Bringing Hamas to justice: Why US charges are an important step - analysis

The US charges against key senior figures in Hamas are a key step in bringing Hamas leaders to justice and revealing the terrorist group’s crimes. The US Department of Justice announced that it was “unsealing [charges] of terrorism, murder conspiracy, and sanctions-evasion charges against six senior leaders of Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization” on September 3.

This is an important step because it marks a turning point in the public effort to bring Hamas to justice. While the US and other Western countries may have been working behind the scenes for almost 11 months since the October 7 attack, this unsealing of public charges will make it harder for Hamas to escape justice.

Hamas has been playing for time since October 7. It had hoped that Qatar and Egypt might help it broker a deal. It had been using hostages to get this deal. However, it recently murdered six hostages, including an American citizen.

Hamas believed it could kill the hostages because it had already murdered more than 1,000 people, including numerous Americans on October 7. Hamas leaders have been residing in Doha in Qatar. Qatar is an American “major non-NATO ally.”

Former Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal recently gave a speech to a conference in Istanbul calling for more attacks on Israel. Istanbul is in Turkey, a member of NATO. Hamas believed that it was under the protection of US-adjacent countries Turkey and Qatar and that because of this, it could commit a massacre of people in Israel and murder hostages and that there would be no charges.

It believed this because it had carried out numerous murderous bombings in the 1990s and early 2000s and its leaders were never charged. Furthermore, Hamas leaders were welcomed in Doha in 2012 and Qatar became a major non-NATO ally of the US, meaning Hamas believed that its patrons in Doha were being rewarded for hosting it.

After October 7, Hamas members in Doha openly called for more attacks. They also flew back and forth to Turkey, Iran, Russia, and China to coordinate efforts against Israel. They believed Israel was isolated.

They murdered the six hostages – Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, Carmel Gat, and Almog Sarusi – and assumed there would be no consequences. What Hamas did not expect is that the US Department of Justice had a sealed series of charges and that the US was just waiting to release it.

THE US has now openly said that Hamas is responsible for planning, supporting, and perpetrating the October 7 massacre and that Hamas murdered over 40 American citizens.

Hamas may now be learning what Osama Bin Laden and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leaders of al-Qaeda and ISIS, learned in the past. They thought they could murder thousands and get away with it. However, both of them found out that the US does not forget. They were both hunted down.

The US has indicted a number of Hamas members that Israel already killed. These include Mohammed Deif, Marwan Issa, and Ismail Haniyeh. However, the charges the US unsealed also include Yahya Sinwar, Khaled Mashaal, and Ali Baraka. The US Department of Justice notes that  Mashaal is “effectively responsible for Hamas’s official presence outside of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Mashaal is based principally in Qatar.” This is calling out Qatar, and now, every time Doha is praised by the US for its role in ceasefire talks, it is worth mentioning that the US is seeking to arrest Mashaal, who lives in Doha. Furthermore, Ali Baraka, a Hamas leader in Beirut, is now also being called out. The US says he has been “Hamas’s head of National Relations Abroad since approximately 2019 and was previously Hamas’s representative in Lebanon. Baraka is based principally in Lebanon.”

The US charges against Hamas don’t leave much to the imagination. They detail its historic role in terror. They also detail how it  has been involved in “the murders and kidnappings of countless innocent civilians, including American citizens, which was the culmination of Hamas’s decades-long campaign of terrorism and violence against Israel and its allies, including American citizens.”

It is important the US also singled out the murder of Hersh Goldberg-Polin. “This weekend, we learned that Hamas murdered an additional six people they had kidnapped and held captive for nearly a year, including Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old Israeli American.

We are investigating Hersh’s murder, and each and every one of Hamas’s brutal murders of Americans, as an act of terrorism. The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas’s operations. These actions will not be our last.”

The US is putting Hamas on notice. For almost 11 months Hamas had privilege. It believed it was fighting Israel and that with backing from Russia, China, Iran, Qatar, and Turkey it could isolate Israel.

Up until late August, Hamas believed it was winning. It was hoping that it could hold out and not release hostages, that it could openly murder hostages, and that its leaders would still relax in Doha, Ankara, Beirut, and Ankara.

THAT IS why Hamas made videos of the six hostages it murdered and has been releasing them. Hamas believes there are no consequences to its actions. It has friends in high places, or so it believed. It has worked with international organizations over the years. It has openly placed its members in these organizations. It has used schools and shelters for terrorist purposes and tunneled under UN sites.

It has used universities and hospitals. All of these exploitations of civilian institutions are war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, Hamas believed it could continue to do this without any kind of indictment on the international level.

The US decision fundamentally changed things. Israel has captured a large number of Hamas members but it has not put them on trial for October 7. Now that the US has moved forward, it may be time for Israel to also bring the Hamas members to trial so that there can be a kind of closure. This would be akin to bringing Adolf Eichmann to trial and lead to a kind of catharsis.

Why is this important?

Public trials and criminal indictments are important because they create a public record of crimes. It makes it harder to release the criminals. It makes it harder for them to get endless deals and also jet between various Western allies. Hamas members used to travel in the West. Hamas leader Moussa Mohammed Abu Marzouk for instance was arrested in the US in 1995.

After he was tried he got to move to Jordan. He enjoyed a life of privilege in the US for a decade and he even obtained residency. This was despite that Hamas was already carrying out murderous attacks. Marzouk enjoyed privilege after leaving the US, giving interviews for years, and being coddled by Western media like other Hamas members such as Ghazi Hamid.

This has been the historic method of Hamas. Hamas has always believed that it could exploit the West and use its contacts in places like Doha to fund Western support. Within days of the October 7 attack, for instance, many pro-Hamas groups in the West were already mobilizing support. They praised Hamas for “resistance” and printed up posters with hang gliders praising the murder of Israelis.

Even though Hamas committed the worst massacre of Jews since the Shoah, college students in the US mobilized to help rip down the posters of hostages held by the group. As the first year anniversary of October 7 approaches, many of these college groups continue to praise Hamas.

The US indictment of Hamas leaders sends a message. It says that this is not “resistance” but rather murder. “For decades, Hamas and its leadership have dedicated themselves to the eradication of the State of Israel, and to murdering, maiming, and brutalizing anyone – including dozens of Americans – who stood in their way,” US Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York said.

The US document accuses Hamas leaders of a plethora of crimes that detail the group’s rise and also its backing by Iran. This is a historic document. It is a major shot in the war on terror and the war to hold Hamas accountable for October 7. By releasing these charges, the US is doing an important service to the cause of justice.