Hamas: From Resistance to Governance - A Revised Narrative

After October 7, 2023, everything changes in the relations between Israel and Palestine, and thus the public discourse on the topic finds a new meaning as well. This is evident in the case of the new edition of the volume 'Hamas. From Resistance to Regime' (Feltrinelli) which is being presented on Wednesday, May 15 at 6 PM at the Fondazione Premio Napoli. The author, Paola Caridi, a journalist and historian of the Middle East, president of Lettera 22, is present; the magistrate Alfredo Guardiano, coordinator of the technical jury of Premio Napoli, and the university lecturer Monica Ruocco from L'Orientale introduce the event. The lecturer Luigi Daniele from Nottingham University engages in a dialogue with the author. The event is organized by Campania Legge and DAAM Artistic Lab. The book explores the journey from the foundation to the attacks of October 7. What lies behind the mystery of Hamas? Why has it gained so much consensus in Palestinian society? Over its forty years of existence, Hamas has gone through terrorism and suicide bombings, challenged the authority of Yasser Arafat, and survived the physical elimination of many of its leaders. In 2006, it came to govern the Palestinian National Authority, democratically elected by the majority of Palestinians, and immediately returned to secrecy, following the embargo decided by Israel and part of the international community, with the European Union and the United States at the forefront. Since then, from 2007, Hamas has been identified with Gaza, the space over which the Islamist movement exercises a monopoly of power, forgetting its complex history that goes beyond the Strip. What lies behind the mystery of Hamas? Why has an Islamist movement gained so much consensus within a society considered to be generally secular like the Palestinian one? Paola Caridi writes the history of Hamas using sources halfway between journalism and the archive. She shows the places and lets the protagonists, the militants, men and women, speak. Now her historical-political research comes out in an updated version, 14 years after the first edition, to tell what has happened since Gaza was closed on all sides by Israel and Egypt. From the radicalization of the Hamas leadership to changes in internal political lines up to the bloody attack of October 7, 2023.