On October 25, 2023, Baconi said [00:03:26] in an interview on Amanpour & Company that it was “manipulative” to call Hamas a terror group “because it misses that nuance and it decontextualizes Hamas, so it suggests that Hamas is engaging in armed resistance or violence for the sake of violence, it misses the point that Hamas is engaged in armed resistance against a colonial force…”
Anti-Israel activists use the term “resistance” to refer to violence and terror perpetrated against Israeli civilians and their allies. It is used to glorify and encourage anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence. Anti-Israel activists chant slogans such as: “Resistance by any means necessary!” and “Resistance is justified when people are occupied!” in response to terror attacks.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis, kidnapped 251 and wounded thousands. War crimes included various systematic sexual crimes like gang rape and genital mutilation. Men and women were violated, even after being murdered. Victims who survived that day, including hostages, endured forms of humiliation and torture.
Gazans working in the targeted Israeli villages provided intelligence to Hamas on which families to kill and torture, including long-time employers. Many Palestinian civilians joined in and celebrated the attacks. Hamas livestreamed their crimes on social media, including to victims’ accounts for families to see. To learn more, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.
On November 16, 2023, Baconi was featured as a speaker at a panel titled: “Teach In: Contexts And Histories Of Palestinian Resistance.” During the event, referring to Israel’s war against Hamas, Baconi claimed [00:00:05] that “Western discourse around decimating Hamas, dismantling Hamas, destroying Hamas…is a genocidal call.”
On November 26, 2023, Baconi published an article titled: "An Inevitable Rupture: Al-Aqsa Flood and the End of Partition," in which he wrote, referring to Hamas' terror attacks, that “primary responsibility for this violence sits squarely with Israel’s colonial regime.”
Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, also known as Al-Aqsa Storm, is the name Hamas used for their terror operation on October 7, 2023. It is a reference to the allegation that Jews “threaten” to destroy Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, and has been a pretext for Arab attacks on Jews long before Israel was founded in 1948.
Baconi also claimed that “widely discredited claims of brutality [by Hamas were used] to stir up orientalist and Islamophobic tropes in an effort to justify the ferocity of Israel’s response” and referred to Hamas’ terror attacks as “an unprecedented display of anti-colonial violence.”
Denial of the Hamas war crimes of October 7, 2023, among anti-Israel activists has been likened to Holocaust denial among neo-Nazis.
In 2018, Baconi published a book titled: “Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance.” In a June 22, 2018 interview with Jadaliyya, Baconi said the book aimed “to recount Hamas’s thirty year history on its own terms.”
