Lecture
Truces and Rumours of Truces: Hamas's Pragmatism as Expressed Through Its Ceasefires
- Dr. Joas Wagemakers
- Date
- Thursday 6 November 2025
- Time
- Serie
- What's New?! Fall Lecture Series 2025
- Address
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 1.48
The presentation deals with the truce proposals that the Palestinian Hamas has been involved with throughout its existence. The overwhelming majority of scholars argue that Hamas is not a rigid group that blindly adheres to an anti-Semitic ideology - although elements of the latter have certainly occurred in its discourse - but a flexible and pragmatic organisation that weighs its interests before making a decision, including regarding the use of violence. In this presentation, I show how Hamas's use of truces confirms and even exemplifies its flexible and pragmatic nature.
About the speaker
Joas Wagemakers is an associate professor of Islamic & Arabic Studies at Utrecht University and the academic director of the Netherlands Interuniversity School for Islamic Studies (NISIS). He is specialised in the intellectual history of contemporary Islam in the Arab world, especially Salafism and Islamism, on which he has published extensively in academic journals and edited volumes. His books include A Quietist Jihadi: The Ideology and Influence of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Salafism in Jordan: Political Islam in a Quietist Community (Cambridge University Press, 2016), The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan (Cambridge University Press, 2020), The Muslim Brotherhood: Ideology, History, Descendants (Amsterdam University Press, 2022) and Hamas: Palestinian Nationalism and Militant Pragmatism (Amsterdam University Press, forthcoming in 2026). Wagemakers has also published extensively for broader audiences and frequently comments on issues related to Islam in the media.
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