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Fire in Every Direction: A Memoir Kindle Edition
by Tareq Baconi (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
'Moving and generous'
Isabella Hammad, author of Enter Ghost
'Luminous, moving, and achingly beautiful'
Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King
'I am forever changed after reading this book'
Javier Zamora, author of Solito
'A deeply inspiring and absorbing read'
Mark Gevisser, author of The Pink Line
'Spending time with the real people in Fire in Every Direction is a delight'
Rabih Alameddine, author of An Unnecessary Woman
Both a love story and a coming-of-age tale that spans countries and continents, Fire in Every Direction balances humour and loss, nostalgia and hope, as it takes us from the Middle East to London, and from 1948 to the present. Tareq Baconi crafts a deeply intimate, unforgettable portrait of how a political consciousness - desire and resistance - is passed down through generations.
In 1948, Tareq's grandmother would flee Haifa as Zionist militias seized the city. In the late 1970s, she would flee Beirut with her daughter, as the country was in the throes of a civil war. In Amman, the family would eventually obtain the comfort of middle-class life - still, a young Tareq would feel trapped: by cultures of silence, by a sense of not belonging, by his own growing awareness that he is in love with his childhood best friend, Ramzi.
After relocating to London, Tareq hopes to put aside his past. Yet as the Iraq War radicalizes young people around the world towards anti-war protest, history comes back to him.
Living between the region and London, Tareq fits in neither and feels alienated from both. Queerness is policed back in Amman, just as his Palestinian-ness is abroad. These gradual estrangements escalate, forcing him to grapple with what it means to live in liminal spaces, and rethink the meaning of home.
Print length 256 pages
Product description
Review
by Tareq Baconi (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
'Moving and generous'
Isabella Hammad, author of Enter Ghost
'Luminous, moving, and achingly beautiful'
Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King
'I am forever changed after reading this book'
Javier Zamora, author of Solito
'A deeply inspiring and absorbing read'
Mark Gevisser, author of The Pink Line
'Spending time with the real people in Fire in Every Direction is a delight'
Rabih Alameddine, author of An Unnecessary Woman
Both a love story and a coming-of-age tale that spans countries and continents, Fire in Every Direction balances humour and loss, nostalgia and hope, as it takes us from the Middle East to London, and from 1948 to the present. Tareq Baconi crafts a deeply intimate, unforgettable portrait of how a political consciousness - desire and resistance - is passed down through generations.
In 1948, Tareq's grandmother would flee Haifa as Zionist militias seized the city. In the late 1970s, she would flee Beirut with her daughter, as the country was in the throes of a civil war. In Amman, the family would eventually obtain the comfort of middle-class life - still, a young Tareq would feel trapped: by cultures of silence, by a sense of not belonging, by his own growing awareness that he is in love with his childhood best friend, Ramzi.
After relocating to London, Tareq hopes to put aside his past. Yet as the Iraq War radicalizes young people around the world towards anti-war protest, history comes back to him.
Living between the region and London, Tareq fits in neither and feels alienated from both. Queerness is policed back in Amman, just as his Palestinian-ness is abroad. These gradual estrangements escalate, forcing him to grapple with what it means to live in liminal spaces, and rethink the meaning of home.
Print length 256 pages
Product description
Review
Tareq Baconi refuses to separate the story of sexual identity from the story of political commitment, and in so doing models a way to see our personal struggles as intertwined with our collective ones. Fire in Every Direction is a beautiful account of one man's confrontation with the histories, silences, and desires - both communal and private - that have made him who he is.
In stunning detail - both physical and emotional - Baconi traces a story of personal and communal alienation, longing, and liberation. Drawn here in beautiful, crushing clarity is an account of what systems of degradation, fear and theft can do to a person, a society, a world. That Baconi has managed to do all this in a memoir that still feels so firmly rooted in love is a marvel.
In a time when it can feel like language has been stripped of meaning and words have lost all power, Fire in Every Direction arrives as an affirmation and a refusal of silence . . . You do not read this book to repair your heart, you read this book to understand the fissures
In Fire in Every Direction, we not only see how the oppression of a people has affected one Palestinian family, but how oppression in all forms - colonialism, patriarchy, homophobia, to name a few - creates dishonesty and masks within all of us. Tareq Baconi offers us a love letter, a blueprint on how to craft a life that questions the present, dreaming a better future in the process
A powerful memoir of queer and Palestinian reckoning. Tareq Baconi creates "a gaze of our own" by bringing his open heart to a tough confrontation with histories both intimate and diasporic. An important contribution to our many literatures.
With passion, sincerity, and wit, Baconi writes about the world he grew up in, about a time and place long gone, revivified in these beautiful pages. Spending time with the real people in Fire in Every Direction is a delight. Read this book!
With eloquence, passion, and insight, Tareq Baconi weaves his personal story as a queer kid growing up in the refugee community in Jordan, into the larger narrative of his family's dislocation, and the Palestinian struggle. In so doing, he gives new meaning to the concept of liberation, personal and political.
Fire in Every Direction is a primarily a love story: about how one learns to overcome loss - of a homeland, of a beloved - due to the interventions of authorities, be they parents or conquerors. It is a deeply inspiring and absorbing read, especially in these times.
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
About the Author
Tareq Baconi is a Palestinian writer, scholar, and activist. He is the grandson of refugees from Jerusalem and Haifa and grew up between Amman and Beirut. His work has appeared in, among others, The New York Times and The Baffler, and he contributes essays to The New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books. He has also written for film; his award-winning BFI short One Like Him, a queer love story set in Jordan, screened in over thirty festivals. He is the author of Hamas Contained: A History of Palestinian Resistance, which was shortlisted for the Palestine Book Award, and Fire in Every Direction. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
Book Description
From the renowned Palestinian scholar, a memoir of political and queer awakening, of impossible love amidst generations of displacement, and what it means to return home. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
Fire in Every Direction: A MemoirPublication date : 12 February 2026
Language : English
Print length : 256 pages
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https://www.npr.org/2025/11/04/nx-s1-5558324/tareq-baconi-talks-about-his-new-memoir-fire-in-every-direction
Author Interviews
Tareq Baconi talks about his new memoir 'Fire in Every Direction'
November 4, 20254:41 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition
Leila Fadel
7-Minute Listen
Transcript
NPR's Leila Fadel speaks to Tareq Baconi, a Palestinian scholar. His memoir, "Fire in Every Direction," explores queer identity, family history, and political awakening.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
A grandmother flees Palestine as a child on a fisherman's boat. A family is uprooted from Lebanon after a massacre of refugees. A writer grows up with a culture of silence in Jordan. Tareq Baconi, a renowned Palestinian scholar, has written a memoir of three generations of displacement. It's called "Fire In Every Direction," and Tareq Baconi is with me now. Thank you for being here.
TAREQ BACONI: Thank you for having me.
FADEL: So in your book, you start with unpacking a yellow box full of letters from a childhood friend named Ramzi. Who was he to you?
BACONI: Well, Ramzi was the first boy that I fell in love with, and we were each other's - in some ways, I mean, it's funny to say that because we were neighbors but also pen pals because we used to write each other letters the whole time that we knew each other.
FADEL: Central to this book is growing up in Amman, Jordan, you really keep part of who you are and yourself a secret, almost even from yourself. And you start to fall in love with this boy, Ramzi. And you describe it as wearing a mask. What happens when you start to peek out from behind the mask and confess your feelings?
BACONI: Well, I mean, the mask was also something that protected me in the sense that I was afraid of what it would mean to acknowledge these feelings, and the mask would help me pretend that everything was as it should be. And that was sort of increasingly unsustainable until I teased the mask off a bit and tried to write to him about my feelings, and the reaction was swift and brutal, and that was the last time we spoke.
FADEL: Throughout the book, you use this Arabic word ayb - shame - you know, which I'm very familiar with too. Arab American woman growing up and you just like, oh, I - this is ayb. You can't do this. You can't be like this. And that was sort of the start of your mother's life with your father, right? Like, oh, you can't just be dating now that you're in Jordan. We don't do this. You have to get married. And I just wonder, like, that theme, how it shaped the narrative.
BACONI: Well, I mean, the notion of ayb - of shame - I think is very oppressive and it's very resilient wherever you are, whether you're growing up in an Arab family in the U.S. in the West or back home. I think the strictures of ayb are very confining. But I think that notion of shame I was really attracted to it or interested in it because I just - it's completely shaped my life - my experience as a queer boy growing up, my mom's experience as a political feminist who's working to organize and to be a committed activist. The same notions of ayb shape us.
FADEL: So in college in London in 2003, you're going through this political awakening, but you've also been going through this very personal awakening for yourself. And there's a point where you tell your mother, you know, I'm a gay man, and she listens and she hears you. And she says, OK, we got to tell your dad.
(LAUGHTER)
FADEL: And you go back and tell your dad. What was that conversation like?
BACONI: It was very difficult. I knew that that was the beginning of a journey for them and a continuation of one for me. And so I was prepared to not see him for a long time after that. I approached it with a lot of trepidation, and actually, my mom did as well because she put sedatives in his coffee to make sure.
(LAUGHTER)
FADEL: Just drug him a little for this one.
BACONI: (Laughter) Just drug him a little, which, you know, in hindsight, Arab mama in an Arab home, she knows what she's doing.
(LAUGHTER)
FADEL: Oh, man.
(LAUGHTER)
FADEL: When you tell your dad, he says - and you said damaging things, and I'm sure this was hurtful to hear. He says you cannot live in Jordan anymore, that this is no longer the place for you. When you go to Haifa and find your grandmother's childhood home that she was displaced from in 1948, you cannot bring yourself to ring the doorbell. It seemed like you were searching for home. Have you found that?
BACONI: Yes. I have. I have found that. My concept of home now is in my chosen family. And then home has come to mean something else to me. It's not this sense of needing to go back to somewhere. I think it's - my concept of it has evolved.
FADEL: It was very heartwarming to read near the end of the book where your dad just, like, loves your husband. He's like, when are you coming back to Beirut? It's just a totally - like, it - things changed, like, once you were open and clear to them about who you were and that you wouldn't back down from who that was.
BACONI: Absolutely. I think that he surprised me in so many ways. My dad has passed now but, you know...
FADEL: I'm so sorry.
BACONI: ...Before he passed away, I just couldn't believe where he got to and how he embraced me. And it really affirmed my impulse that, you know, these silences, who are they serving? My relationship with my father is much, much - or was much more loving and more honest than it ever was when I was hiding parts of myself from him.
FADEL: Yeah. Your first book is a very well-known book called "Hamas Contained" - a totally different book than the one I read. What was it like writing such a personal work that speaks to this larger question around displacement and loss and war and belonging?
BACONI: It was challenging in ways that I hadn't necessarily anticipated. You know, writing analytically or writing academically is important, but it's also a way of hiding - at least it was for me.
FADEL: Yeah.
BACONI: And this book was a way of going into the lived experience. What does it mean that I'm the grandson of four refugees from Palestine, now having to witness a Nakba and being - or a genocide, the continuation of the Nakba - and being unable to stop it. And in that way, I found it painful but also cathartic and important for me on a personal level. You know, the funny thing is, I'm a very private person and I - you know, I would've never imagined writing a memoir. But actually, writing this book was the only way I could really confront myself and sit with myself and sort of embrace who I'd become as a person in all of its different facets.
FADEL: Is it freeing to have it in the world?
BACONI: Well, we'll find out. It's...
(LAUGHTER)
BACONI: You know, I keep saying this is either the bravest or the stupidest thing I've done, and we'll find out soon enough.
FADEL: Tareq Baconi is the author of "Fire In Every Direction." Thank you, Tareq.
BACONI: Thank you for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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https://www.democracynow.org/2025/11/6/tareq_baconi
“Fire in Every Direction”: Palestinian Author Tareq Baconi on Gaza, Zionism & Embracing Queerness
StoryNovember 06, 2025
Watch Full ShowTopicsPalestine
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Palestinian writer Tareq Baconi joins us to discuss his new memoir, Fire in Every Direction, a chronicle of his political and queer coming of age growing up between Amman and Beirut as the grandson of refugees from Jerusalem and Haifa. While “LGBTQ+ labels have also been used by the West as part of empire,” with colonial projects seeking to portray Native populations as backward and in need of saving, “there’s a beautiful effort and movement among queer communities in the region to reclaim that language,” says Baconi. “I identify as a queer man today as part of a political project. It’s not just a sexual identity. It expands beyond that and rejects Zionism and rejects authoritarianism, and that’s part of my queerness.”
Baconi also comments on the so-called ceasefire agreement in Gaza and the election of Zohran Mamdani in New York City. “Palestinians are the ones that have to govern Palestinian territory, not this international force that comes in that takes any kind of sovereignty or agency away from the Palestinians,” he says.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Gaza, where Israel’s military has killed at least two Palestinians in separate attacks. Israel claimed the men had approached the so-called yellow line that leaves more than half of the Gaza Strip under Israeli occupation. Israel has now killed at least 241 Palestinians since the U.S.-brokered ceasefire took effect on October 10th.
This comes as the Norwegian Refugee Council reports Israel is allowing just a hundred aid trucks a day to enter Gaza, far short of the 600 trucks per day Israel had pledged under the ceasefire deal.
This is Umm Amir Muqat, a displaced Palestinian in Gaza City.
UMM AMIR MUQAT: [translated] We have no life here. We’ve lost all hope. We returned to a pile of rubble. We have no water. We have no food. We came back to rubble. We hoped our house would still be there, but there’s no suitable place for us to live. We need a tent to live in, for us and for our children, and to have our lives back to the way it was before.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by the Palestinian analyst and writer Tareq Baconi. He’s author of a new memoir, Fire in Every Direction. He’s the grandson of refugees from Jerusalem and Haifa, grew up between Amman, Jordan, and Beirut, Lebanon. He’s the president of the board of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. He’s also author of Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance. His award-winning short film is titled One Like Him. It is a queer love story set in Jordan. He’s a former senior analyst for the International Crisis Group on Israel-Palestine.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!
TAREQ BACONI: Thanks for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s great to have you with us. Congratulations —
TAREQ BACONI: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: — on the publication of your book, Fire in Every Direction. Before we get to that, though, the latest. You are also an expert on Hamas, looking at, I mean, not even one-sixth of the aid is getting through that was promised by Israel since the ceasefire, and the killings continue, both in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
TAREQ BACONI: Listen, historically, every ceasefire that was negotiated between Hamas and Israel had adopted a phased approach. There would be the first phase, where there would be the ostensible cessation of hostilities. And then, after that, the idea was always that the negotiators would propel the parties to move into reconstruction, to move into lifting the blockade, to move into other aspects that would make life in Gaza livable. And the reality is that, historically, every ceasefire got stuck in the first phase. There was never a real push to get Israel to adopt or to respect the second and third phases of the ceasefire. The parties would get stuck in the first phase.
And so, when this was negotiated, that was, I think, on the Palestinian side, always the fear, that Hamas would release the captives, it would release the bodies of the captives, and then nothing would happen in terms of forcing Israel to respect the commitments that it had made under the ceasefire. And lo and behold, this is exactly where we’re at. When the ceasefire, or the so-called ceasefire, was negotiated, the idea was that the U.S. would act as a guarantor and that it would compel Israel to abide by its commitments. The reality is that the killing hasn’t stopped. This is not a ceasefire. The killing hasn’t stopped. The starvation continues. The aid that’s going in is nowhere near what is needed. There’s no ability to allow Palestinians to go back to any semblance of a dignified life. And so, the reality is that the narrative is of a ceasefire; the reality is of the continuation of the genocide.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what do you think? I mean, even if they were to move on to the second phase of the ceasefire deal, I mean, your assessment of the deal overall?
TAREQ BACONI: Listen, the assessment of the deal overall is that it’s a horrific — it’s a horrific deal. It doesn’t give the Palestinians any space for actual self-governance. It also gets to — it brings Israel off the hook entirely. The Israeli regime has committed a genocide for two years, live-streamed for everyone to see. And the narrative of the ceasefire is that now we just go back into this language of reconstruction and peace. Where is accountability? Netanyahu is a wanted war criminal. The people around him are war criminals. How do we deal with the fact that this live-streamed genocide is now being normalized, and we just are expected to go back into a reality where we talk about peace and reconstruction? Before we do any of that, there has to be accountability. And Palestinians are the ones that have to govern Palestinian territory, not this international force that comes in, that takes any kind of sovereignty or agency away from the Palestinian people.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And you’ve also, of course, written a book, as we mentioned, on Hamas. What about the requirement, the provision, of Hamas having to disarm and relinquish political power in Gaza?
TAREQ BACONI: Hamas has always been consistent that it would be part of a Palestinian polity that would be inclusive, that brings other Palestinian factions in, that collectively are able to determine what future Palestinians might have. The requirement for disarmament has always been a tool that Israel has used and the U.S. has used to justify continued acts of oppression and violence against the Palestinian people. I’ve always said the same thing. If Hamas were to disappear tomorrow, if all of its weapons were to disappear tomorrow, the blockade will not end. The genocide will not end. This is not about Hamas. This is an Israeli war against the Palestinian people. It’s a demographic war aimed at exterminating as many Palestinians as possible.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And finally, before we go to your book, of course, you’ve been in New York the last few days, and you’ve witnessed the victory of Zohran Mamdani. So, if you could — a couple of things — first, say, you know, what you think that indicates in terms of a possible change in the U.S. — I mean, not that New York City is necessarily representative — but a change in the position among people on Israel-Palestine, and also the response of his — in Israel-Palestine to his victory?
TAREQ BACONI: Listen, I think it’s an incredible — it’s an incredible moment, and I think it really shows the potential for real politics that is representing what people — what people, the general population, feels around these key issues. I think in the past few years we’ve seen institutions of media, we’ve seen institutions of government being complicit in genocide, manufacturing consent for genocide. And people are — feel deceived. They feel like they’ve been lied to.
And here we have a politician who is speaking to people’s politics, who’s speaking to people’s desires, not just on Palestine, of course, but cost of living, on economic issues, real leftist values. And he’s coming in and saying, “Actually, we understand what this is. This is all a narrative that’s fabricated. It’s a facade. We really have to deal with this reality, and we have to push forward the politics that represents our people.”
And actually, I think Palestine is central to this, and he understands that Palestine is central to this. And I don’t think that if the Gaza genocide hadn’t happened in the past two years, it wouldn’t have mobilized the base in such a way here that would have propelled his victory. I really think Palestine is central to Mamdani’s election victory.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to your book, Fire in Every Direction, a memoir, and your comments about putting out a memoir at this time, and yet the power of this magnificent book, talking about your life, your family’s life, from Amman to London to Palestine. Fire in Every Direction, why the title?
TAREQ BACONI: Well, the title is actually a phrase that I use to describe my mom in the book. My mom is an incredible activist and incredible woman and had, in her university years in Lebanon, been active on Palestine. This is before the Lebanese Civil War. My grandparents had been expelled in the Nakba in 1948 to Lebanon. And not a lot of people know this, but between ’48 and a few years after ’48, to ’51, I believe, Christian Palestinian refugees were getting naturalized, because the Lebanese government was playing with the demographics of the country. And so, my grandparents were naturalized. They were not in refugee camps. They got citizenship, and they became Lebanese citizens.
So my parents were born and raised in Lebanon as Lebanese citizens. And my mom was very active on Palestine, and during the Civil War fled to Jordan, where I was born. And she carried a lot of rage. I think it was rage that moved down to her from her own parents, from the Nakba, from the inability to achieve justice. And so, I describe her rage in the book as fire burning in every direction. And so, that’s really the — where the title comes from.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Tareq, I mean, talk about the decision to write a memoir. When did you start writing it? And did you always know you would write a memoir? You’ve said, in another context, that it’s, quote, “either the bravest or the stupidest thing I’ve done.”
TAREQ BACONI: Yes, I mean, listen, I always knew that — well, I always knew that I had an impulse to write this book. Even when I was writing Hamas Contained, I knew that that wasn’t the book that I really wanted to be writing. And I started writing this book properly — I feel like I’ve been writing it my entire life, in some ways, but I started writing it properly in 2017. And I just could not have imagined it coming out at a moment of genocide. It was a really — it was a really difficult reality to sit with, understanding that, you know, there would be this memoir at a moment of genocide, when I feel like our collective gaze should be on Gaza. Every effort is trying to move us to look away from Gaza, and we should keep talking about Gaza.
And the more I sat with this, the more I realized that, actually, this is a book about the Nakba. This is a book about — you know, the genocide is the continuation of the Nakba in other ways. And this book is about the Nakba, about my grandparents, about my parents, about these structures of violence that have dispossessed and continue to dispossess Palestinians. And so, in some ways, I think that this is just one facet of our collective story as Palestinians.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: I think one of the things that’s extraordinary about the book, though, because it’s true there is — the whole story is told in the context of the politics of Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine. But what you do — and I’ll just read the comments of the acclaimed Palestinian writer Isabella Hammad, commenting on your book. She said, in the memoir, you refuse, quote, “to separate the story of sexual identity from the story of political commitment, and in so doing [model] a way to see our personal struggles as intertwined with our collective ones.” So, if you could elaborate on that, the many decisions you took in the writing of the book, what was included, what was excluded, and how you came to, don’t know, bring the two together so, political — the political and the personal?
TAREQ BACONI: Absolutely. I mean, listen, when I started writing this book, for me, this book, at its core, is a love story between two boys in Amman. That’s what this book is, and that’s what it had always been. When I wanted to write it, that’s what the initial impetus for the writing, the creative impulse, was to write a love story that I felt couldn’t be narrated when I was growing up. And I didn’t even consciously think that Palestine, or even the story of my grandparents or the Nakba, would be a part of it. And the more I wrote, the more I realized that there’s no story to be told here without telling the story of who I am as a person, and that’s the story of my grandparents, and that’s the story of my parents. And so, obviously, that became a very political book. And in some ways, I can understand that now, in retrospect, but I can’t say that it was a conscious decision at the time.
I also know that, intellectually, a lot of my work has come to understand Palestine through queer theory, as well, understanding how, you know, queerness is demonized, and certainly where I was coming from, and in many ways, Palestine is demonized here. And this is not a story of East-West. This is a story of silences, of how, you know, these structures of oppression or these structures of violence allow certain things to be said and not to be said. And so, the way that I came into my queer identity unraveled this whole idea of normative discourse that we have to accept and abide by, and pushed me to think about, you know, “What can you challenge. What are — what’s not being said? What are the silences that we’re comfortable with?” and to poke.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about your, what you’ve described as a complicated and unresolved relationship with the word “gay.” At one point, you even call it “revulsion.”
TAREQ BACONI: Yeah, I mean, I think this is a complicated history. I think many people have written on this. You know, the most famous book on this is obviously Joseph Massad’s Desiring Arabs, this idea that the LGBTQ+ labels have also been used by the West as part of empire, that this is — they go into these uncivilized, barbaric spaces, and they civilize. You know, they bring — they have a savior complex that they’re bringing in to save women or to save minorities or to save LGBT folk. Meanwhile, this is all a recipe for empire and for violence. And Israel does that exceedingly well, you know, this Tel Aviv is the capital of gay life, this pinkwashing, where, you know, if you’re gay or if you’re not gay, if you’re Palestinian, you’re living under apartheid. It doesn’t matter. But this is a civilizational discourse that’s embedded in these terms.
And so, being someone who grew up in Amman, you can’t really adopt this language without falling into the trap of then being seen as part of empire or part of this foreign invasion into one’s lands. And I think there’s a beautiful effort and movement among queer communities in the region to reclaim that language, to not accept it as part of that liberal discourse of the West, which is often a very violent discourse of empire, and to bring it back to a discourse of democracy and decolonization and freedom. So, I identify as a queer man today as part of a political project. It’s not just a sexual identity. It expands beyond that and rejects Zionism and rejects authoritarianism, and that’s part of my queerness.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: I mean, you said earlier that the book, it’s about silences, you know, at both — I mean, East and West, not exclusively one or the other, about Palestinian-ness in the West and about queerness in Jordan and the broader Middle East. I mean, in a way, your decision to write this as a memoir, rather than fiction, is another way in which you subvert that silence by fully assuming your voice.
TAREQ BACONI: Yes, and it was a difficult decision. That’s why I said it was either the stupidest or the bravest thing I’ve done, because it was — it was a difficult decision. I think there is literature coming out of the Middle East, certainly, fictional, but also some nonfiction, that’s engaging with questions of queerness. But for me, I always felt that I could write this as fiction. I could also write it as a pseudonym. And I think that would be a very important contribution. But I just knew that this wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted to — whatever — whatever it means for me socially and politically, it was important for me to say there is space for these narratives. We’re not a monolith, and there is space for these stories. And we need to be able to hold this. If we’re talking about liberation and we’re talking about emancipation and Palestine, what is that? That’s inclusive of everything. Obviously, it’s dismantling Zionism, but it’s also dismantling the patriarchy and homophobia and other forms of social oppression. And so, it felt to me that this was something that I needed to own.
AMY GOODMAN: And before we end, toward the end of your book, you talk about your decision to go to Palestine. Describe that journey.
TAREQ BACONI: So, I grew up in Jordan, and I was never allowed to go to Palestine, because there — for Jordanian men specifically, it’s very difficult to get visas to go to Palestine. And so, I had worked on Hamas Contained as part of my doctoral thesis for years before I had ever visited Palestine. And then, when I naturalized as a U.K. citizen in 2014, that was my opportunity to go back. You know, as I joke in the book, the colonial masters of my grandparents giving me permission to go into Palestine, which is, you know, now under the settler colony of Israel. And so, it was a — that was the first trip that I did with my — that I made with my U.K. passport.
And it was incredibly powerful, because it felt like I had grown up there. I had never been, but it felt like I had grown up there, the stories of my grandparents, my parents. And it was really important for me to go to Gaza, too. I didn’t spend enough time in Gaza. I wish I had been given more permission to do that.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Tell us what years, when you were there.
TAREQ BACONI: This was in 2015, 2015, so a few years after the Israeli military assault in the 2014 war. The devastation was extreme. I mean, now it seems relatively not as extreme as what we’re seeing today, but even then, it was shocking to see how the Israeli military assault sort of devastates neighborhoods in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you so much for being with us, Tareq Baconi, Palestinian analyst and writer. His memoir is just out. It’s called Fire in Every Direction, the president of the board of past — the president of the board of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, author also of the book Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance.
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Up Next
“The World After Gaza”: Author Pankaj Mishra on Gaza & the Return of 19th-C. “Rapacious Imperialism”
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Fire in Every Direction: A Memoir : Baconi, Tareq
-- 1,000 단어 요약+평론 써 주세요
<한국어 | 약 1,000단어 요약+평론>
타레크 바코니의 회고록 <Fire in Every Direction>은 <난민-디아스포라의 가족사>와 <퀴어 정체성의 성장 서사>를 한 줄로 엮어, “개인의 욕망과 집단의 정치”가 어떻게 서로를 밀어 올리고, 또 짓누르는지 보여주려는 책으로 보입니다. 출판사 소개는 이 책을 “정치적·퀴어 각성, 불가능한 사랑, 세대에 걸친 추방, 그리고 ‘집으로 돌아간다’는 말의 의미”를 다루는 memoir로 규정합니다. simonandschuster.com+1
<1) 내용 요약>
여러 서평·소개글이 공통으로 강조하는 골격은 “세대 3대에 걸친 이동과 단절”입니다. 할머니 세대는 1948년의 격변 속에 팔레스타인(도시로는 하이파가 언급됩니다)에서 떠나야 했고, 다음 세대는 레바논의 전쟁과 폭력, 난민 공동체의 상처 속에서 다시 삶의 터전을 옮겨야 했으며, 저자 자신은 요르단(암만)과 레바논(베이루트) 사이의 디아스포라 환경에서 자랍니다. PublishersWeekly.com+2Gay's The Word+2
출판전문지 <Publishers Weekly> 요약에 따르면, 책은 “상자 속 기념품”에서 출발하는데, 그 안에는 어린 시절 친구 ‘람지(Ramzi)’가 보낸 편지들이 있고, 이는 저자의 첫사랑(혹은 사랑의 각성)과 연결됩니다. 그 후 서사는 가족의 이동(팔레스타인 → 레바논 → 요르단)과 저자의 성장(중동에서 런던으로 이어지는 교육·이주 경로)로 확장되며, 가족 내부의 침묵, 말해지지 않는 애도, 그리고 금기와 규범이 만들어내는 균열을 따라가게 됩니다. PublishersWeekly.com+1
이 책이 단순한 “정치적 회고”나 “성정체성 커밍아웃 서사” 중 하나로 환원되지 않는 지점은, 저자(서평자들의 표현을 빌리면)가 ‘성적 정체성의 이야기’와 ‘정치적 헌신/저항의 이야기’를 분리하지 않겠다고 선언하는 데 있습니다. 사랑의 경험(특히 ‘불가능한 사랑’으로 반복 표지되는 관계)은 개인의 비극이나 로맨스에만 머무르지 않고, 국가·가족·공동체·언어·종교·남성성 규범 같은 구조들과 마찰합니다. Hachette UK+1
<2) 이 책의 핵심 주제>
첫째, <추방의 세대 전승>입니다. 폭력과 불안정은 한 번의 사건으로 끝나지 않고, 가족의 몸과 습관 속으로 “예측·회피·침묵”이라는 형태로 내면화됩니다. 그래서 ‘집’은 지리적 좌표이기보다, 누가 무엇을 말할 수 있고 말할 수 없는지, 누가 누구를 보호한다는 명분으로 누구를 통제하는지 같은 규칙들의 집합으로 드러납니다. Kirkus Reviews+1
둘째, <퀴어 각성과 정치의 동시성>입니다. 퀴어 정체성은 이 책에서 단지 개인의 “비밀”이 아니라, 공동체가 요구하는 침묵과 체면의 체제를 비추는 거울로 작동합니다. 동시에, ‘팔레스타인/디아스포라’라는 집단적 역사 또한 개인의 욕망을 부차화하거나 도덕 재판의 대상으로 만들 위험이 있습니다. 책은 이 둘이 서로를 지우지 않도록(정치가 성을 삼키거나, 성이 정치를 장식품으로 만들지 않도록) 긴장을 유지하려는 시도로 읽힙니다. simonandschuster.com+2Kirkus Reviews+2
셋째, <기억과 언어>입니다. 소개글과 인터뷰성 기사들은 ‘침묵의 문화’(특히 가족 안에서의 침묵)를 언급합니다. 말해지지 않은 상처는 사라지는 것이 아니라, 관계의 방식(회피, 분노, 과잉보호, 금기, 자기검열)을 조직합니다. 그래서 이 회고록의 중요한 동력은 “말하기의 윤리”입니다. 누구의 이야기를 어떻게 전할 것인가, 그리고 그 말하기가 또 다른 위험을 낳지는 않는가. WHRO Public Media+1
<3) 평론 | 강점>
가장 큰 강점은 <개인사-정치사의 결합을 ‘구호’가 아니라 ‘서사 기술’로 구현하려는 점>입니다. 외부 독자에게는 팔레스타인 디아스포라의 역사적 경험이 “사건의 연표”가 아니라 “가족의 일상 감각”으로 번역되어 다가올 가능성이 큽니다. 서평 일부가 “세대에 걸친 이동을 촘촘히 추적한다”고 요약하는 것도 이 때문입니다. PublishersWeekly.com+1
또 하나는 <퀴어 서사의 정서적 복합성>입니다. 많은 회고록이 ‘커밍아웃→자기긍정’의 직선 구조로 흘러가기 쉬운데, 이 책은 사랑이 정치·가족·추방의 조건들과 얽히며 “성장=해방”으로 단순화되기 어렵다는 점을 전면에 둡니다. ‘불가능한 사랑’이라는 표지는 낭만화가 아니라, 조건의 잔혹함(그리고 그 조건이 개인의 잘못이 아님)을 드러내는 장치로 읽힙니다. simonandschuster.com+1
<4) 평론 | 한계/주의점>
첫째, <독자 층에 따라 “정치적 기대치”가 엇갈릴 수 있습니다>. 저자가 정책·정치 분석가로도 알려져 있어(예: <Hamas Contained> 저자), 어떤 독자는 이 회고록에서 더 직접적인 제도·국제정치 분석을 기대할 수 있습니다. 그러나 현재 공개된 소개와 전문 서평들은 이 책을 “정책서”가 아니라 “정체성과 가족 기억의 서사”로 위치시키는 쪽에 가깝습니다. 그 기대 불일치가 호불호로 나타날 수 있습니다. en.wikipedia.org+1
둘째, 이 책의 큰 미덕인 <서정성과 내밀함>은 동시에 위험이기도 합니다. 디아스포라·전쟁·점령·폭력 같은 거대한 구조를 “내 이야기”로 끌어안는 순간, 독자(특히 외부자)가 구조를 감상적 공감으로만 소비할 수 있습니다. 반대로, 어떤 독자는 내밀한 사랑 이야기를 “정치의 도구”로 오해할 수도 있습니다. 책은 그 경계 위를 걷는 작업이라, 읽는 쪽도 “나는 지금 무엇을 소비하고 있나”를 점검하며 읽는 게 좋겠습니다.
<5) 누구에게 권할까>
<퀴어 디아스포라 서사>, <가족 기억과 침묵의 정치>, <‘개인 해방’과 ‘집단 해방’의 연결>에 관심 있는 독자에게 특히 맞습니다. 반대로, 팔레스타인 문제를 오직 시사·정책 프레임으로만 읽어온 독자라면, 이 책은 ‘정보’보다 ‘감각과 윤리’를 더 많이 요구하는 텍스트로 느껴질 수 있습니다. (기본 서지: 미국판 출간일 2025년 11월 4일, 256쪽으로 안내됩니다.) amazon.com+1
<English | shorter summary+review>
Tareq Baconi’s <Fire in Every Direction> is presented as a memoir that refuses to separate <queer self-discovery> from <political awakening>, using a multi-generational family history of displacement to show how private desire and collective struggle shape—and sometimes wound—each other. Publisher and major review outlets frame it as a coming-of-age and love story moving from the Middle East to London and from 1948 to the present. simonandschuster.com+1
According to <Publishers Weekly>, the book opens with a box of keepsakes, including letters from a childhood friend, Ramzi, which becomes the emotional trigger for revisiting the author’s early love, family silences, and the repeated uprooting of three generations (Palestine → Lebanon → Jordan). PublishersWeekly.com+1 Kirkus similarly emphasizes the memoir’s focus on family and freedom, set against a homeland marked by war and loss, and highlights Baconi’s emergence as a queer person. Kirkus Reviews
The book’s main strength—based on available professional descriptions—is its ambition to make “the political” legible through intimate texture: how displacement becomes a family habit (anticipation, secrecy, guarded speech), and how queerness becomes not a side plot but a lens on communal norms and inherited fear. Hachette UK+1 A possible limitation is expectation mismatch: readers who know Baconi as a policy thinker (e.g., his earlier work <Hamas Contained>) may anticipate more direct analysis, while the public framing positions this primarily as narrative testimony and ethical self-accounting rather than a policy argument. en.wikipedia.org+1
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타리크 바코니(Tareq Baconi)의 저서 <Fire in Every Direction: A Memoir>에 대한 요약과 평론을 작성해 드립니다.
도서 요약: <Fire in Every Direction: A Memoir>
1. 정체성의 혼란과 팔레스타인의 디아스포라
이 회고록은 저자 타리크 바코니가 암만, 런던, 그리고 미국을 오가며 겪은 개인적 여정을 다룬다. 바코니는 팔레스타인 출신의 지식인으로서, 자신이 태어난 땅이 아닌 곳에서 자라며 겪는 정체성의 분열을 가감 없이 드러낸다. 그는 서구 사회의 일원으로 살아가면서도, 동시에 자신의 뿌리인 팔레스타인이 겪는 억압과 폭력의 소식을 끊임없이 접하며 느끼는 죄책감과 부채감을 세밀하게 묘사한다.
2. 하마스 연구와 지적 여정
바코니는 단순히 개인의 삶을 나열하는 데 그치지 않고, 자신이 왜 하마스(Hamas)라는 조직에 천착하게 되었는지를 설명한다. 그는 과거 저작인 <Hamas Contained>를 집필하며 겪었던 학문적 고뇌와 외부의 시선을 언급한다. 서구 담론에서 '테러 조직'으로만 규정되는 하마스를 정치적, 역사적 맥락에서 분석하려 했던 그의 시도는 끊임없는 검열과 오해에 부딪힌다. 이 책은 그러한 지적 투쟁이 저자의 내면에 어떤 상처를 남겼는지를 보여준다.
3. 일상화된 폭력과 '모든 방향의 불길'
제목인 <Fire in Every Direction>은 팔레스타인 사람들이 직면한 현실을 상징한다. 폭력은 단순히 물리적인 포격에 국한되지 않는다. 그것은 언어적 차별, 이동의 제한, 역사의 왜곡, 그리고 국제 사회의 무관심이라는 형태로 모든 방향에서 몰려온다. 저자는 2023년 10월 이후 더욱 심화된 가자 지구의 비극을 목도하며, 자신이 쌓아온 지식과 언어가 실제 고통 앞에서 얼마나 무력한지를 고백한다.
평론: 경계에 선 자의 고통스러운 증언
증언으로서의 회고록
바코니의 글은 단순한 기록을 넘어선 하나의 <증언>이다. 그는 팔레스타인 문제를 외부자의 시선으로 분석하는 분석가와, 그 비극을 온몸으로 느끼는 당사자 사이의 위태로운 경계에 서 있다. 이 책의 가치는 정책 분석가로서의 냉철함과 한 인간으로서의 뜨거운 슬픔이 충돌하며 만들어내는 긴장감에 있다.
서구의 이중성과 언어의 한계
그는 서구 학계와 언론이 팔레스타인을 다루는 방식에 내재된 이중성을 날카롭게 비판한다. <인권>과 <자유>를 부르짖으면서도 팔레스타인의 점령 상태에는 침묵하거나, 저항의 맥락을 삭제한 채 결과만을 비난하는 태도를 꼬집는다. 바코니는 자신이 사용하는 <영어>라는 언어 자체가 때로는 팔레스타인의 진실을 담아내기에 부적절하거나, 오히려 진실을 가리는 도구가 될 수 있음을 성찰한다.
분석에서 공감으로의 확장
기존의 바코니가 하마스의 전략과 이스라엘의 봉쇄를 분석하는 '머리'의 역할을 했다면, 이 회고록은 그의 '가슴'을 열어 보인다. 그는 독자들에게 수치와 통계 뒤에 숨겨진 개별적인 삶의 무게를 전달하려 노력한다. 이는 팔레스타인 문제를 정치적 분쟁의 영역에서 보편적인 인간 존엄의 영역으로 끌어올리는 역할을 한다.
결론: 꺼지지 않는 불길 속에서의 기록
<Fire in Every Direction>은 희망적인 메시지를 성급하게 던지지 않는다. 오히려 모든 방향에서 불길이 치솟는 절망적인 상황을 정직하게 응시한다. 그러나 그 절망을 기록하고 공유하려는 시도 자체가 하나의 저항임을 역설한다. 이 책은 오늘날 가장 고통스러운 비극을 이해하고자 하는 이들에게 단순한 정보 이상의 정서적 충격과 깊은 성찰을 제공한다.
작성해 드린 요약과 평론이 도움이 되었기를 바랍니다. 혹시 이 책의 특정 챕터에 대해 더 자세한 분석이 필요하시거나, 저자의 다른 저작과 비교하는 내용이 궁금하신가요?
원하신다면 저자의 이전 저서인 <Hamas Contained>와의 주요 차이점을 요약해 드릴 수도 있습니다. 말씀해 주세요
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Hamas Contained 1,000 단어 요약 + 평론을 쓰고, 그 다음에 두책의 차이점을 요약해주세요.
<한국어 | <Hamas Contained> 1,000단어 내외 요약+평론>
타레크 바코니의 <Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance>(2018)은 하마스를 “단일한 본질”로 규정하기보다, <무장 저항 운동·사회운동·정당·가자 행정 권력>이 뒤엉킨 복합체로 보고, 그 복합체가 30년 동안 어떻게 <‘가자에 가둬진 통치 주체’>로 재형성되었는지를 추적합니다. 바코니의 핵심 논지는 간단히 말해 <‘하마스의 변화’는 내부 진화만이 아니라, 이스라엘의 갈등 ‘관리’ 전략과 팔레스타인 정치 분열, 지역 질서가 함께 만든 ‘봉쇄-통치의 덫’>이라는 것입니다. Stanford University Press+2searchworks.stanford.edu+2
<1) 핵심 논지: “포함(containment) + 평정(pacification)”>
책 제목의 ‘contained’는 단순히 “억제”가 아니라, 하마스가 <가자지구라는 지리·정치적 구획 안에 격리>되고, 동시에 <저항의 에너지가 행정·치안·생존관리로 흡수>되는 이중 과정을 가리킵니다. 이 과정에서 하마스는 저항의 상징이면서도, 주민 생존을 관리하는 행정권력이라는 모순적 자리에 놓입니다. 바코니는 하마스가 통치에 들어서면서 <저항의 정당성·전략·담론>이 끊임없이 재조정되고, 그 재조정이 다시 팔레스타인 내부의 균열을 심화했다고 봅니다. Stanford University Press+2palestine-studies.org+2
<2) 전개(장별 핵심 흐름)>
스탠퍼드대 출판부가 공개한 목차를 기준으로 보면 책은 (1) 이슬람 팔레스타인 민족주의의 부상, (2) 무장저항의 난관, (3) ‘저항의 정치’로서의 선택들, (4) 하마스를 “조이는” 정책(고립·제재·차단), (5) 분단의 제도화(가자-서안 분리의 고착), (6) 지역적 불운(주변 국가·지역 역학이 하마스에 미친 압력)으로 진행되고 결론에서 ‘포함과 평정’을 정리합니다. Stanford University Press+1
여기서 중요한 포인트는, 바코니가 “하마스가 왜 더 강경해졌나/왜 온건해졌나”를 단선적으로 설명하기보다, 각 국면에서 하마스가 <대중적 정당성, 조직 생존, 팔레스타인 내부 경쟁, 대외 압력, 무장투쟁의 효율성> 사이의 긴장을 어떻게 ‘관리’했는지를 따라간다는 점입니다. 팔레스타인연구소(IPS) 쪽 리뷰도 이 책이 1987년부터 2017년까지의 주요 결정을 “세부적으로” 분석한다고 평가합니다. palestine-studies.org+1
<3) 방법론: ‘내부 문서/담론’에 접근하는 방식>
하마스는 폐쇄성이 강해 내부 의사결정 접근이 제한되는데, 바코니는 그 한계를 “포기”하지 않고, 공개 문서·성명·정치문서와 인터뷰를 결합해 <담론 변화>에서 조직의 전략과 제약을 읽어내려 합니다. 자달리야(Jadaliyya)에 실린 책 소개/리뷰 성격 글은 그가 비판적 담론분석을 이론적 토대로 삼고, 하마스의 <자기 표상>을 통해 현실 정치의 변화를 추적한다고 요약합니다. jadaliyya.com+1
<4) 평론: 강점>
이 책의 강점은 <사건 나열을 넘어 “구조적 덫”을 설명>하는 데 있습니다. 즉, 하마스가 가자 통치를 떠맡을수록 (그리고 봉쇄·차단이 강화될수록) 무장 저항은 ‘상징’으로는 강화되지만 실효성은 제약되고, 대신 통치·행정이 비대해져 저항의 에너지가 평정되는 역설을 설득력 있게 보여줍니다. 또한 “하마스=단일체”라는 통념을 깨고, 내부의 노선 갈등과 국면별 계산을 드러내어 논의를 단순 도덕 판정에서 정치 분석으로 되돌려 놓습니다. prio.org+2insightturkey.com+2
<5) 평론: 한계/주의점>
첫째, ‘담론 중심’ 접근은 강점이면서도 한계입니다. 문서·성명·연설은 전략적 수사이기도 하기에, “말”과 “실제”의 간극을 어떻게 교차검증했는지가 독자에 따라 아쉬울 수 있습니다(물론 저자는 인터뷰 등으로 보완하려 합니다). jadaliyya.com+1
둘째, 이 책은 2017년까지의 궤적을 중심으로 하므로, 이후 국면(특히 2023년 10월 이후의 전면적 전쟁 국면)을 직접 설명해주지는 않습니다. 다만 최근의 재평가 글들은 “오히려 지금 더 읽혀야 할 고전”처럼 소비되기도 하는데, 이때는 책이 다룬 <‘포함-평정’ 구조>가 이후에도 얼마나 유지되었는지, 어디에서 균열이 났는지를 독자가 별도로 점검해야 합니다. Against the Current+1
<6) 한 줄 추천>
<하마스를 “좋다/나쁘다”로 끝내지 않고, 팔레스타인 정치의 분열·봉쇄·통치의 상호작용 속에서 이해하려는 독자>에게 강력한 입문서이자 참고서입니다. (2018년 스탠퍼드대 출판부 출간) Stanford University Press+1
<두 책의 차이 요약 | <Hamas Contained> vs <Fire in Every Direction>>
<장르/목적>
<Hamas Contained>: 정치사·조직사 분석서(학술적 논증). Stanford University Press+1
<Fire in Every Direction>: 퀴어 정체성·가족사·추방의 기억을 엮는 회고록(서사적 증언). Simon & Schuster+1
<자료/방법>
<Hamas Contained>: 하마스 문서·출판물·인터뷰 + 담론분석적 독해. jadaliyya.com+1
<Fire>: 개인 기억, 가족의 침묵/역사, 편지(‘Ramzi’), 삶의 장면이 핵심 자료. PublishersWeekly.com+1
<주된 질문>
<Hamas Contained>: “하마스는 어떻게 ‘가자 통치로 포함되고 평정되었나?’” Stanford University Press+1
<Fire>: “추방과 침묵, 욕망과 정치적 헌신이 한 사람을 어떻게 만들었나?” Simon & Schuster+1
<시간의 스케일>
<Hamas Contained>: 1987~2017의 조직 궤적 중심. palestine-studies.org+1
<Fire>: 1948~현재를 가족 서사로 가로지름(중동→런던 등). Hachette Australia+1
<‘가자’의 위치>
<Hamas Contained>: 가자는 ‘관리되는 갈등’의 핵심 장치(정치-군사-행정의 덫). searchworks.stanford.edu+1
<Fire>: 가자는/팔레스타인은 ‘정체성의 압력과 연대의 감각’이 형성되는 배경(삶의 윤리). Simon & Schuster+1
<독자 경험>
<Hamas Contained>: “이해”를 위해 읽는 책(개념·구조·전략).
<Fire>: “느낌과 윤리”까지 요구하는 책(상처·사랑·침묵의 정치).
<English | Hamas Contained summary+review + differences (shorter)>
<Hamas Contained> (Stanford University Press, 2018) is Baconi’s analytical history of Hamas from its 1987 emergence through 2017, arguing that Hamas’s trajectory cannot be explained as simple radicalization or moderation. Instead, Baconi frames a dual process: <containment> (geographically and politically confining Hamas to Gaza within a “managed conflict” paradigm) and <pacification> (channeling and draining resistance politics into the burdens and compromises of governance). Stanford University Press+2searchworks.stanford.edu+2
A distinctive feature is method. Because Hamas’s internal deliberations are hard to access, Baconi reconstructs strategic evolution through Hamas’s public texts and discourse, supported by interviews across ranks—an approach explicitly linked to critical discourse analysis in discussions of the book. jadaliyya.com+1 Structurally, the Stanford table of contents shows a movement from the rise of Islamic Palestinian nationalism, through the unraveling of armed resistance and the “politics of resistance,” to the tightening pressures (“strangling” Hamas), the institutionalization of Palestinian division, and regional dynamics, culminating in a concluding synthesis on containment and pacification. Stanford University Press+1 Reviews in Palestine-focused venues emphasize the book’s granular attention to major political decisions and debates across key milestones, which helps readers see Hamas less as a monolith and more as a coalition balancing legitimacy, survival, and strategy under intense constraint. palestine-studies.org+1
The book’s main strength is that it pushes discussion away from moral shorthand and toward political structure: how blockade-like constraints, intra-Palestinian competition, and regional pressures can produce the paradox of a movement that remains symbolically committed to resistance while being functionally pulled into administrative governance. insightturkey.com+1 A key limitation is temporal: it stops at 2017, so readers often use it as a framework rather than a direct account for later escalations; that requires careful updating rather than retrofitting every later development into the same model. Against the Current+1
<Differences with Fire in Every Direction> - <Genre/aim>: <Hamas Contained> is political/organizational analysis; <Fire in Every Direction> is memoir weaving queer identity, family history, and political commitment. :contentReference[oaicite:25]{index=25} - <Evidence>: the former relies on documents, publications, and interviews; the latter centers lived experience, family silences, and letters (Ramzi) as narrative anchors. :contentReference[oaicite:26]{index=26} - <Guiding question>: “How was Hamas contained and pacified into Gaza governance?” vs “How do displacement, desire, and collective struggle make a self?” :contentReference[oaicite:27]{index=27} - <Scale>: 1987–2017 organizational arc vs 1948–present multi-generational personal arc. :contentReference[oaicite:28]{index=28} ::contentReference[oaicite:29]{index=29}==
요청하신 대로 타리크 바코니의 역작 <Hamas Contained>에 대한 심층 요약과 평론을 작성하고, 이어서 앞서 다룬 회고록 <Fire in Every Direction>과의 차이점을 정리해 드리겠습니다. 본문은 <해라> 체를 사용하여 작성했습니다.
1. <Hamas Contained> 요약: 저항과 봉쇄의 정치학
탄생과 이중적 구조
타리크 바코니는 하마스를 단순히 종교적 광신주의 집단으로 치부하는 서구의 시각을 정면으로 반박하며 글을 시작한다. 하마스는 1987년 제1차 인티파다의 산물로, 무슬림 형제단의 사회적 서비스 네트워크인 <다와(Dawa)>와 무장 투쟁 기구인 <알카삼 여단>이라는 이중 구조를 통해 팔레스타인 민중 속에 뿌리를 내렸다. 바코니는 하마스가 세속적인 파타(Fatah) 당의 부패와 오슬로 협정의 실패라는 토양 위에서 대안 세력으로 성장했음을 증명한다.
2006년 선거와 통치의 딜레마
책의 전환점은 2006년 팔레스타인 총선이다. 하마스의 승리는 국제 사회와 이스라엘에 충격을 주었으며, 이후 가자 지구는 물리적으로 고립된다. 여기서 바코니는 하마스가 직면한 근본적인 모순을 지적한다. 하마스는 점령에 맞서는 <저항 운동>인 동시에, 가자 지구 시민들의 생존을 책임져야 하는 <통치 기구>가 되었다. 이스라엘은 가자를 봉쇄함으로써 하마스가 통치 역량에만 에너지를 쏟게 만들었고, 이를 통해 그들의 저항 에너지를 소모시키려 했다.
봉쇄(Containment)라는 전략적 틀
바코니가 제시하는 핵심 개념은 <봉쇄>다. 이스라엘은 하마스를 완전히 궤멸시키는 대신, 가자 지구라는 거대한 감옥 안에 가두어 두는 전략을 취했다. 이는 팔레스타인 정치를 가자와 서안지구로 분열시켜 팔레스타인 국가 수립 가능성을 차단하려는 이스라엘 우파의 전략적 계산과 맞닿아 있었다. 하마스 역시 이 봉쇄의 틀 안에서 때로는 무력 도발을 통해 협상력을 높이고, 때로는 휴전을 통해 통치의 안정을 꾀하며 생존해 나갔다.
폭력의 순환과 한계
저자는 하마스와 이스라엘 사이의 반복되는 군사적 충돌을 <풀 베기(Mowing the grass)> 전략으로 설명한다. 이스라엘은 압도적인 화력으로 하마스의 역량을 주기적으로 깎아내리고, 하마스는 그 참상을 바탕으로 대중적 지지를 결집한다. 바코니는 이 비극적인 공생 관계가 결국 팔레스타인 민중의 고통만을 가중시켰으며, 근본적인 정치적 해결 없이는 이 <봉쇄>가 시한폭탄과 같음을 경고한다.
2. 평론: 신화를 걷어낸 냉정한 분석
분석적 중립성의 가치
바코니의 학술적 성취는 하마스를 선악의 구도로 보지 않고 <합리적 행위자>로 분석했다는 데 있다. 그는 하마스의 이데올로기적 경직성과 전략적 유연성을 동시에 조명함으로써, 이 조직이 왜 그토록 오랫동안 소멸하지 않고 살아남았는지를 설득력 있게 설명한다. 이는 중동 정책 결정자들에게 하마스를 무시하거나 맹목적으로 공격하는 것이 얼마나 비효율적인지를 일깨워주는 강력한 비판이다.
구조적 폭력에 대한 고발
이 책은 하마스의 폭력만큼이나 이스라엘이 구축한 <구조적 봉쇄>의 폭력성을 날카롭게 파헤친다. 봉쇄는 단순한 방어 기제가 아니라, 한 민족의 자결권을 박탈하고 그들을 항구적인 인도주의적 위기 속에 몰아넣는 능동적인 가해 행위임을 바코니는 논리적으로 입증한다.
예견된 파국
책의 결론에서 느껴지는 통찰은 소름 끼칠 정도로 정확하다. 바코니는 봉쇄가 영원할 수 없으며, 압력이 임계점에 도달하면 폭발할 것임을 예견했다. 2023년 10월 7일의 사건은 바코니가 이 책에서 경고했던 <봉쇄 전략의 파산>을 가장 비극적인 형태로 보여준 사례라고 할 수 있다.
3. <Hamas Contained> vs <Fire in Every Direction> 차이점
| 구분 | Hamas Contained (2018) | Fire in Every Direction (2024/25) |
| 장르 | 학술적 분석서 / 정치 평론 | 개인적 회고록 / 에세이 |
| 관점 | 외부적·객관적 관찰자 (Scholar) | 내부적·주관적 당사자 (Palestinian) |
| 주요 대상 | 하마스 조직, 이스라엘의 봉쇄 정책 | 저자 자신의 삶, 디아스포라의 고통 |
| 톤(Tone) | 냉철함, 논리적, 데이터 중심 | 감성적, 실존적, 성찰적 |
| 지식인의 태도 | 정책적 대안과 구조적 분석 제시 | 분석의 무력감 고백, 증언과 공감 촉구 |
| 시간적 배경 | 하마스의 기원 ~ 2010년대 중반 | 유년기 ~ 2023년 10월 이후의 비극 |
요약하자면
<Hamas Contained>가 팔레스타인 문제라는 거대한 기계의 작동 원리를 파헤친 설계도라면, <Fire in Every Direction>은 그 기계에 짓눌려 살아가는 사람들의 비명과 저자 자신의 심장 박동을 기록한 일기와 같다. 전자가 독자의 <이성>에 호소하여 상황의 복잡성을 이해시킨다면, 후자는 독자의 <감성>에 호소하여 상황의 비극성을 체감하게 만든다.
바코니의 두 저작을 통해 팔레스타인 문제를 입체적으로 이해하시는 데 도움이 되었으면 합니다. 혹시 바코니가 최근 언론 기고문에서 이 책들의 논의를 어떻게 업데이트하고 있는지 추가로 알고 싶으신가요?
Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance Kindle Edition
by Tareq Baconi (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars (101)
Part of: Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures (51 books)
"Judicious and impartial, this important work adds nuance to the portrait of one of the Middle East's most divisive players" (Publishers Weekly).
Hamas is a multifaceted liberation organization that rules Gaza and the lives of the two million Palestinians who live there. Demonized as a terrorist group in media and policy debates, it has been subjected to accusations and assumptions that have helped justify extreme military action in the region. In Hamas Contained, Tareq Baconi offers the first history of the group on its own terms.
Drawing on interviews with organization leaders, as well as publications from the group, Baconi maps Hamas's thirty-year transition from fringe resistance to governance. Questioning the conventional understanding of Hamas, he shows how the movement's ideology ultimately threatens the Palestinian struggle and, inadvertently, its own legitimacy. Baconi demonstrates how Hamas's armed struggle has failed in the face of a relentless occupation, and he argues that Israel's approach of managing rather than resolving the conflict has neutralized Hamas's demand for Palestinian sovereignty. This dynamic has perpetuated a deadlock characterized by its brutality—and one that has led to the collective punishment of millions of Palestinian civilians.
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From other countries
José Macaya
4.0 out of 5 stars Un poco largo pero muy bien documentado.
Reviewed in Spain on 16 October 2024
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I enjoyed reading it. I have learned. But the reality of Gaza and Hamas is recurring and repetitive. There are no advances or new initiatives. Sometimes it seems that you are reading what you have already read. Well written. A bit long but very well documented. Half of the book are notes. It certainly broadens the vision of Hamas with respect to that which the current press does not give.
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Alexandru Girescu
5.0 out of 5 stars Good insights on Gaza & Hamas dynamics
Reviewed in the United States on 11 March 2025
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
I've found this book very useful in understanding & following the hands on story of what was unravelling in Gaza among the key actors: Hamas, PLO and Israel.
I recommend it to all interested to get the deeper view on Gaza & Hamas.
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Reem Atalla Habayeb
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 May 2018
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
An excellent and enlightening read ... and an eye opener!
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Gloria F.
5.0 out of 5 stars Scholarly, balanced, insightful
Reviewed in the United States on 24 November 2023
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Israel's conflicts with Palestinian nationalists have been going on for so long that it's impossible to recall and synthesize what has happened without the help of a skilled historian like Baconi. Furthermore, up until Arafat's death, he was the focus of media attention, even though Hamas was already an important force by the late 1990s.
Subsequent mainstream coverage of Hamas has been simplistic. Baconi isn't at all sparing in his criticism of Hamas, but he convincingly analyzes how its leadership perceives its conflicts with Abbas, Israel, and Egypt and how leaders rely on these perceptions to make decisions. More importantly, he clarifies the ways in which Hamas' actions are shaped by international, institutional, and popular forces.
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N
1.0 out of 5 stars Amazing book, awful Amazon service
Reviewed in Spain on 15 October 2024
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
The book is amazing and very insightful to understand the genocide that has been happening for years. However, I have paid for the updated version with the statements about October the 7th, and for the second time they have sent me the old version. So very, very bad Amazon service.
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Desertwriter
5.0 out of 5 stars INVALUABLE history of ORIGINS and more!
Reviewed in the United States on 11 December 2023
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
insightful and well written history of the origins of Hamas that everyone, and especially Americans who are collaborating with israeli govt to 'wipe out' Hamas ought to know and understand...the REASON for there even being a "Hamas" UNTIL AND UNLESS it is grasped there will be no ending of RESISTANCE...no matter the lies, confabulations or mythology devised to CONVINCE a gullible public, there is NEVER EVER ANY POSSIBLE justification for MASSACRE of CIVILIAN POPULATION ANYWHERE ANYTIME to allegedly "get the bad guys /i.e., kill resistance. UNTIL WE FULLY UNDERSTAND THIS IT WILL CONTINUE.. THIS must end. read the book and find out the how's and why...
Author was interviewed on Christiane Amanpour PBS last month.
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Yara
5.0 out of 5 stars A great read for those seeking to understand rather than affirm ...
Reviewed in the United States on 19 May 2018
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
It is a unique book for those trying to understanding Hamas, it’s political role and influencers. The book studies Hamas as a Non state actor, its rise, ideology and mean of resistance with a focus on how internal Palestinian resistance was shifting, the turning points, geopolitical context, while focusing on the role of Israel in containing and managing the Palestinian occupation rather than resolving it. A great read for those seeking to understand rather than affirm a preset belief.
21 people found this helpful
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NLA
5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful and Essential Read on the Evolution of Hamas
Reviewed in the United States on 21 May 2018
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
An incredibly thoughtful and informative read on the complex historical evolution of Hamas. Through detailed research woven into a compelling narrative, Baconi's insights into what has formed the reality that Palestinians face today is an important backdrop to understanding whats is currently unfolding on the ground.
8 people found this helpful
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TH
5.0 out of 5 stars Critical reading
Reviewed in the United States on 18 June 2018
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
An insightful and meticulously researched analysis of Hamas. Anyone interested in Palestine/Israel and the history of Palestinian resistance should read this.
7 people found this helpful
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suefein
1.0 out of 5 stars This book is biased. It should not have the Stanford imprint.
Reviewed in the United States on 24 December 2023
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
"Hamas Contained". is a very biased book. It should not have the Stanford imprint. I know, because I have been following the Middle East since the 1960s. The Author speaks of Jewish manipulation during WW! & WWII. He never admitted that there was a Holocaust during WW II. Me, personally I think that there should be a Palestinian state. He never mentions Arik Sharon, a War Criminal, who instigated the bloodbath at 2 refugee camps in north Lebanon. He only mentioned that Rabin said: break their bones. Not that Rabin was very pro a 2 state solution. Rabin made mistakes but he was an honorable man. I don't want to finish Such a Biased book. FYI the Muslim Brotherhood was stamped out of Egypt by the current Egyptian dictator Al-Sisi. Bottom line: Hama Contained is a very biased book. I don't recommend it AT ALL.
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Pam
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January 30, 2019
I read this book because I know of no other that sets out to try to explain, in an objective way, the evolution of Hamas and the points of view/motivations of its key "shapers" over time. Every other resource available is presented from a biased perspective. That perspective is usually uniformly negative (from someone who lives in Gaza and isn't happy with what Hamas has achieved, or not, on a personal level, or from Israelis/others who see them only as terrorists). But sometimes it is overly romanticized--typically among activists. Baconi avoids both traps and simply tries to both provide a nuanced record of what actually happened and why, as well the thinking behind decisions, in the words of Hamas decision makers. Unfortunately, the latter is only through quotations from websites and publications. I really hoped Baconi could have supplemented this material with personal interviews that also would have added a human dimension.
HOWEVER, the final chapter of the book makes up for those lapses. Baconi brings it all together with a truly insightful analysis that gives all parties their due. And I now have a degree of appreciation and respect for what Hamas has tried to achieve and why. That's not to say I am a cheerleader, but rather I have a deeper understanding. And that's what I had hoped for.
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None Ofyourbusiness Loves Israel
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December 13, 2025
Let's take the publisher's own words in praise of the book and exchange four of them. Would you treat this version as an honest serious work?
Here's the text with those substitutions made:
Nazis rule Berlin and the lives of millions of Germans who live there. Demonized in media and policy debates, various accusations and critical assumptions have been used to justify extreme military action against Nazis. The reality of the Nazis is, of course, far more complex. Neither a democratic political party nor a terrorist group, the Nazis are a multifaceted liberation organization, one rooted in the nationalist claims of the German people. "Nazis Contained" offers the first history of the group on its own terms. Drawing on interviews with genocidal organization leaders, as well as racist publications from the group, Tareq Baconi maps the Nazis' thirty-year transition from fringe military resistance towards governance. He breaks new ground in questioning the conventional understanding of Nazis and shows how the movement's ideology ultimately threatens the German struggle and, inadvertently, its own legitimacy. Nazis's reliance on armed struggle as a means of liberation has failed in the face of a relentless occupation by the Jews designed to fragment the German people. As Baconi argues, under the Jewish approach of managing rather than resolving the conflict, Nazis's demand for German sovereignty has effectively been neutralized by its containment in Berlin. This dynamic has perpetuated a deadlock characterized by its brutality―and one that has made permissible the collective punishment of millions of German civilians.
Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures series has done it again! Another hit! A truly wonderful apologist contribution to genocidal antisemitic literature. Today only, buy this book and get a copy of Mein Kampf in Arabic, the same one used in UNRWA schools for free! Courtesy of Greta's cruiselines.
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Sean
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December 25, 2023
I read this after listening to Baconi’s excellent interview on the Dig. The book is great, notable for its serious treatment of Hamas as a social and resistance movement. It’s basically a history of Palestine since the first Intifada through the lens of the Hamas experience.
From the conclusion:
Hamas neither espouses an ideology of global terror nor does it seek to create a transnational Islamic caliphate.87 It is a movement that utilizes Islamic discourse to deal with contemporary ailments and that is geographically tethered to the specific political and social environment of the occupation.
In that sense, Hamas is akin to a religious and armed anticolonial resistance movement. Understanding Hamas’s political drivers and motivations, however, would complicate Israel’s efforts to present the movement as little more than a terrorist organization committed to its destruction. Such a portrayal has been extremely useful for Israel on several levels. First, it excuses and justifies the forceful marginalization of a democratically elected government and the collective punishment inherent in besieging two million Palestinians. As the preceding chapters have shown, operations carried out by the Israeli army against Gaza are then understood as a legitimate form of self-defense, most often preemptive. For each of the three major operations of the last decade—Cast Lead, Pillar of Defense, and Protective Edge—a clear pattern has emerged whereby Israeli provocations, often after Palestinian unity deals are signed, trigger opportunities for Israel to claim self- defense and launch spectacular attacks on Gaza. By preventing unity and containing Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israel has effectively cultivated a fig leaf that legitimates its policies toward the strip. Rather than positioning Gaza’s marginalization as a result of Hamas, it is perhaps more accurate to state that Hamas has become marginalized as a result of Gaza, as evident in its failure to overcome its entrenchment there.
Second, with Hamas’s dismissal as a terrorist organization, the thread linking the early days of Palestinian nationalism, from al-Qassam to the PLO and through to Hamas, gets eclipsed. Central to this continuity from fedayeen to “Islamic terrorists” are key Palestinian political demands that remain unmet and unanswered and that form the basis of the Palestinian struggle: achieving self-determination; dealing with the festering injustice of the refugee problem created by Israel’s establishment in 1948; and affirming the right to use armed struggle to resist an illegal occupation.90 In this light, Hamas is the contemporary manifestation of demands that began a century ago. Israeli efforts to continue sidelining these demands, addressing them solely from a military lens, have persisted. From antiguerilla warfare to its own War on Terror, Israel merely employs contemporary language to wage a century-old war.
Israel does not have a Hamas problem; it has a Palestine problem. (226-227)
Some of the aspects that stood out in particular with regard to Hamas were:
- Principled efforts at unity even through betrayals and extremely dire situations
- Principled stand against the Assad regime even against allies like Iran, leading to severed funding streams in the midst of catastrophe
- The experiments in grappling with the severe perils of “governance” by a resistance movement
- Unjustifiable violence against other parts of the Palestinian movement, sometimes even under the cover of Israeli bombardments like in 2014
- Short term moves toward pacification to avert humanitarian catastrophe having longer-term consequences
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Doug
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November 8, 2023
Highly, highly recommend reading this. In addition to being extremely informative it also provides crucial, and fair minded, context, criticism, and nuance about and of a political entity that is persistently labelled as "terrorist," at a time where all efforts towards true understanding are all but thrown out the window, along with any effort to remember the distant, and recent, past in the region. Truly depressing to know this book was written in 2017 and ends by suggesting that another conflagration looms on the horizon as long as the blockade of Gaza persists and the fracturing of Palestinian nationalism continues.
To quote the books conclusion:
"Israeli leader consistently present Hamas as nothing more than an irrational and bloodthirsty actor seeking Israel's destruction. This framing is part of a longer history of sidestepping the political concerns that animate Palestinian nationalism by labelling movements such as Hamas and the PLO as terrorist organizations. In Hamas' case, it's Islamic nature facilitates a greater conflation of its actions with groups such as al-Qaeda."
"Instead of deterrence, since 2007 Israel's policy toward Hamas has taken the form of what Israel's security establishment refers to as "mowing the lawn." this entails the intermittent use of military power to undercut any growth by the resistance factions in Gaza. Through three major wars and countless incursions...Israel has used military might to break the spirit of resistance in Gaza, pacify Hamas, and work toward deterrence. The result is that Israel and Hamas are now engaged in the process of maintaining an equilibrium of belligerency...Both Hamas and Israel will continue to focus on short-term survival in a longer-term battle, where political gains can be reaped from intermittent confrontations on the battlefield. This status quo allows Hamas to sustain its power and Israel to maintain its colonization of the West Bank and its stranglehold on the Gaza Stip, where besieged Palestinians continue to pay the highest price of all."
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Randall Wallace
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August 26, 2024
Question: “Why is terrorism limited to subnational groups of clandestine agents if states (like the US and Israel) are clearly the BIGGEST perpetrators of organized violence against civilians?” Or as Noam asks, why is terrorism defined as what THEY do, but never what WE do? And who has the moral high ground - the illegal occupier/aggressor? or those who resist illegal occupation/aggression? Tareq calls this “the aggression of an oppressive occupation on an unarmed population”. In response, Hamas has insisted that to end the violence, the occupation itself has to be dismantled.
Before the October 7th attack, Israel believed “Palestinians would acquiesce indefinitely to their imprisonment, that Israel could maintain – and expand – its colonial regime at no cost to Israeli society.” The real shock of October 7th (aside from the fact that Guns R Us Israel took eight hours to get its act together in a state only the size of New Jersey) was it shattered the illusion that “Israeli apartheid can persist without cost.” And that shoving Palestinians illegally into Bantustans while trapped in a total sea/land/air blockade still wouldn’t give Israel “peace & security”. In response to October 7th, Biden called Hamas “pure evil”. If Tibetans had done the same thing to their Chinese occupiers, Biden would have been encouraging them to further resist THEIR occupation. Our violent Revolutionary War started when Britian was treating us colonists MUCH better than Israel does the Palestinians.
Tareq says the Palestinians have long been merely “seeking to overturn a regime bent on their erasure.” They have no hopes of statehood or sovereignty and Hamas knew that being only administrative meant “beautifying a Bantustan within Israel’s apartheid system” – basically making one’s oppressor look good, and ensuring future oppression. Many Palestinians had come to “describe their confinement as a slow death.” In asymmetric struggles, all the occupied have to do is avoid losing – an easier task than for the occupier which has to maintain force, deterrence and aggression and the funds to pay for such nasty-assed constant oppression.
Suicide Bombing Period: Early Hamas involved suicide bombing which in response in 1996 brought in a rightwing Likud and Netanyahu government. In 1997, the US labelled Hamas a terrorist organization. Yet it was clear that Hamas was using terror to fight terror. Thomas Suarez in his book shows how Zionist terror groups like Irgun, Lehi, Stern Gang and Haganah collectively killed more civilians before 1948 than Hamas has done to date, but terrorism committed by the US and its allies doesn’t count in the US if you are a true hypocrite & moral coward. Hamas saw suicide bombings back then as a response to “mitigate the asymmetry of power”. The bombings led to no one riding Israeli buses and Israeli shopping centers were suddenly “not what they used to be.” But also at this time Israel was assassinating Hamas leaders which couldn’t possibly help quell the violence by the occupied.
Hamas Wins the Election: One of the reasons Hamas won their election was because Palestinians felt Fatah “was a corrupt party that was subservient to Israel.” That same election had a whopping 77% voter turnout, and Jimmy Carter called it a model for democracy. Hamas official Musa abu Marzouq explains, “we are a government under occupation.” Yet to Hamas, democracy was still not a substitute for resistance to occupation. Israel’s response to the Hamas election was “a form of collective punishment against civilians to penalize them for their democratic choice (Noam says the same).” You are not supposed to know that Hamas refused to implement sharia law in Gaza, such knowledge would only humanize them.
The Second Intifada: Israel’s response was akin to the US War on Terror – hey, let’s start a war we can’t possibly win! Question by Rantissi: “Why is there no talk of the crimes of Jewish terrorism? (p.49)”
The Tunnels: Think about it – the Hamas tunnels were Hamas’s way to mitigate the land/ air/sea Israeli blockade – just create a tunnel economy. “By 2008, there were more than five hundred tunnels snaking beneath the Rafah border bringing in a monthly revenue of about $36 million to Hamas.” By 2011, the tunnel trade had changed Gaza’s recovery time from 80 years down to 5. That doesn’t mean the tunnel trade was sustainable because Gaza still could not export, develop “lasting industry or a manufacturing base.” In 2015, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Morsi becomes Egypt’s first democratically elected president.
Israel’s Wall stole more than 10% of the West Banks land, of course was illegal, and intentionally limited Palestinian movement including cutting villages in half, and allowing Jewish only roads for “the chosen”. Countless checkpoints soon imposed “a suffocating system of closures” to restrict the Palestinian economy (see Sara Roy’s Gaza de-development book) as thousands of Palestinian homes were razed to make way for the oppressive structure.
By 2017, Gazans were getting 2-3 hours of electricity per day as opposed to 4 back in 2014. Hospitals had to rely on emergency generators, and water treatment plants were no longer functional. Life had become so unsustainable for Gazans that millions of US liberals rushed to action, and quickly did nothing to object. Give me a progressive any day. Israel since 1948, has waged more than twelve wars on Gaza; all occupations are illegal but imagine going to war more than 12 times against enclosed people w/o an army, living blockaded behind walls and razor wire with no hope – all thanks to the Zionist settler-colonial project. To add to this delightful comedy, Tareq says in Israel “the phrase ‘Go to Gaza’ is now the popular manner of saying ‘Go to hell’.”
For those who still care about international law and the Golden Rule: “under international law, the blockade amounts to collective punishment and comes at horrific cost to Gaza’s population.” The election of Hamas wasn’t a choice to elect evil, as US politicians paid by AIPAC might say, it was a vote against captured agencies like Fatah that clearly “placed the interests of Western policies in the region above the rights of its people.” Voting for Hamas was voting for “an alternative.” Hamas wrote a second charter which NO US liberal will ever read let alone tell you about, because it sounds perfectly reasonable next to the nasty Likud party charter which no US liberal will ever tell you about. In 2017, Yahya Sinwar got elected to head Gaza’s operations in the Gaza Strip.
So, what is the big difference between al Qaeda and Hamas? Well, “al Qaeda is part of a transnational network that wages a violent struggle against Western hegemony, (while) Hamas adopts armed resistance on a localized front to end an occupation that is deemed illegal by international law.” And clearly al-Qaeda rejects democratic politics while Hamas does not. Biden will never tell you Hamas is NOT trying to establish an Islamic caliphate or endorse global terror. Israel wants you see Hamas ONLY as “a terrorist organization committed to its destruction.” This allows Palestinian collective punishment and political marginalization to stay completely off the US liberal radar.
Tareq reminds us to see “Hamas is the contemporary manifestation of demands that began a century ago.” As your secret Zionist magic Decoder Ring will tell you, “Israel does not have a Hamas problem; it has a Palestinian problem.” When every Palestinian “accidently” lays dead under the bombed rubble, Israel will no longer have a Hamas problem. It will simply have a PR problem.
This was a great book, which I’m super glad I’ve now read. My only gripe was this: those of us who read a lot on Israel/Palestine know that Netanyahu himself financed Hamas for over a decade, so why ON EARTH would the author not mention in a book SPECIFICALLY about the true story of Hamas, which Western media will never tell you about? In fact, The New York Times, CNN, The Times of Israel and Haaretz ALL ran articles on Netanyahu clearly funding Hamas (fact check it yourself) and they are obviously mainstream so why did Tareq decide through intentional omission to take a stand to the RIGHT of our mainstream media outlets? I think it is extremely important, if Biden is going to call Hamas “evil” to ask, “If Hamas is so ‘evil’, then why did Netanyahu personally fund Hamas for over a decade?” Anyway, kudos to the author for writing the good stuff he did write in this book which I enjoyed. As this book amply shows, you are never going to stop resistance to ANY illegal occupation, especially when under international law, not only is your resistance legal, but so is armed resistance.
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Spooky Socialist
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August 30, 2025
Tareq Baconi provides a cogent and sober view of Hamas, dismissing stereotypes of it as a single-minded, terrorist organization committed to the wholesale destruction of Israel. The Hamas of reality, not in the minds of Zionist fearmongers, is far more complex and pragmatic: its immediate goals are a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders (in effect, a two-state solution), its armed resistance is limited to ending the occupation (rather than the transnational terrorism network adopted by al-Qaeda), it has cracked down on Salafi jihadist extremists, refused to implement Sharia Law within Gaza, and safeguarded the principle of armed resistance as a core of Palestinian nationalism. In effect, Hamas is a nationalist, anti-colonial movement that speaks in the rhetoric of Islam, believing its Islamic ideology will prevent it from drifting away from armed struggle and resistance to the occupation—unlike the previous forebearer of Palestinian struggle, the PLO.
Most of the book’s content is a fairly straightforward recounting of Hamas’s history from its own perspective. The history gets somewhat tedious with the most strongest portions of the book undoubtedly being its preface and conclusion. Baconi’s observation that Israel has effectively contained Hamas and turned it into an administrative authority similar to the PA has, of course, been decisively overturned with the events of October 7th. The paradigm of containment, like the occupation’s walls, has been breached and we are living through the history of that breach.
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Scottie
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December 30, 2023
4.5
Amazingly nuanced, fair, and objective. I learned a lot!
“Hamas is akin to a religious and armed anti colonial resistance movement. Understanding Hamas’ political drives and motivations, however, would complicate Israel’s efforts to present the movement as little more than a terrorist organization committed to its destruction. Such a portrayal has been extremely useful for Israel [because it] (1) excuses and justifies the forceful marginalization of a democratically elected government and the collective punishment inherent in besieging two million Palestinians; and (2) [eclipses the thread of] the early days of Palestinian nationalism, from al-Qassam to the PLO and through to Hamas….
Israel does not have a Hamas problem; it has a Palestine problem. (!!!!)
…In other words, the political reality that makes Gaza ‘a hostile entity’ extends beyond that strip of land and animates the Palestinian struggle in its entirety. Gaza is one microcosm, one parcel, of the Palestinian experience. Instead of addressing the reality or engaging with Hamas’ political drives, Israel has adopted a military approach that defines Hamas solely as a terrorist organization. This depoliticizes and decontextualizes the movement, giving credence to the persistent “politicide” of Palestinian nationalism, Israel’s process of erasing the political ideology animating the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. This approach has allowed successive Israeli governments to avoid taking a position on the demands that have been upheld by Palestinians since before the creation of the State of Israel.”
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Lama Hussein
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November 12, 2023
"Gaza is one microcosm, one parcel, of the Palestinian experience."
الكتاب عن نشوء وتطور حماس.
مفيد لمن يحاول فهم الكارثة التي في غزة الآن.
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Gubly
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August 2, 2025
For anyone who wants to hear hamas’ side of the story. Which I did. I just wish the writing wasn’t so lifeless.
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Luke
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August 17, 2025
On February 25, 1994, an American Jewish settler named Baruch Goldstein walked into the Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron during prayer time. Standing behind the rows of kneeling figures in front of him, Goldstein opened fire. Within minutes, twenty nine Muslim worshippers [sic] had been killed and close to one hundred injured. [...] Forty-one days after the shooting, once the time allotted for Muslim ritual mourning had been respected, a member of Hamas approached a bus stop in Afula, a city in northern Israel. Standing next to fellow passengers, the man detonated a suicide vest, killing seven Israelis. This was on April 6, 1994, a day that marked Hamas's first lethal suicide bombing in Israel.
I've been biding my time for years now, waiting until the right book with enough technical chops and skin in the game came around to talk both politics and political history in a world where Islamic democracy is murder but Christian oligarchy is the land of the free and home of the brave.
Israel does not have a Hamas problem; it has a Palestine problem.
You see, I'm sick and tired of bleeding hearts throwing up their trauma and not citing their sources while raking in millions, if not billions, of settler state tax money for their military industrial complex test labs.
Hamas's thinking was grounded in a revolutionary's mind-set, questioning why past policies enacted by the PLO had to persist in light of the most recent democratic election. Perhaps more importantly, leaders argued that the arguments were redundant given Israel's chronic failure to meet its own responsibility.
This history goes into intensive and unflinching detail about the history of Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah, also known as Hamas, and the ways in which it has both acted and been acted against on the broader scale of anticolonial revolutionary movements, post-WWII ethnic migration and forcible displacement, and the US as the biggest bully on the 'might makes right' playground.
For Hamas, before talk of statehood and governance came talk of unity and liberation. [...] International diplomatic engagement with the former and isolation and starvation of the latter communicated quite clearly what concessions Palestinian political parties needed to abide by to gain entry into the international community. As Hamas's political overtures had been ignored during its years in office, the movement saw through its geographic "liberate" base in Gaza an opportunity to implement its own defiant government of resistance that would safeguard what it viewed as the purest principles of the Palestinian struggle.
For might does make right, over and over and over again, and the headlines being mewled and puked today are the ones being spewed out in 1994, in 2000, in 2006 and 2014, to the point that I have say that the violence between Israeli occupation and Palestinian nationality will never cease until either every single last Palestinian is dead or the US turns its back on Israel.
By April 2014, it became increasingly clear that the tireless efforts of Secretary of State John Kerry would fail to produce a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. In a leaked recording of a closed-door meeting, Secretary Kerry warned that Israel risked becoming an "apartheid state" if the US-sponsored peace process failed to produce a two-state reality. (Beaumont, The Guardian, 4/28/14)
We are talking about a power play where a single ethnic group that was previously systematically betrayed on every ethical and political front imaginable has been given a carte blanche to do the same to a national group for the last three quarters of a century so that a country that would gladly see the two burn can have its imperial profits and keep its hand clean at the same time.
The American approach was rooted in the belief that Palestinians had voted [in 2006] for change, seeking a less corrupt government than Fatah's, but that they still desired a negotiated peace settlement in the form of a two-state solution, unlike Hamas. In reality, Palestinians had voted Hamas in for a number of reasons, including frustration with Fatah's corruption, resentment at the failed and endless peace talks, Hamas's reliability in providing welfare services, and indeed its defiant rhetoric against the occupation.
Because if you think the US gives a single fuck about combating antisemitism or litigating war crimes, I suggest you get your head out of The Book Thief/The Boy in the Striped Pajamas/Washington Post/New York Times mentality and grow up.
With Hamas's takeover, [Gaza Strip] came under absolute internal Palestinian control, as Hamas's government rejected any official engagement with the Israel state. Imposed curfews, home demolitions, and midnight raids by Israel's occupying forces, or by Palestinian security following Israeli orders, were no longer a daily occurrence as they were in the West Bank.
At this point, if you're a US citizen, the complete and utter collapse of your government would do a lot more good for the rest of the world, politically as well as environmentally, than you being any sort of status quo-sanctioned hero would.
The Mecca Agreement indicated Hamas's willingness to abide, on a practical level, with the demands of the international community. Rather than acknowledging these concessions, Israel condemned the incoming cabinet. In particular, it denounced its commitment to the right of return through UN Resolution 194, a key demand for Palestinians writ large—not just Hamas. This underscored Israel's unwillingness to deal with certain political aspects that form the core of Palestinian nationalism, not of Hamas's political agenda.
All in all, sorry if you came to this review looking for an answer or at least reassurance.
It should be noticed here that many scholars who question Islam's compatibility with democracy have no similar concerns about the compatibility of Israel's explicit Jewish character with its democratic nature, despite the fact that its democratic credentials are strongly by religious preference. (See Gorenberg, The Unmaking of Israel & Yiftachel, Ethnocracy)
I'm too busy shoring up for the time liberals decide it's politically pragmatic to legalize the hunting of trans people for sport to tell you that doxing yourself in that Google Form sign up for the next 'big protest' (it's actually a rally when a bunch of people show up and actively refuse to give the government a reason to take them seriously) is going to do anything but get you blacklisted from AI-vetted job applications.
As with past escalations, the assault was portrayed as necessary self-defense against Hamas's consistent aggression, overlooking the movement's effectiveness at restraining rocket fire from Gaza and the violence inherent in the act of the blockade itself.
Your best bet is to join a union or mutual aid network and learn how to actually communicate without continually absolving the settler state, but that's certainly not going to get you trending on the algorithm.
While Hamas had embraced the democratic process, it had done so less in the spirit of government and more with the desire to lead the Palestinian struggle. In many respects, this development is the belated outcome of the Oslo Accords. Sidelining the Palestinians in a permanent state of restricted autonomy and curtailing their sovereignty did not in fact lead to their pacification, but rather it sparked a search for alternatives that might sustain the national revolution.
By the way, it's still easier for me to legally acquire a gun than to get a proper passport, in case you're wondering why the world is the way it is these days.
As Meshal noted, before the teenagers were kidnapped there was full calm in the West Bank and relative calm in Gaza. He added that this was unnatural given the persistent occupation and Israel's unyielding stranglehold on the strip. Now that the Palestinians had achieved unity, Meshal questioned, a war was suddenly declared? "Are Palestinians just meant to surrender and die a slow death?" he asked, noting that Palestinians were being asked to accept their fate of living under occupation in the West Bank and under blockade in the Gaza Strip with no efforts to resist the status quo.
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Journal of Palestine Studies Vol.48 No. 3-
Spring
2019
Baconi, Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance
Author:
José S. Vericat
Digital Section:
Reviews
Reviewed Book
Tareq Baconi
Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance
2018
-
English
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Full text:
Hamas is one of the most globally renowned Islamic movements. It is as much a household name as al-Qa‘ida and the Taliban. Despite this fame, it is little understood, probably less so today than ever before. It has been defined as a terrorist organization and confined to this label. In fact, the whole Palestinian nationalist movement has become increasingly reduced to simple binaries and marginalized. In this context, there is something quietly revolutionary about Tareq Baconi's Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance. The author dares to treat Hamas as worthy of in-depth analysis and gives it the sort of treatment that a serious academic would any faction within the Palestinian nationalist movement or other major political actor, thus addressing attempts to exceptionalize Hamas and political Islam.
In writing about Hamas, even the methodology used may be a radical act. Many of the books written about Hamas are organized thematically.* This is not necessarily wrongheaded, but such an approach tends to reinforce the idea of Hamas as a movement with an intrinsic and immutable nature. Baconi, in contrast, follows a strict chronological approach as he provides a political history of the movement. Such an organizing principle captures the movement's complexity as a rational actor that develops over time and reacts to events, weighing each particular context. Ultimately, it is not simply a movement bent on the destruction of Israel—if it is at all.
Baconi analyzes every major political decision Hamas has taken in painstaking detail, discussing scrupulously the major debates around each historical milestone. The study covers the movement from its 1987 establishment to 2017, though the detailed blow-by-blow breakdown starts with the outbreak of the Second Intifada, in September 2000 (p. 36). The depth and breadth of sources make this a remarkable work. Not since Khaled Hroub's Hamas: Political Thought and Practice (Institute for Palestine Studies, 2000) has an author provided such a thorough treatment of available written material on and by Hamas.
Far and away the primary source of this book is the monthly magazine Filastin Muslima, one of the movement's major publications. The other major contribution Baconi makes in term of sources is his thorough perusal of the secondary literature in Arabic. The extensive survey of written material is most welcome as there is a clear overreliance on interviews in studies about Hamas. The Hamas leadership is usually extremely willing to meet researchers, and like politicians, generally knows how to tailor its message according to their interests. There are also significant contributions from exclusive documents that the author has gained access to, like the minutes of the third-party backchannel negotiations in 2008 between Israel and Hamas (p. 52), and interfactional discussions on cease-fire negotiations during the fifty-day war on Gaza in the summer of 2014 (p. 220).
Through this meticulous analysis Baconi provides Hamas and the Palestinians “permission to narrate.”† Such consent has been frequently denied to Palestinians since the origin of their struggle; the overarching framework of the “war on terror,” the main geopolitical paradigm since 9/11, has managed to curtail it even further. One of the main challenges facing a work based on primary sources that are the mouthpiece of a particular political faction is gleaning information and analysis from the propaganda. Baconi rises to this challenge, often succeeding in putting forward revealing excerpts, giving the reader a sense of the logic and the anguish behind the decisions the movement makes. (See, for example, Hamas's reaction to the Mitchell Report on p. 43 and to Arafat's death on p. 76, its 28 March 2006 decision to unilaterally form its own cabinet on p. 103, or its sense of foreboding on the signing of the 19 June 2008 ceasefire on pp. 150–51.)
The main narrative that Baconi has extracted from this textual analysis is the notion of resistance. The term is easily the most repeated throughout the book (it appears at least 270 times in the text's body); and much of the book circles around it (it is in its subtitle and two of its six chapter titles). Indeed, Hamas's main achievement is becoming the embodiment of Palestinian resistance against Israel. When it won the elections in 2006, reconciling its resistance agenda with the practice of politics became its fundamental internal struggle (p. 92). But at times, one is left with the feeling that the concept, which Hamas uses to justify its every move, has not been treated critically enough by the author.
Baconi's criticism of Hamas's use of violence during the Second Intifada is severe. And the self-defeating strategy that Hamas pursues with one attack after another against an incalculably more powerful enemy is described in its full nihilistic logic (pp. 50–51). The author places Hamas's use of violence in a larger historical narrative of the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) experience: Hamas is going through the same motions, but without having drawn the lessons (p. 28). And yet the book establishes like never before the degree to which Hamas, as the PLO before it, has come to terms with the existence of Israel, and that its struggle is fundamentally against the occupation—despite its founding charter and maximalist rhetoric elsewhere. The author presents the Cairo Declaration in March 2005 as a turning point (p. 82) and provides one example after another throughout the book (pp. 93, 104, 108, 113, 114, 134, 229, 245). In fact, Hamas leaders have expressed implicitly time and again readiness to reach an agreement with Israel—for example, Hamas founder Ahmad Yasin offered to solve the conflict on the basis of the 1967 border in May 1999—but the movement, unlike the PLO, refuses to grant formal recognition in return for nothing (pp. 230–31, 248–49).
The final verdict is unequivocal. Israel's objective is to extinguish any Palestinian claim to rights, effectively blaming the victim (p. 84). Hamas, in spite of itself, provides a particularly useful vessel for such delegitimization (pp. xviii–ix, 58, 61). This is one of the main arguments developed in the book, from which the title and subtitle are drawn. However, this study provides much more: it offers a recent history of Palestinian political opposition to Fatah and of the Palestinian nationalist movement as a whole. Also, to reduce Hamas to this one aspect—being “contained”—is too narrow a view to take on the whole movement, and in the end it does precisely what the author sets out to avoid: explain the movement away.
* Andrea Nüsse, Muslim Palestine: The Ideology of Hamas (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 1998); Khaled Hroub, Hamas: Political Thought and Practice (Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2000); Beverly Milton-Edwards and Stephen Farrell, Hamas: The Islamic Resistance Movement (Malden, MA: Polity, 2010).
† “Permission to narrate” is a term coined by Edward Said in an article of the same name for JPS 13, no. 3 (Spring 1984): pp. 27–48.
Author biography:
José S. Vericat is the Carter Center representative for Israel-Palestine. He has a PhD in Oriental studies from the University of Oxford and a master's degree in international affairs from Columbia University.
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Resistance
Reviews | Insight Turkey Fall 2023 / Volume 25, Number 4
Tareq Baconi focuses on Hamas as one of the major actors and most active ones in military resistance against occupation in the Palestinian case in his Hamas Contained book. Baconi, thus, avoids the emphasis on terrorism discourse and presents Hamas’s social and political aspects. The author aims to understand the evolution Hamas has undergone from its foundation in 1987 as a revolutionary armed movement seeking the liberation of historic Palestinian territories to contained governance in Gaza in 2017. To do so, the author interviewed the movement leaders and utilized published and unpublished written, oral, and visual resources about Hamas. The book contains six chapters and a critical conclusion. The authors’ voice emerges only in the conclusion, as the first six chapters are Hamas’s narrative through the interviews and other documents.
Palestinian Authority
Islam Rise Middle East
Tareq Baconi focuses on Hamas as one of the major actors and most active ones in military resistance against occupation in the Palestinian case in his Hamas Contained book. Baconi, thus, avoids the emphasis on terrorism discourse and presents Hamas’s social and political aspects. The author aims to understand the evolution Hamas has undergone from its foundation in 1987 as a revolutionary armed movement seeking the liberation of historic Palestinian territories to contained governance in Gaza in 2017. To do so, the author interviewed the movement leaders and utilized published and unpublished written, oral, and visual resources about Hamas. The book contains six chapters and a critical conclusion. The authors’ voice emerges only in the conclusion, as the first six chapters are Hamas’s narrative through the interviews and other documents.
The first chapter focuses on the setting up of Hamas as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine (p. 21) after the outbreak of the First Intifada. The author traces Hamas before its official formation in 1987 as a social movement focused on education, religious revival, and gradual Islamization at the expense of immediate resistance (pp. 18-19). Baconi attributes Hamas’s emergence as a resistance movement to the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) moderation with Israel and engagement in the peace path. He focuses on Hamas’s discourse to destroy Israel, which will lose momentum in the following periods.
In chapter 2, the author focuses on the period between the ending of the First Intifada through the Oslo Accords and the Second Intifada (2000). Baconi highlighted Hamas’s rejection and attempts to derail this trajectory through resistance operations. He also indicates September 11 as a turning point as Hamas emerged as a political party for the first time throu
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