Hamas unpacked: History and politics of a movement
Tareq Baconi is author of ‘Hamas Contained: A History of Palestinian Resistance’ (Stanford University Press: 2018, 2024). He was the senior analyst for Palestine/Israel at the International Crisis Group, based in Ramallah. His writing has appeared in the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, the New York Times, among others. He is president of the board of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network.

Jeroen Gunning is Professor of Middle East Politics and Conflict Studies at the Department of Political Economy, King’s College London. Professor Gunning’s research focuses on political mobilisation and contestation in postcolonial sovereigntyscapes in the Middle East, specifically on the interplay between social movements, religion, electoral politics, violence (state and nonstate), coloniality and structural change. He is one of the world’s leading scholars on the politics of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and is currently working, with Dima Smaira, on two overlapping projects focusing on Hizballah’s evolution and on everyday security and peace practices in Beirut’s Southern Suburbs. He is one of the founders of the field of critical terrorism studies and has written a critically acclaimed social movement theory explanation of the ‘Egyptian Revolution’ of 2011. With Morten Valbjørn, he co-directed the research project TOI: ‘Bringing in the Other Islamists – comparing Arab Shia and Sunni Islamism(s) in a sectarianised Middle East’.
Date: 10 June 2025, 17:00
Venue: St Antony's College, 62 Woodstock Road OX2 6JF
Venue Details: Investcorp Lecture Theatre
Speakers: Tareq Baconi (Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network), Professor Jeroen Gunning (King's College London)
Organising department: Middle East Centre
Organiser: Middle East Centre Administrator (St Antony's College, University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: mec@sant.ox.ac.uk
Host: Professor Raihan Ismail (St Antony's College, University of Oxford)
Booking required?: Not required
Cost: FREE
Audience: Public
Editors: Caroline Davis, Jennie Williams