Tar baby: Unsticking Anti-Poilievre Propaganda (and sticking it to the Liberals)

 

Tar baby: Unsticking Anti-Poilievre Propaganda (and sticking it to the Liberals)           

By Hendrik van der Breggen

 

With Canada’s election looming in the near future (April 28, 2025), political discussion sometimes devolves into mud-slinging. Or tar-slinging.

Sadly, a meme/bullet-point-list titled “Pierre’s Record,” sponsored by the Liberal Party of Canada, led by present Prime Minister Mark Carney, is such a case.

It tells us that Conservative contender Pierre Poilievre “[u]sed the term ‘tar baby’ in the House of Commons.” The not-so-subtle suggestion is that Mr. Poilievre is a racist—so he shouldn’t become Canada’s prime minister.

Whether we support Poilievre or Carney or whomever (or nobody), fair-minded Canadians should realize this Liberal talking-point reeks of political propaganda—and even backfires.

Yes, Poilievre said “tar baby,” but…

So let’s pause and carefully consider the claim that “[Poilievre] used the term ‘tar baby’ in the House of Commons.”

Yes, it’s true. Poilievre in fact used the term “tar baby” in the House of Commons.

But before the reader gasps, the reader should also notice it’s also true that by not providing context the claim makes it look like Poilievre was setting out a racial slur when in fact he wasn’t.

Poilievre was using the term “tar baby” appropriately. In fact, most appropriately.

Proper English meaning of “tar baby”

In proper English usage, “tar baby” means a difficult problem that is only exacerbated by attempts to solve it. It’s a problem that is sticky, like tar. The more you handle it, the worse your situation gets.

The term’s etymology goes back to a much-loved children’s story of the 1800s and has to do with a fictional doll made with tar and turpentine. In this story a fox attempts to catch a rabbit by using bait—a sticky, gooey, gluey tar baby. Brer (brother) Fox attempts to catch Brer Rabbit by tricking the rabbit into touching and getting stuck to the tar.

This children’s story is a classic folktale, especially in African American culture. (Spoiler alert: Brer Rabbit is the hero who, though he gets stuck, outwits the wily Brer Fox and his tar-baby trap.) The story is still popular today, at least in schools and families that value education.

All this to say that in the story, as well as in proper English, the meaning of “tar baby” is not a racial slur. Not at all.

Context is crucial

Back to Poilievre. When Poilievre used the term “tar baby” in 2009 (sixteen years ago, but dredged up by Liberals in 2025 as the federal election approaches!), the context shows he wasn’t using it or intending it as a racial slur.

Consider this report from CBC News dated May 29, 2009: 

Tory MP Pierre Poilievre came under fire in the House of Commons on Friday for using the term ‘tar baby.’

The controversy arose as Poilievre accused Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff of distancing himself from the carbon tax policy initiated by former party leader Stéphane Dion.

“On that side of the House, they have the man who fathered the carbon tax, put it up for adoption to his predecessor and now wants a paternity test to prove the tar baby was never his in the first place,” said Poilievre, the parliamentary secretary to the prime minister [Stephen Harper].

The Liberals and the NDP later asked Poilievre to withdraw the comment and apologize, saying the phrase carried racist undertones, but Poilievre refused.

“Tar baby is a common reference that refers to issues that stick to one,” he said.

While that is a dictionary definition of tar baby, the term has also been used as a slur to describe black children.

About the CBC’s last sentence, please notice this: While “tar baby” has been used in some contexts as a slur to describe black children, the relevant fact here is that in the context of usage in the discussion at the House of Commons—a context involving a truly difficult/ sticky tax problem having to do with the oil and tar sands industry, a sticky problem introduced/ birthed by a Liberal leader and then cast aside/ handed off to another Liberal leader—in this context the proper English dictionary definition of “tar baby” was in use.

And, significantly, if meaning arises via use in a particular context (or “language game,” as philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein famously argued), then Poilievre handled the term “tar baby” and its proper English dictionary definition with finesse.

A sticky problem remains

I will close by saying this: It seems to me that those who suggest Poilievre was intending or using “tar baby” as a racial slur show their ignorance of proper English and perhaps their lack of proper education.

So now I have a question for Liberals who in 2025 continue to suggest Poilievre’s one-time use of “tar baby” in the House of Commons in 2009 counts as a racial slur. Here is my question: What about Justin Trudeau’s countless episodes of blackface?

The fact is that these Liberals supported Trudeau as their leader for ten years. And Canada’s present Prime Minister Mark Carney supported Trudeau, too.

If anyone has a sticky problem, it’s the Liberals.[1]

 

Note

1. At this juncture, a Liberal might object that at least Justin Trudeau apologized for his racism but Pierre Poilievre did not. My replies: (1) Poilievre had nothing to apologize for whereas Trudeau did; (2) Trudeau’s apologies are a dime a dozen; (3) Liberals who make this objection continue to show ignorance of proper English usage (see my argument above). Again, if anyone has a sticky problem, it’s the Liberals.

 

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Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is a retired philosophy professor who lives in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada. Hendrik is author of the book Untangling Trudeau: MAID, COVID, ABORTION, LGBTQ+. (Hendrik’s book may be helpful to Canadians for better understanding Prime Minister Mark Carney and those who have staunchly supported former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Also, the book should be read by Conservatives and others who hold views similar to Liberals on medical assistance in dying, Covid mandates, abortion, and LGBTQ matters.)

Poilievre is wise to resist Canada’s weird security clearance law

                                            Pierre Poilievre (photo credit: The Walrus)

 

Poilievre is wise to resist Canada’s weird security clearance law

By Hendrik van der Breggen

 

With Canada’s election looming so near (April 28, 2025), there’s little time for Canadian citizens to think carefully. But think carefully we must. 

Conservative Pierre Poilievre, Canada’s opposition leader, is running for prime minister against Liberal Mark Carney, Canada’s present PM. 

An alleged problem for Mr. Poilievre has to do with Mr. Poilievre refusing to agree to a security clearance. Much brouhaha is being made over this by Liberals. 

The not-so-subtle suggestion of the brouhaha is that because Poilievre is refusing a security clearance Poilievre is hiding something—and so this counts against him as a possible PM. 

But, to borrow some words from Paul Harvey, we need to know the rest of the story. And it seems that the rest of the story counts in favour of Poilievre’s candidacy for prime minister. 

Poilievre’s refusal to agree to a security clearance in the instance under discussion has to do with a particular—and questionable—security law that will not allow him to talk about the topic of a top secret document if he sees that document, a document the Liberals—i.e., Poilievre’s political enemies—apparently want him to see. 

The document apparently has something to do with foreign interference from India in Poilievre’s 2022 Conservative leadership bid, an interference that had already passed an appropriate legal review process headed up by Madame Justice Marie-Josée Hogue (a high-ranking Canadian judge). It was determined that there is no evidence that foreign attempts to meddle succeeded. 

Interestingly, this was all known since at least last June. Interestingly, too, the document has been brought to the public’s attention near the beginning of a national federal election campaign by being leaked to The Globe and Mail (one of Canada’s major legacy news outlets, heavily subsidized by Canada’s Liberal-led government). This is suspicious. 

Perhaps, though, as some CBC political commentators have pondered, the topic has changed, and perhaps the document has to do with other matters of national security. 

Whatever the case may be, it turns out that if Poilievre sees this document, he will be hamstrung as Canada’s opposition leader. That is, if the document perhaps discloses wrong-doing by the governing Liberal party, Poilievre will not be allowed to speak freely about the matter. (He would risk serious prison time—up to 14 years—if he did.) In other words, that is a weird law. 

So Poilievre has declined top-secret security clearance to see the document so he may be able to speak freely on behalf of Canadians about the document’s topic (whatever it is) if he needs to, especially if it involves wrong-doing by the Liberal government. Surely, Poilievre is correctly resisting possible manipulation by those in power. Wisely, it seems to me, Poilievre is instead leaving the document in the hands of CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) which can brief Poilievre if CSIS believes he should be briefed. 

Canadian lawyer Don Hutchinson helpfully explains in more detail:

Mr. Poilievre has declined to agree to a unique security clearance controlled by the prime minister’s office rather than by parliament. The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) was structured during the Trudeau majority to report to the prime minister rather than parliament, with the prime minister controlling security clearance requirements, content of NSICOP reports released to parliament or the public, and comments that might be made by those with clearance to see unredacted NSICOP reports and materials. Mr. Poilievre declined as the Leader of the Opposition should not be constrained by extra-parliamentary requirements controlled by the prime minister.[1]

Hutchinson adds:

Former Leader of the Opposition Tom Mulcair has been vocal in support of Mr. Poilievre’s stand to not be compromised in his constitutional parliamentary responsibilities.[2]

Here is an example of the support from former NDP opposition leader Tom Mulcair (from a recent interview with CTV News; my transcript):

I agree completely with Pierre Poilievre on this. I believe he is completely right. You do not accept to play this mug’s game where you restrain your ambit and your ability to act as leader of the official opposition, which is a constitutional role to hold the government to account. And this game where you have people in the hierarchy of the security establishment saying, “oh, he really should come in, but then he’s not really allowed to talk about it anymore.” Really? Didn’t we just have a commission of inquiry headed up by Madame Justice Hogue [concerning India’s interference with Poilievre’s leadership bid of 2022] who put all this stuff away and said that there might have been a little bit of this and a little bit of that? But all of a sudden we’re talking about whether Poilievre actually got the 68 percent. What, maybe it was 67 percent? This is madness, you know, to try to make this an issue in a campaign that is so serious for the country, to try to go back to this stuff, and to try to complain about Poilievre wanting to do his constitutional duty. He wants to do his job of holding the government to account and—no—he’s not going to walk into that bear trap that consists in getting a security clearance, seeing documents that could be important, and not talking about it.[3]

Moreover—and significantly—Canadian lawyer Christine van Geyn (of the Canadian Constitution Foundation) reports that the security clearance law at issue is presently on its way to Canada’s Supreme Court and is “likely unconstitutional.”[4] 

Yes, Canada’s election is coming very soon, so there’s little time for Canadian citizens to think carefully. But we must make time to think carefully. 

My conclusion: In the matter of refusing a unique/weird security clearance that might compromise the role of Canada’s leader of the official opposition, all Canadians—whether Conservative or Liberal or whatever—should appreciate Pierre Poilievre for acting wisely on their (our) behalf.[5] 

 

Notes

1. Don Hutchinson, Facebook comment, March 31, 2025; comment used with author’s permission. 

2. Hutchinson, Facebook comment. 

3. Tom Mulcair, “Mulcair on why Poilievre shouldn’t get his security clearance,” CTV News, March 25, 2025 (1-minute video). 

4. For a more in-depth discussion about the legal situation having to do with Poilievre’s security clearance, see Christine van Geyn’s recent analysis (15-minute video): “The real reason Pierre Poilievre doesn’t have security clearance,” Canadian Constitution Foundation, March 27, 2025. 

5. Again, for a more in-depth discussion about the legal situation having to do with Poilievre’s security clearance, see Christine van Geyn’s 15-minute video “The real reason Pierre Poilievre doesn’t have security clearance.”

 

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Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is a retired philosophy professor who lives in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada. Hendrik is author of the book Untangling Trudeau: MAID, COVID, ABORTION, LGBTQ+. (Hendrik’s book may be helpful to Canadians for better understanding Prime Minister Mark Carney and those who have staunchly supported former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Also, the book should be read by Conservatives and others who hold views similar to Liberals on medical assistance in dying, Covid mandates, abortion, and LGBTQ matters.)

Gaza is a war machine

 

A Hamas jihadist in a tunnel under Gaza. “Hamas” is an acronym for the Arabic words Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya which in English mean Islamic Resistance Movement. Gaza is 25 miles long and its width varies from about 4 to 8 miles, yet the length of the military-grade tunnel network under Gaza has been estimated to be between 350 and 450 miles. (Photo credit: Ashraf Amra, a pro-Hamas Gazan.)

 

Gaza is a war machine

By Hendrik van der Breggen

 

Gaza is tiny, but it’s dangerous. From my personal research over the past year and a half (as I’ve been following the Israel-Gaza war during my retirement), I have come to the conclusion that Gaza is, for lack of a better description, a war machine.

Gaza is 25 miles long and its width varies from about 4 to 8 miles. Yet the length of the terror tunnel network under Gaza has been estimated to be between 350 and 450 miles. Since Hamas launched its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, many tunnels have been destroyed by Israel, but many remain.

Moreover, there are (were) an estimated 5,700 tunnel shafts coming out into Gazan homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, chicken coops, and fields. And there are (were) huge stockpiles of rockets and other weapons distributed throughout the underground landscape. Much has been destroyed by Israel, but much remains.

Led by Hamas, Gaza has been building its tunnels for almost two decades (reminder: Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and Hamas was elected by Gazans in 2006). In fact, many Gazan tunnels were built through the 1990s and 2000s prior to Gazans voting in Hamas. Some tunnels were built between Egypt and Gaza for smuggling purposes (weapons, soldiers, and other supplies were smuggled into Gaza), and some were built as attack tunnels into Israel (used in the early 2000s and in 2014). Many—most—of the tunnels were built within (under) Gaza in recent years and are a part of a war effort. The tunnels facilitate troop movements throughout Gaza, provide access to rocket-launching sites, serve as command centres, protect troops and leaders, provide weapons building areas, facilitate easy access to weapons caches distributed throughout Gaza, store supplies, and imprison hostages. Connected by a web of hundreds of miles of tunnels, Gaza’s towns and cities have been tooled for war—war against Israel.[1]

Not only has the land of Gaza been tooled for war, but also Gaza’s people have been tooled for war. Gazan children (now young adults) have been indoctrinated over the past two decades (or more) to serve not only as fighters but also as human shields—martyrs—in Gaza’s Islamist jihad against Israel. (An Islamist martyr is one who is killed or dies for the cause of Allah, typically via jihad/war, and thus skips Allah’s judgment and gains immediate entrance into paradise/ heaven, which is filled with sensual delights.) The parents and grandparents of Gazan young people also drank heavily at the well of Islamist jihadist doctrine. It should be remembered that many of the older Gazans were original so-called Palestinian refugees who moved to Gaza in 1947–48 and did so to facilitate the (failed) war on Israel by Islamist neighbours bent on wiping out Jews.[2]

This means that Israel’s fight in Gaza is not similar to the urban warfare as in, say, Mosul (when US-backed Iraqis fought to liberate Mosul from the Islamic State in 2016-17). That is, the war in Gaza is not merely a fight that happens, unfortunately, to occur in towns and cities. It’s not due to mere happenstance. Rather, it is due to deliberate decisions by Gazans and years of preparation by Gazans.[3]

This should be emphasized and remembered: The choice for tunnel warfare was made by Gazans years prior to its Hamas-led invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023. Reminder: In that invasion 1,200 Israelis were brutally murdered and 240 hostages taken into Gaza. Over the at least two decades prior to October 7, 2023, Gazans spent billions of dollars (repurposed internationally-supplied aid funds) building terror tunnels, stockpiling caches of weapons, and teaching (indoctrinating) its people to hate and murder Jews. By its massacre of Israelis and then taking hostages into Gaza—a land outfitted for war—it is clear that Gaza’s goal was to have a war against Israel inside Gaza.

In other words, leading up to October 7, 2023, Gaza made itself into a WAR MACHINE. This war machine includes not only its terror-tunnel-infested land abundantly seeded with rockets, grenades, and booby traps, but also its blood-thirsty Jew-hating jihadist soldiers, mostly young men, and jihadist martyr-minded civilians, whether children, mothers, or elderly, willing to die as martyrs—human shields—for the fighters.

Apparently (if my most recent news sources are correct), Hamas has been using the most recent ceasefire to re-group, re-arm, and prepare for yet another October 7-style massacre in Israel.

Yes, many civilian deaths have occurred in Gaza. This is horrible, to be sure. Nevertheless, the number of civilian deaths relative to combatant deaths is low in the Israel-Gaza conflict when compared to urban warfare ratios in Mosul and elsewhere. This is a tribute to the Israeli Defence Forces.[4]

And, yes, among Gazan’s civilians, many Gazan children and women have been killed. This is a tragedy. But keep in mind that for Gaza (led by Hamas), it’s a strategy. And keep in mind that in Gaza the line between civilian and non-civilian is blurry. 

With its many miles of military-grade attack tunnels coupled with the Islamist jihadist mindset of many of its people, Gaza remains a war machine, not a peace-seeking nation.

Westerners in general and Israelis in particular should remember this.[5]

 

NOTES

1. The news agency Reuters published an informative and visually impressive report on the Gazan tunnels about a year ago. See Adolfo Arranz, Jonathan Saul, Stephen Farrell, Simon Scarr, and Clare Trainor, “Inside the tunnels of Gaza: The scale, and the sophistication, of Hamas’ tunnel network,” Reuters, December 31, 2023.

2. For more on this topic, see Hendrik van der Breggen, “Settler-colonialism and ethnic cleansing: Two false assumptions about Israel’s inception,” APOLOGIA, October 8, 2024 (see especially reason 3 of part 1 and the whole of part 2).

3. The innocence of large numbers of Gaza’s civilians is dubious. In fact, it very much seems that large numbers of Gaza’s civilians are either terrorists or supporters of terrorists. There is much evidence to support this view. Consider the following:

 

• (a) Evidence of many Gazan civilians cheering when dead Israelis were paraded in Gaza shortly after the Hamas October 7 attack.
• (b) Evidence that many Gazans (including children) were involved in the looting during the October 7 attack.
• (c) Evidence that many Gazan young people have been for years indoctrinated with a murderous anti-Jewish/anti-Israel ideology (in UN schools) and have helped Hamas terrorists by carrying messages and munitions.
• (d) Evidence of 560 to 700 kilometres (350 to 450 miles!) of cement tunnels that were built in Gaza over the past 16 years—so surely many Gazan civilians were aware of this.
• (e) Evidence of 5,700 tunnel shafts being hosted by (i.e., coming out of) homes, schools, mosques, and hospitals all across tiny Gaza—and again, surely, many Gazan civilians were aware of this. And surely many Gazan civilians were aware that the tunnels’ purpose was for war against Israel and to wipe out Jews (per the Hamas charter), yet Gazans did not protest.
• (f) Evidence of hostages being held in civilian homes.

 

For some references concerning the above evidence, see notes for Reply 4 of “Israel’s response to Hamas is not proportional?” which is chapter 12 of my book Untangling Popular Anti-Israel Arguments: Critical Thinking about the Israel-Hamas War; link here.

Also, for additional evidence for thinking the people of Gaza are not innocent, see Einat Wilf, “Einat Wilf Answers 18 Questions on Gaza, Anti-Zionism, and the Israel-Hamas War,” 18Forty, December 4, 2024 (80 minute video). Einat Wilf has a BA from Harvard, an MBA from INSEAD in France, and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Cambridge. Wilf served as an intelligence officer with the Israeli Defense Forces, is a former member of the Israeli parliament, and works presently with the Israeli Citizen Spokespersons’ Office. Also, Einat Wilf is co-author of the book The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace (St. Martin’s, 2020), which I highly recommend.

Many Gazans—especially children—are innocent, of course. And some adult Gazans no longer support Hamas. The following recent report from Gatestone Institute is relevant. “Although many Palestinians continue to support Hamas and the ‘resistance’ against Israel, a growing number are speaking out against the terror group.” “If the Palestinians living in Gaza want to end the war, they must revolt against Hamas and provide Israel with information about the whereabouts of the hostages. Sadly, most Palestinians seem unwilling to do so, either out of fear of Hamas or because they simply identify with the terror group and its goal of destroying Israel.” Khaled Abu Toameh, “Palestinians: ‘We Are Dying Because of Hamas,’” Gatestone Institute International Policy Council, March 20, 2025.

4. Yes, we should keep in mind the fact that the civilian-combatant death ratio in Gaza is low when it is compared to other cases of urban warfare in recent history. That is, the other cases of urban warfare by Western democracies have more civilian deaths per combatant death than is the case in Israel’s war against Hamas (even though Hamas has, unlike the other cases, spent years not only embedding itself among civilians in Gaza but also fortifying its underground war machine). And add to this the fact that the misfiring of many Hamas rockets caused many Gazan casualties.

It also is important to keep in mind that before and during the war with Hamas, Israel engaged in extraordinary efforts to protect Gazan civilians from potential harm. How? By warning them of Israel’s invasion by dropping millions of leaflets, sending millions of text and voice messages, and “knocking” (hitting a building’s roof with an unexploding “bomb” to warn residents that the next bomb will explode). And Israel has provided humanitarian corridors and safe zones (often made unsafe by Hamas).

5. And we should remember that the Gazans, led by Hamas, started the war with Israel, a war in which it was foreseeable and planned by Gazans, led by Hamas, that Israel’s military response would appear to Western observers to be lacking proportionality and thus be deemed unjust. How so? By using Western moral qualms (which Hamas does not have) against Westerners. Reminder: Hamas/Gazan terrorists embedded themselves among Gazan civilians (of whom many have aided and abetted the terrorists; see evidence in note 1 above), knowing there would be huge numbers of civilian casualties which constitute, for Hamas, a military strategy, not a moral tragedy. Moreover, the foreseeable-to-Hamas vividness of the horrors of dead civilians, especially children—vividness provided by the terrorists themselves to the world in abundance via photos and video on the internet—is intended by Hamas to play on the oft-emotion-based moral reasoning of Western observers. For many Westerners, bloodshed of civilians is repulsive, full stop, and no further moral reasoning is done to discern who is actually responsible. This is sometimes called “the CNN effect.” The byline of ethicist Shlomo Brody’s article “Israel and the CNN Effect” is helpful here: “Images of bloodshed in Gaza should upset anyone with a healthy moral sense. But they don’t help determine whether the actions that brought these scenes about were ethical.” (Shlomo Brody, “Israel and the CNN Effect,” Mosaic, January 4, 2024.) Brody adds: “We might be saddened by these deaths, but our moral analysis must remain sober. Good reasoning must overcome our instinctive revulsion to bloodshed. We cannot fixate on body counts or CNN coverage. Instead, we must determine with whom culpability lies.” Sober-minded moral reasoning based on evidence shows that the culpability lies with Hamas-led Gaza, but Gaza hides its culpability (along with its fighters) behind the broken and bloody bodies of its Gazan human shields, children included. Thereby Gaza, led by Hamas, gains world sympathy and Israel loses it. The alleged lack of proportionality and alleged injustice, then, are more apparent than real—and more by Hamas design than by Israeli intent—due to Hamas’s wicked machinations coupled with Gazan civilian help and Western gullibility.

 

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Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is a retired philosophy professor who lives in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada. Hendrik is author of the book Untangling Popular Anti-Israel Arguments: Critical Thinking about the Israel-Hamas War.

 

Is Hamas a legitimate representative of Islam? Yes, it is.

 

Is Hamas a legitimate representative of Islam?

Yes, it is.

By Hendrik van der Breggen

 

HAMAS (Hamas) is an acronym for the Arabic words Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya, which in English means Islamic Resistance Movement. Hamas, in other words, purports to be a representative of Islam. But is it? That is to ask: Is Hamas a legitimate representative of Islam?

Before I answer and set out my reasons, let’s review some recent goings-on in Gaza.

Last Thursday (February 20, 2025), Hamas staged a macabre carnival-like ceremony in Gaza for its release of four dead Israeli hostages.

Dead hostages included three members of the Bibas family, i.e., two very young boys Ariel and Kfir and their mother Shiri (the father Yarden was released alive two weeks earlier). Also, the dead hostages included an 84-year-old gentleman, Oded Lifschitz.

Well, at least that was the morbid plan of Hamas, according to its ceasefire agreement with Israel.

It turns out that Israeli forensic investigators determined that the dead woman was not the children’s mother. There was a “mix-up of bodies,” per Hamas. Instead of Shiri Bibas (i.e., the children’s mother), the Hamas terrorists gave Israel an unidentified dead Palestinian woman. Israel rightly complained, so Shiri’s dead body was handed over the next day.

Subsequently, and what is worse (though it was hard to believe things could get worse), forensic investigation also revealed that the young Bibas boys—Ariel and Kfir—were strangled to death and later mutilated to look like they were killed by bombs. (They were later mutilated by Hamas because Hamas falsely claimed the children were killed not by Hamas but by Israeli bombs.)

Let this sink in. Ariel and Kfir, who were, respectively, 4 years old and 9 months old when abducted on October 7, 2023—these precious little red-headed boys were strangled to death by Hamas.

Strangled to death. 

This is evil. And should be condemned by the whole world as such. Surely.

Back to my question: Is Hamas a legitimate representative of Islam?

Interestingly, two Islamic Grand Muftis, one from Saudi Arabia and one from the United Arab Emirates, spoke up on the matter. (In Islam, a Grand Mufti is a very high-ranking religious figure like, say, a Bishop is for the Catholic Church.)

The Grand Muftis attempted to distance Islam from Hamas and its macabre spectacle involving the return of dead hostages, including the Bibas children. According to one of the Grand Muftis, “What we saw today in Gaza is a disgrace to Islam, an act of blasphemy against Allah.” The other said, “Hamas has brought shame on Islam, on a level never seen before.”

What are non-Muslims to think about this? On the one hand, Hamas—the Islamic Resistance Movement—sees itself as doing the work of Islam. On the other hand, high-ranking Islamic religious officials condemn this work as a “disgrace to Islam” and a “shame on Islam.”

So, again: Is Hamas a legitimate representative of Islam?

I believe the answer is yes.

To arrive at this answer, I have found helpful a distinction made by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ali is a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford University), a Somali-born former Dutch politician, and a former Muslim.

Ali distinguishes between what she calls Medina Muslims and Mecca Muslims.

Background historical notes: The Prophet Muhammad (c. 570–632) began the religion of Islam in Mecca (in what is now Saudi Arabia) and a few years later he moved to Medina (about 340 kilometres away from Mecca). Muhammad’s alleged revelations from God/Allah are recorded in Islam’s holy book the Qur’an. Muhammad’s sayings and actions are recorded in the Hadith. For Muslims, the Hadith is a significant supplement to the Qur’an.

Muslims themselves may not apply the Medina-Mecca distinction to themselves. Nevertheless, the Medina-Mecca distinction provides important insight into the motivations of followers of Islam (whether Sunni, Shiite, or whatever).

According to Ali, Medina Muslims are those Muslims who follow the violent teachings of the Prophet Muhammad when in the city of Medina the prophet effectively became a warlord after his peaceful approach to spreading Islam in Mecca was rejected. Subsequently, Muhammad killed Jews and ordered the killing of Jews.

It would be reasonable, then, to describe Hamas—whose goal is to kill Jews in the name of Islam—as what Ali calls “Medina Muslims.” Medina Muslims take the violent Prophet Muhammad to be their role model.

On the other hand, those Muslims such as the above-mentioned Grand Muftis could be described as “Mecca Muslims.” That is to say, they follow the Prophet Muhammad’s peaceful teachings when he first began his religion in Mecca. But they downplay or ignore Muhammad’s later violent teachings that abrogate—cancel—the earlier peaceful ones.

Why the popular confusion over whether one should follow the earlier peaceful teachings or the later violent teachings that cancel the earlier teachings? It may be, it seems to me, because the Qur’an is not ordered chronologically. Instead, the Qur’an begins with the longest chapter and ends with the shortest chapter. Such an ordering may be aesthetically pleasing, but historical chronology gets lost. The result is that it is not clear that the violent verses come after—and thus abrogate/cancel—the earlier peaceful verses.

The upshot: Muslims who follow closely Muhammad’s violent later teachings are scripturally correct in doing so.

Thus, Hamas does legitimately represent Islam. At least it does in so far as Hamas takes seriously all of the Qur’an’s and the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings, including the later ones, which cancel the earlier peaceful ones, and which include the brutal killing of Jews.

Jews such as Ariel, Kfir, and Shiri Bibas and the elderly Oded Lifschitz.

 

For additional thought

• Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Islam Is a Religion of Violence, Foreign Policy Magazine, November 9, 2015. (Article)
• Raymond Ibrahim, How Nazism Explains the Difference Between ‘Moderate’ and ‘Radical’ Islam, The Stream, February 20, 2025. (Article)
• Robert Spencer et al., Islam: What the West Needs to Know, produced & directed by Gregory M. Davis & Bryan Daly (Lorain, Ohio: Quixotic Media Productions, 2006). (98 minute video)
• R. C. Sproul & Abdul Saleeb, The Dark Side of Islam (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2003). (Book, see chapter 8)
• Hendrik van der Breggen, Appendix 1: Criticizing Islam is Islamophobic? Part 1 of 2, APOLOGIA, March 26, 2024. (Article/chapter)
• Hendrik van der Breggen, Appendix 2: Criticizing Islam is Islamophobic? Part 2 of 2, APOLOGIA, March 26, 2024. (Article/chapter)
• Hendrik van der Breggen, Islam and Christianity, APOLOGIA, March 16, 2017.

 

Objections and replies

Objection 1. Criticizing Islam is Islamophobic.

Reply: No, it’s not. My pointing to Islam’s negative view of Jews and my call for careful thinking about Islam—especially about its founder Muhammad who encourages the killing of Jews (and others) and whom Islamists such as Hamas take very seriously as a model for their violent behaviour—are not instances of Islamophobia. Rather, these are reasonable, evidence-based concerns. Think about it. A phobia is an irrational or ungrounded fear, aversion, or hatred. Consider arachnophobia, an irrational ungrounded fear or hatred of spiders. But, clearly, it’s possible to have reasonable, non-phobic concerns about some spiders if the spiders display evidence of being harmful or lethal to humans. Again, thinking carefully about Islam is not Islamophobia. One can have non-phobic, reasonable concerns about a religion that displays evidence of being harmful or lethal to people who do not agree with that religion. It turns out that Muhammad was an extremely violent man bent on world domination by force, and he teaches his followers to be and do likewise. It is not phobic to say this.

Objection 2. The Bible also has calls to war, so the Bible is as bad as the Qur’an.

Reply: Yes, the Bible has calls to war in the Old Testament. But the Bible’s calls to war are specific and limited to particular times and places, whereas the Qur’an’s call for war against unbelievers is Muhammad’s latest revelation and is open-ended—and continues. Moreover, according to the New Testament, Jesus promotes his message by allowing his blood to be shed on a cross, and Jesus teaches his followers to love their enemies. But Muhammad, according to the Qur’an and tradition, promotes his message by shedding the blood of others. To promote Islam throughout the world, Muhammad calls his followers to kill infidels, i.e., those who don’t agree with his views about God. Yes, most Muslims don’t follow the violent Muhammad, which is, I believe, good. These Muslims elevate Muhammad’s peaceful traits above his violent ones. But the peaceful Muslims are mistaken, according to the Qur’an and Hadith, because Muhammad’s call to violent jihad is his latest revelation and his latest revelation abrogates—cancels—the earlier peaceful revelation.

The Qur’an, then, has an ongoing call to subdue or kill non-believers—Jews, Christians, and other so-called infidels—whereas the Bible does not. Yes, some followers of Jesus have done evil things, but they did so contrary to Jesus’ teachings, unlike followers of Muhammad who do and have done bad things in accordance with Muhammad’s teachings.

Significantly, the Bible, unlike the Qur’an, has good news: According to the Bible, the God of the universe loves us; the God of the universe became a man—Jesus—and lived among us; Jesus showed us the way of love, suffered for us, and was killed for our sins; and Jesus resurrected physically to defeat the powers of death and darkness. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. We should repent and accept Jesus as Lord.

 

Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is a retired philosophy professor who lives in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada. Hendrik is author of the 2024 book Untangling Popular Anti-Israel Arguments: Critical Thinking about the Israel-Hamas War.