Presentation at Friendly House. Are Hamas equivalent to Nazis, ISIS, or “human animals” as Israeli leaders have asserted in explaining Hamas’s mass slaughter of Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023? Has Israel inflicted collective punishment on the people of the Gaza Strip after Hamas won a democratic election for the in 2006? Joel Beinin was Professor of Middle East History at Stanford University until retiring in 2019. Joel and his wife lived in Israel from 1970 to 1973. His parents, brother, and sister emigrated to Israel in 1973. His brother’s daughter and her husband were members of Kibbutz Nir Oz when it was attacked on Oct. 7. They have been taken hostage.