.
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib1:11:41
I'm ashamed that my once-beautiful Gaza is connected to the single worst day attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib1:11:41
If you will it, it's not a dream; and, if we stop the violence, the future will begin.
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib1:21:34
Figures
| Book length | about 85 pages | 8:03 |
| Alkhatib's birth year | 1990 | 18:09 |
| Age when he left Gaza | 15 | 18:09 |
| Asylum interview on the same day as Hamas's takeover | June 14, 2007 | 18:09 |
| Zogby/Tony Blair Institute poll: Gazans who want Hamas to leave | 93% | 44:32 |
| Zogby/Tony Blair Institute poll: those who hold Hamas equally responsible for Gaza's destruction | 86% | 44:32 |
| Share of Gazans who have never left Gaza | 70% | 44:32 |
| Share of the population under 30 | nearly two-thirds | 44:32 |
| Prewar Gaza population | 2.3 million | 54:18 |
Glossary
- Shikaki polls
- Polls by Palestinian political scientist Khalil Shikaki, alleged to have long been manipulated by Hamas to inflate its support.
- NCAG
- The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, a nonpartisan technocratic governing body seen as the future alternative to Hamas.
- Great Reset
- Alkhatib's proposed 100-day zero-violence window to push direct negotiations; unrelated to Davos.
- UNRWA
- The main UN agency providing education and health care to Gaza refugees; Alkhatib's father once worked there.
- DSA
- The Democratic Socialists of America, a US left-wing organization Alkhatib names and criticizes for supporting Hamas.
How to listen
Investors watching Middle East geopolitics and postwar reconstruction, policy analysts studying polling and propaganda mechanisms, and insiders who want a genuine internal perspective rather than slogans.
Around 25:24, Russ's monologue on the Israeli left's predicament has little to do with the core argument and can be skipped.