We Need to Talk About: Hamas

A public lecture in the USVA series 'We need to talk about.....'. This month we dive into The Development and Significance of Hamas's Concept of Hudna (Truce);

For years, and perhaps particularly after the terrorist attack of 7 October 2023, the Palestinian Hamas has been accused of having an uncompromising ideology towards Israel that is supposedly rooted in the organisation's charter from 1988. This is perhaps not surprising, since the latter partly portrays the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a primordial clash between Muslims and Jews and makes use of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to make its case. The overwhelming majority of academic experts on Hamas believe, however, that the organisation - its use of terrorist methods notwithstanding - is actually ideologically flexible and pragmatic. To show why this is, indeed, the case, this public lecture will focus on the development and significance of Hamas's concept of hudna (truce, cease-fire).

Joas Wagemakers is an associate professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at Utrecht University and the director of the Netherlands Interuniversity School for Islamic Studies (NISIS). He is interested in the intellectual history of contemporary Islam in the modern Arab world, with a focus on political thinking among Islamists. His latest book that came out this month focuses on "Palestinian nationalism and militant pragmatism".

Our moderator of the evening is Pieter Nanninga who works as an Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Groningen.

This event will be in English and is organised by USVA and the Faculty of Arts.

Buy your tickets on the USVA website: 5 euros for students/8 euros RUG staff and external guests