On talking to Hamas

And how NPR approaches controversial interviews.

The many voices on today’s Morning Edition included an interview with Ghazi Hamad, a spokesman for Hamas. His group, which U.S. and European authorities describe as a terror organization, launched the attack this month that killed far more than one thousand Israelis, according to Israeli authorities.

The surprise assault drew a “very, very forceful” Israeli response, to use the words of Ron Dermer, an Israeli cabinet minister who also spoke with NPR. Palestinian authorities say the response has killed thousands of Palestinians.

People sometimes ask why NPR would talk with a figure like a Hamas spokesman. (I will pause here to acknowledge that some people also ask why I talk with Israelis, or Iranians, or certain American politicians.) Here’s the answer I often give—and to be clear, I give my own perspective here and don’t speak for NPR: A good news organization is like an intelligence agency for citizens, which means we need to track everyone. The key is how people are presented.

The first step is to include an interview as one part of comprehensive coverage. That’s the case here. It was one of numerous reports and interviews about the war on today’s program alone. Leila Fadel filed a devastating report from the ruins of an Israel village Hamas attacked, for example.

Over time, NPR has conducted thousands of interviews with people on all sides of the Mideast conflict. An excellent correspondent, Daniel Estrin, is based in the region. I’ve visited in the past, and have interviewed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as officials from Hamas and Fatah. All these efforts have aimed to capture the variety of opinions and experiences among both Israelis and Palestinians. There are far more than just two views of this story!

NPR conducted the Hamas interview as we have done many others. Rather than talking live, we recorded the interview, aiming to present it thoughtfully and accurately. We aim to ask real questions, write in lots of context for the broadcast, and add other voices—in this case analysis by Greg Myre, a correspondent with long Mideast experience.

Careful presentation can weed out inaccuracies and make sure the interview is clearly understood.

It’s not always possible to take all of these steps. We also do live interviews on a fast-moving story such as this. The idea is to take all the steps that are possible, and to keep doing more interviews over time.

Did we get anything out of this conversation? I’ll recount a few moments so you can decide.

Hamad said that Hamas attacked Israel because “We want to get the attention of the world” for 2.3 million Palestinians who are effectively surrounded in Gaza. But he repeatedly denied the reality that his organization attacked and killed civilians. When I described for him an attack on a concert as reported on NPR, he called it “a fake story.” My colleague Leila Fadel’s reporting on the same program makes clear that Hamas did attack many civilians.

Other parts of the interview were more illuminating, because Hamad did not deny that Hamas took civilian hostages. He claimed they are being cared for, and have “all they need.”

“What they need is to be released,” I said. “Would you release them?”

“Okay, okay. But it is a war. Our priority now is to stop aggression and death in Gaza… After that, we can talk about anything.”

He seemed to be saying that the hostages would not be released unless Israel backs off.

Hamad was more upset about Palestinian civilians. Israel has been bombing targets in Gaza for days. It also has cut off the flow of food, electricity and water to the population, and has ordered more than one million people to leave their homes.

Hamad acknowledged that Hamas is pushing people to resist the evacuation order and remain where they are, though he denied that Hamas is using its population as “human shields.” He said Palestinians have been oppressed so long that no one should be surprised that they lash out. He also was frank about his group’s goal: eliminating the state of Israel, which he said “has no right to exist in this region.”

My colleague Greg Myre observed that Hamas operatives don’t always admit their goal so directly; some speak more vaguely of Palestinian rights. It was a moment of candor. It’s also how Israelis often describe Hamas!

All of this is useful to hear directly from Hamas, rather than through the filter of their critics or of analysts. It helps to make clear what the stakes are.

Here’s the NPR interview with the Hamas spokesman, which you can hear for yourself.

Thanks for reading Differ We Must, which takes its title from my book on Lincoln’s meeting with people who disagreed with him. This column aims to explore our modern differences. I’m glad you have read this far, and welcome you to tell me when you differ with what you read here.