Helena Cobban is a journalist who has covered events in the Middle East for more than four decades. Through her reporting, she has interviewed senior leadership across Palestinian movements and political organisations and senior members of Israel’s government.
Recently, she co-authored a book with Rami Khouri, an academic and journalist who has also been writing about the Middle East for decades. The book is largely a transcript of a series of conversations that the authors had with five experts who have a deep knowledge of who Hamas is, what it stands for, how it operates and what it is trying to achieve.
We sat down with Helena Cobban in this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC to speak about who Hamas is, what it wants and why understanding it matters.
This episode was filmed on March 12, 2025
UNAPOLOGETIC is hosted by Ashfaaq Carim
00:00 Intro
02:15 About the book
07:15 Laws that make it difficult to speak about Hamas
12:30 The genesis of Hamas
20:00 Misconceptions around Hamas
29:50 Introspection on their own actions
34:00 Hamas beyond being a liberation movement
41:00 Helena's journey covering the conflict
51:00 Helena’s learnings from compiling the book
56:30 How global power shifts change narratives
01:04:30 Does Hamas introspect?
01:12:30 What will happen to Gaza