++Former FCC chair Tom Wheeler has a few ideas for how to regulate the “Digital Gilded Age.” +
++The 19th century probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you hear about Big Tech’s harms and possible solutions. It’s probably not the second either, or even 50th. But in his forthcoming book Techlash: Who Makes the Rules in the Digital Gilded Age? Tom Wheeler makes the case that maybe it should be. +
++The original Gilded Age describes a period at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, when it became increasingly apparent that new, transformative technologies that had done so much for so many had done a lot more for a very few: the handful of men who owned or effectively controlled industries like steel, oil, and the railroads. The money and power they amassed often came at the expense of everyone else. Antitrust laws and federal agencies were created to stop abusive business practices. We still rely on them today. +
+ ++But an increasing number of people think those institutions aren’t equipped to deal with who holds the money and power now: Big Tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. They differ on what can or should be done about that, however, and so very little has been done. These companies continue to operate under the rules they’ve made for themselves, which aren’t necessarily in the best interests of the rest of us. Wheeler has a few ideas about the best way to approach governmental oversight in this Digital Gilded Age, as he calls it. And he knows a thing or two about it. +
++“My entire professional life has been about the intersection of public policy and new technology,” he says, including a stint as chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under President Barack Obama — a tenure that will likely be best known for instituting net neutrality to increase government oversight of broadband internet (which was later repealed under Trump, and now, under Biden, is being restored). He also describes himself as an “amateur historian.” All four of his books, including this one, are rooted in history. +
++But he doesn’t think regulators and lawmakers should respond to the digital economy the way they did to the industrial innovations of 150 years ago. This Digital Gilded Age has a few fundamental differences from the original one, and that, he says, means it has to be regulated differently, too. Ahead of the release of Techlash, which comes out October 15, Wheeler spoke to Vox about all of this. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. +
++
+Sara Morrison +
++How did this concept of two gilded ages come about? +
++Tom Wheeler +
++The more you look at the original Gilded Age, the more you say, “Wow, does that sound familiar!” Our technology-driven environment today echoes the original Gilded Age, principally because at its root it is the innovators who make the rules without regard for the consequences. We’ve always celebrated the fact that innovators make the rules. They should; they can see the future that none of the rest of us can see. All the great advances in science, technology, business, the arts, came from people who said, “We won’t obey the rules because we see something different.” +
++But ultimately, that behavior runs into the rights of individuals and the public interest. We saw that in the original Gilded Age, and the Congress responded with antitrust legislation, with the creation of the first federal regulatory agency, with the creation of legislation to protect against unsafe products. And the result of that was incredible growth in the economy and in those companies, as well as protection for consumers and competition. +
++I think we’re at that same kind of a hinge moment today. The theme of this book is that unregulated tech has a damaging effect on basic things such as privacy, competition, and truth. And you can put in place an agile oversight that will protect the average American and promote innovation by promoting competition. You can then end up rebalancing the public and the private interest. We did it before and we can do it again. +
++Sara Morrison +
++What are some of the key similarities between that Gilded Age and this one? +
++Tom Wheeler +
++They were technology-driven, and the application of that technology was defined by a handful of innovators who made the rules based on what was in their interest, rather than what was in the public interest. In both instances, wondrous new things were developed. But they brought with them negative consequences. +
++And lastly, they both have accelerated the pace of life. In the original Gilded Age, industrialization increased the pace of life from the agricultural-based economy that had existed before. And obviously, in the digital Gilded Age, that pace of life has increased even more. +
++Sara Morrison +
++But they’re not exactly the same. +
++Tom Wheeler +
++The assets behave differently. Industrial assets were things you could stub your toes on. Digital assets are soft assets. Industrial assets were expensive; digital assets are inexpensive. Industrial assets were used once and it’s gone. Digital assets can be used again and again. Industrial assets were rivalrous: if I have a ton of coal, you don’t. But digital assets can be shared. And the industrial assets were exhaustible: you could only use something once. In the digital environment, you can use it again and again and again. Every time you sign up for Facebook, you’re using the same software that somebody else signed up with. Every time you download Microsoft Word, you’re using the same software. It’s inexhaustible. +
++So the fact that the assets themselves are different created an economic activity that was different. In the industrial era, it was a pipeline production economy. A hard asset moved through the process until it rolled off the assembly line as a finished product. In the digital era, it is a platform-pairing process, where you create digital assets by pairing them with other digital assets to produce a product. +
++Sara Morrison +
++What do those differences mean when it comes to regulation? +
+/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24980379/Wheeler.front.jpg)
++Tom Wheeler +
++The question is not only how do we put guardrails around Big Tech, but also how do we do it in a way that continues to encourage innovation? Industrial-style regulation is like industrial-style management. When Congress went to create these industrial agencies that we know today, including the FCC, they looked at how the companies that were to be supervised were being managed. Industrial management was a top-down, rigid, rules-based approach. The guru of industrial management was a fellow by the name of Frederick W. Taylor, and his management techniques were called Taylorism. Basically, his idea was to squeeze all creativity out of everybody, and get them to do exactly the same thing by your rules. And that will give you the best industrial production. +
++It is just the opposite today. Not only are our companies managed by agile management techniques, in that they’re constantly having to respond to new technology, but they’re also constantly having to respond to marketplace changes. What we need to have are new regulators that look like the new style of agile digital management that exists today. +
++Sara Morrison +
++You literally ran an agency, the FCC, that came out of that old model. Did your experience there inform your opinion now? Can agencies like the FCC even be agile? +
++Tom Wheeler +
++I had to bring agility to an agency that was designed not to be agile. The net neutrality rule has what’s called the general conduct rule component, which builds in agility to deal with what might happen next. The privacy rule had agility in it to deal with changes. And what we did in cybersecurity was designed from the outset to be agile, because the bad guys who are trying to crack the security of networks are themselves incredibly agile. Unfortunately, all three of those were repealed in the Trump administration. +
++But, yes, I tried to practice this. Part of the reason why I wrote this book was to convey those learnings and what other solutions might be. +
++Sara Morrison +
++You use words like “sclerotic” and “rigid” to describe some of the things we have in place to deal (or not deal) with these matters. Can I assume that you don’t think Congress can or will do the job this time? +
++Tom Wheeler +
++I think that they will, eventually. Here’s the important thing, another historical analogue: It was in 1867 that the Grange was founded by farmers as a countervailing force to the power of the railroads. Railroads were abusing farmers, and the farmers kept saying, “We need oversight.” But it wasn’t until 1887, 20 years after the Grange was founded, that the Interstate Commerce Commission was created. And it wasn’t until almost 20 years after that that Teddy Roosevelt finally helped to give it some real enforcement teeth. So the point of the matter is, this always takes a long period of time. +
++I think it needs to move faster now because of the even faster pace of life created by the new technology. I am optimistic that as the American people continue to express themselves about the need for oversight, that Congress will respond. +
++Sara Morrison +
++Will it? Big Tech companies have a lot of money to spend on lobbyists and whatever else. It seems like that’s been pretty effective at convincing them not to do much of anything so far. +
++Tom Wheeler +
++So everybody says, “Oh, Congress is so controlled by the special interests.” But special interests in the late 19th century owned members of Congress. And still, we had antitrust laws, we had consumer protection laws. I think that, today, we the people need to communicate. The reason things changed in the late 19th century was that we the people, folks like the Grange, folks like the progressive movement and populists, kept saying, “This is enough. We’ve got to do something about that.” And I think that’s the hope for us, in our time. +
++Sara Morrison +
++You give Teddy Roosevelt a lot of credit for Gilded Age reforms in the book. Who is our Teddy Roosevelt now? +
++Tom Wheeler +
++There is no one today with Rooseveltian powers and instincts. I think that President Biden has done more to promote competition and have oversight of digital activities than most other presidents in the digital era. And I would hope that someday he will be signing a digital protection agency bill. But I mean, through his appointments with people like [FTC chair] Lina Khan, those were inspired kinds of activities that have effects. +
++Sara Morrison +
++So, what does the ideal government oversight look like to you? +
++Tom Wheeler +
++We need an agile agency that has a new approach and is built to look like the companies that it is supposed to oversee, rather than built to look like industrial companies that are not part of the digital economy. It’s reverse Taylorism. Where Taylor said we want to squeeze out every incentive for creativity, in digital companies transparency and creativity are the watchwords. We need to have those same concepts as the watchwords in the oversight of those digital companies. +
++Sara Morrison +
++One of your legacies at the FCC is net neutrality, which is back! Why do you think it’s become such a contentious issue? It seems reasonable to me that, as a technology becomes more and more essential to our lives, there should be more oversight ensuring that we all have access to it. +
++Tom Wheeler +
++I think the real answer to that question is because the companies are afraid that it will lead to rate regulation, which they’re scared to death of. And, as you know, in our Open Internet Order, our net neutrality rule, we specifically said we’re not going to enforce rate regulation. +
++Sara Morrison +
++Why not have rate regulation? +
++Tom Wheeler +
++The thought process that I went through in making that decision was: I can see how you can regulate a single factor like a voice line. I think it is entirely different to regulate a multifactor service like broadband that is constantly changing. So, it was in large part because A) we didn’t see the need for it today; B) we wanted to encourage broadband expansion; and C) we didn’t know how to do it. A broadband line delivers so much more than a voice channel, so how do you prioritize that? How do you decide that this is going to be priced this way, that’s going to be priced that way? And increasingly, broadband is competitive. +
++Having said that, I didn’t want to make the decision that would saddle my successors down the road who might have a need to do something about abusive pricing. I don’t think we’re experiencing that now. And so we said the power is there, but we’re not going to enforce it. +
++A version of this story was also published in the Vox Technology newsletter. Sign up here so you don’t miss the next one! +
++
++
++Increased awareness is the first step to helping more people — particularly teens. +
++Editor’s note: This story includes detailed discussions of disordered eating behaviors that may be disturbing or triggering to some. +
++Beginning in her youth and lasting for more than two decades, Heidi McLachlan struggled with a negative body image. Her efforts to avoid weight gain at all costs led her down a path of disordered eating behaviors including anorexia nervosa and chewing and spitting. +
++Chew and spit (CHSP) is the practice of chewing one’s food and then spitting it out in an attempt to get pleasure from tasting it without ingesting calories. +
++For McLachlan, chewing and spitting began as a symptom of anorexia nervosa — just another one of several strategies she used to steer clear of calories. +
++She says she began the behavior while working at a job where a large candy bowl was kept in the reception area. She explains that it was “sitting there all the time” and represented a constant temptation for her. “That’s kind of all I could think about all morning was ‘When can I go grab those chocolates and chew and spit them in the bathroom?’” When she did so, she experienced “a little bit of a dopamine hit … followed by shame.” +
++But the anorexia and chewing and spitting took their toll on her quality of life. She dealt with social isolation, dental troubles, “constant” anxiety, emotional pain, and even suicidal ideation from the extent of hopelessness she was experiencing. “I truly believed that I was alone in being wrapped up in this destructive cycle,” she explains. +
++Now recovered and a licensed eating disorder recovery coach based in Saskatoon, Canada, McLachlan knows she isn’t alone in her experience. +
++Over the decades, she has seen firsthand the significant attention and research eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia have received, and has become concerned that more people aren’t aware of chewing and spitting. +
++That sentiment has only increased as she has met with more and more of the people needing care for it. “We have noticed an increase in those struggling with chewing and spitting reaching out for help,” she says, referring to patients in her practice. +
++Some of the patients she helps today engage in chewing and spitting alongside other disordered eating behaviors such as purging, extreme dieting, fasting, and bingeing. For others, it’s the only disordered eating behavior they engage in. +
++Additional eating disorder specialists have noticed similar trends with chewing and spitting. +
++Jason Nagata, a pediatrician specializing in eating disorders at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in San Francisco, tells Vox that the number of teens who have been hospitalized for eating disorders at the hospital he works in has doubled since the pandemic began — including those depriving themselves of key nutrients by chewing and spitting. “I have cared for many patients who have chewed and spit their foods, developed eating disorders, and were subsequently hospitalized for medical complications of their eating disorder,” he says. +
++James Greenblatt, chief medical officer at Walden Behavioral Care in Dedham, Massachusetts, and the author of Integrative Medicine for Binge Eating and Answers to Anorexia, tells Vox that “almost a quarter of patients with eating disorders have used chewing and spitting.” +
++These experts believe increased awareness of the behavior and its consequences could be helpful. They say it’s essential for those who engage in chewing and spitting to know they are not alone, and also to know this is a problem they can seek help for. +
++Vox interviewed 10 top eating disorder researchers, coaches, physicians, and clinic directors who all agree the behavior is more troubling than some may realize. Critically, they said, it’s also understudied, deserves more research, and, some argued, could benefit from an updated inclusion in the handbook doctors use to treat eating disorders. +
++How common is chewing and spitting? +
++Guidance is already readily available for established eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, but it’s much rarer for lesser-known behaviors like CHSP. The studies that do exist, however, show that chewing and spitting is common enough to be concerning — especially among adolescents. +
++From one 2018 study conducted in Australia, for instance, we learn that 0.4 percent of adults (with a median age of 39) engage in the behavior. While that was a very small study that may capture only a fraction of the adults who actually do this, if we were to assume similar rates in the US and project that figure out over the 258 million adults living there, that figure would mean more than 1.3 million of them engage in chewing and spitting. (For contrast, consider that only an estimated 2.5 million adults in the US have been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD.) +
++And things get especially worrisome when you look at a significantly larger study that was also conducted in Australia the following year. That one looked at the behavior in 11- to 19-year-olds alone and found it to be far more widespread. More than 5,000 students across 13 schools participated in the study, which showed 12 percent of them engaging in chewing and spitting at least once a month. +
++Again, assuming similar rates in the US, this means that of the estimated 26.2 million children between the ages of 12 and 17 living in the US, it’s possible more than 3 million of them engage in the practice. +
++Moreover, the study showed that 7.7 percent of participants “indicated to chew and spit up to 3 times in the previous 28 days, and over 2 percent reported chewing and spitting 8 or more times in the same period,” explains Phillip Aouad, a postdoctoral research fellow at the InsideOut Institute for Eating Disorders at the University of Sydney and a co-author of both the 2018 and 2019 studies. +
++Though such data may only scratch the surface of how prevalent chewing and spitting is, “the fact that over a tenth of adolescents engage in chewing and spitting highlights how common this … behavior is,” says Nagata, referring to the study’s findings. +
++What concerns the experts? +
++While the practice of chewing and spitting is less recognized than other forms of disordered eating, those who have suffered through it — or helped others who have — know it still causes harm. +
++Greenblatt tells Vox in an email that the behavior can cause gastrointestinal issues such as acid reflux, stomach ulcers, and even excess weight. “Odd as it may seem, CHSP can indeed result in weight gain,” he explains. “While researchers aren’t sure as to what drives the connection, some speculate that it’s due to the ‘cold turkey rebound effect,’ i.e., drastically restricting food drives a vicious hunger that, later on, causes the person to binge and ultimately consume a far greater number of calories.” +
++Chewing and spitting can also lead to dental troubles. Because the people who engage in the practice aren’t swallowing the food they put in their mouth, they often eat a lot more and savor each bite for longer than they would if ingested. Large quantities of sugar frequently coming into contact with tooth enamel has been shown to cause gum deterioration and tooth decay. What’s more, as soon as food hits the tongue and chewing begins, the enzyme salivary amylase is produced in the mouth. Being slightly acidic, it too can contribute to cavities. +
++Among the lesser-known consequences of chewing and spitting is how the behavior may impact hormone levels and other chemical responses throughout the body. “Experts have speculated that CHSP might result in hormonal imbalances related to the cephalic response,” says Jennifer Wildes, director of the Eating Disorders Program at the University of Chicago Medicine. +
++The cephalic response is an anticipatory phase that occurs in the brain when the body prepares to receive food. It’s known to stimulate hormones, acid production, and saliva secretions. It’s possible that when the body is deprived of the nutrients that are supposed to follow, there may be negative side effects or neurochemical imbalances, though, “as far as I know, no one has looked at the neural correlates of CHSP,” Wildes explains. +
++Harry Brandt, chief of medical operations for the Eating Recovery Center in Denver, Colorado, and the chief of psychiatry at the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center, agrees that more is likely happening during this process than we currently know about. He was the director of the eating disorder unit at the National Institute of Mental Health from 1987 to 1989 and has been working with eating disorder patients his entire career. +
++He tells Vox that he suspects “something is happening” hormonally and in the brain when people chew and spit. “When you put food in your mouth, you are triggering the body to prepare for caloric intake, and there may be a whole range of neurochemicals that are secreted associated with [that],” he explains. But the imaging studies confirming such impacts have not been done. +
++While scientists still don’t know exactly what happens in the brain from chewing and spitting, they have assessed its consequences on mental health. +
++Aouad says his research shows that CHSP is associated with people having negative perceptions of their quality of life — symptoms consistent with depression. +
++“There are adverse physical and psychosocial impacts due to CHSP, particularly if it is prolonged, chronic, or severe,” he says. He notes that beyond chewing and spitting being associated with negative emotions such as shame, “it can also become a maladaptive coping mechanism or escape from reality, which only temporarily provides pleasure or comfort.” In this way, “CHSP can become very addictive and ritualistic,” he tells Vox in an email. +
++Perhaps most concerning is that the behavior can be a “gateway” step toward more dangerous eating disorders. +
++“Individuals who participate in chewing and spitting behaviors face an elevated likelihood of developing an eating disorder,” Nagata says. A Johns Hopkins Medicine article similarly notes that the practice “can be the start of unhealthy attitudes toward food and may be part of a more serious eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia.” +
++In addition to potentially leading to new eating disorders, chewing and spitting also likely increases the prevalence of existing disordered eating behaviors such as bingeing, vomiting, strict dieting, and laxative misuse, Aouad says. He adds that shape and weight concerns are common among people who chew and spit, and these concerns appeared “to increase the more frequently CHSP was engaged in.” +
++Indeed, Anna Karam Jones, a clinical psychologist at the UC San Diego Health Eating Disorders Center for Treatment & Research, cites Aouad’s earlier research, telling Vox that, “among individuals who report having ever engaged in chewing and spitting behavior, more than 70 percent report also engaging in dietary restriction and binge eating.” +
++So why don’t we know more? +
++As illustrated, there are still many open questions regarding chewing and spitting, including how prevalent the practice is, what other ways it might harm its participants, the number of people who engage in the practice without employing other disordered eating methods, and whether chewing and spitting is better defined as a symptom of other disordered eating behaviors or as a problem in itself. +
++We also need to better understand how people are introduced to or begin the practice in the first place. +
++For McLachlan, chewing and spitting “happened naturally as a fear response” that stemmed from not wanting to ingest calories. That is, no one taught her to do it. That’s the case for some of her patients as well. Still others were introduced to chewing and spitting by their friends, and it would be useful to know how that happens and whether there are any other outside influences at play. +
++So why don’t we have more definitive answers to these questions? One explanation Greenblatt points to is that much of the research in mental health is driven by pharmaceutical incentive. Because “it is unlikely that there would be a medication to specifically address CHSP,” he says, “my concern is that future research [driven by the pharmaceutical industry] would be limited.” +
++Many of the experts point to another explanation for why we don’t know more: All US-based doctors who treat eating disorders turn to the same source of information, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM. The DSM handbook is the authoritative guide used for matching patients with specific mental health diagnoses and for recommended treatments. It’s also the source insurance companies turn to when determining which diagnoses receive what coverage. +
++In the fourth edition of the DSM, chewing and spitting was mentioned as one example of an “other specified feeding and eating disorders,” or OSFED; in the latest edition of the DSM, known as DSM-5, chewing and spitting isn’t mentioned at all (though it still technically falls in the OSFED category). The OSFED category is where all known disordered eating behaviors or symptoms go until they have enough data to support their own classification or subtype definition — something only a handful of eating disorders have. +
++To have a disorder defined in the DSM is to draw more attention to it, to better diagnose and treat patients presenting for help with it, and to increase the likelihood of better insurance coverage from providers. It also helps draw in more research attention. +
++B. Timothy Walsh is a professor of pediatric psychopharmacology at Columbia University’s Department of Psychiatry who chaired the eating disorders work group for the two most recent editions of the DSM. He tells Vox that chewing and spitting is not defined as its own eating disorder or subtype because we don’t have enough data to support that. In other words, we don’t know as much about CHSP as we need to, in part because it’s not in the DSM, but it’s not in the DSM because of a lack of research. For clinicians like Nagata, it’s a frustrating circular problem. +
++For a disorder to be formally defined and classified in the DSM, Walsh says characteristics of the people who engage in it have to be fully described, criteria about its known prevalence has to be met, and a more detailed understanding of how the disorder occurs has to be established. ”That just doesn’t exist for chewing and spitting yet,” he says. +
++To help researchers involved in defining DSM disorders learn more, Brandt says that chew and spit data should be “isolated” from other eating disorder data as it’s often lumped in with bulimia and anorexia research or considered by some researchers to be an anorexia or bulimia subtype. +
++In addition to isolating such data, population surveys and research grants could be helpful in measuring its prevalence and how it occurs, as would more clinicians screening their patients for this behavior specifically and not merely as a symptom of other eating disorders. This would help researchers not only establish how pervasive it is but also help patients receive more targeted care. +
++More data, less stigmatization +
++Finding those patients could prove difficult, however, as the experts say yet another reason we don’t know more about the people who chew and spit is that most of them tend to hide the habit very well. +
++McLachlan says she’s treated some patients for months before they’ve confessed even to her that they have this problem. She says it’s a habit many people are extremely embarrassed by, one they don’t want discovered. “If we start to reduce that shame and stigma, I think the [percentages of people we know who do this] would go up,” she says. +
++Complicating matters further is that some of the people who engage in CHSP don’t think of it as a serious problem and don’t consider that they may have an eating disorder. +
++(The line between eating disorders and dietary practices can be difficult even for the experts to define. While exercising and meal replacement shakes are generally accepted as standard dietary measures, compulsive exercise and deliberately skipping meals completely are where things can become problematic.) +
++As a general rule, though, Aouad says that any practice that deprives the body of the nutrients it needs would never be recommended by medical professionals as a sound, long-term practice. +
++McLachlan agrees. Regarding the people who chew and spit, she says that if they didn’t have an unhealthy association with food “or if it wasn’t a disordered behavior, they’d just swallow it.” If a behavior is negatively impacting one’s life or if it’s something someone would be ashamed to admit to or recommend to a loved one, then it’s a problem, she adds. +
++Raising awareness that this is disordered eating and reducing stigma associated with the practice could do a lot of good since someone not seeking help prevents their own care and may prevent others from receiving better treatment options as well. +
++That’s because people not coming forward makes it difficult for researchers to collect enough data to inform clinicians and insurance companies on which elements of the practice need to be covered and cared for. +
++“If people aren’t presenting for treatment, data doesn’t accumulate,” Walsh explains. +
++Brandt points out that such accumulation of data leading to improved DSM categorization and care recommendations is something that has been done before. +
++In the DSM-4, for instance, binge eating disorder wasn’t yet defined in its own category either. Prior to the latest DSM edition that was published in 2013, binge eating disorder was defined as a subtype of bulimia nervosa because both behaviors involved people binge eating large amounts of food. A distinction arose, however, when it was shown that some people binge eat without compensating afterward by way of vomiting, abusing laxatives, skipping meals, or exercising compulsively. “The way binge eating disorder got defined [as an eating disorder] was that people like me identified that there are some people who binge large amounts of food just like somebody with bulimia … but without the compensatory measures,” i.e., vomiting, Brandt explains. +
++Until similar distinctions are established and additional data is collected, compiled, and presented for chewing and spitting, Walsh says physicians can still diagnose and treat it as recommended in the DSM-5 OSFED category. (Consistently recording CHSP patients presenting for treatment this way could be yet another way in which more data could accumulate.) +
++In the meantime, more researchers could begin isolating existing CHSP data and seeking to answer some of the unanswered questions about the behavior. Brandt says such research “definitely should be” happening if for no other reason because doing so could lead to increased public awareness which could lead to more people seeking and getting the help they need. +
++“Individuals struggling with eating disorders like chewing and spitting often feel like they are the only ones struggling in this certain way,” says McLachlan, again reflecting on her own experience. “The more awareness there is that others struggle in this way too, the more we will see individuals reaching out for help.” +
++What is Hamas and what does it want out of this new resurgence of violent conflict? +
++An unprecedented surprise attack in southern Israel by Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, has led to an increasingly deadly conflict with no resolution in sight. +
++Hamas launched its coordinated attack on southern Israel on October 7, firing rockets, invading Israeli towns and army bases, killing hundreds of people, many of them civilians, and taking Israelis hostage. Israel has retaliated with airstrikes in Gaza that have also killed hundreds of people, including civilians, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared war on Hamas, gearing up for a potential ground invasion. More than 1,500 people have died on both sides as of October 9. +
++Hamas, designated by many nations as a terrorist organization, has been leading armed resistance against Israel for decades and also controls one of the two major political parties in Palestine. Though popular with some segments of Palestinian society, it remains highly divisive in Palestine and has often been at odds with more mainstream Palestinian politicians. +
++While it has somewhat moderated its militancy since it assumed the responsibility of governing Gaza, it’s not clear what the future holds now that it has shown that it is still willing to risk provoking a major Israeli military operation to achieve its aim of Palestinian self-determination. Netanyahu, meanwhile, has vowed “mighty vengeance” on Hamas, seemingly with the objective of reducing its ranks to a point of impotence. +
++Israel’s counterattack is intended to show “that it will be punitive partly for the sake of being punitive, and it will be aimed in part at destroying Hamas as an organization,” said Nathan Brown, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. “It will definitely have an effect on Hamas as an organization, but it’s unclear … how successful it will be.” +
++Here’s what you need to know about Hamas and its role in the latest eruption of fighting in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. +
++What Hamas is and where it came from +
++Hamas was formed in 1987 as an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political group founded in Egypt in the late 1920s. Hamas, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (in English, Islamic Resistance Movement), was designed to provide an “Islamic alternative to the nationalist and leftist groups that then dominated the Palestinian scene in resistance to Israel,” Brown said. +
++It rose to prominence during the first intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. That uprising formally ended in 1993 with the signing of the Oslo Accords, an agreement between Israel and Palestine to lay the groundwork for the formation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, though that was never realized. +
++In 1997, the US labeled Hamas a terrorist organization following its attacks, including suicide bombings, on Israeli targets. Other countries followed suit, though some, like New Zealand, have created a distinction between Hamas’s political wing and the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, its military division, viewing the former as legal and the latter as a terrorist group. Because the US views the whole group as terrorists, it cannot have direct diplomatic relations with Hamas, meaning any negotiations, including any peace negotiations, the US might want to hold have to be conducted through a third party. +
++How did Hamas come to power in Gaza? +
++The group won a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006 over the secular Fatah movement, which has generally had better relationships with Western actors. Established by the Oslo Accords, the Legislative Council was meant to have authority over all of the occupied Palestinian territory — Gaza, where the current conflict is taking place, as well as the West Bank and East Jerusalem — but the 2006 election led to its demise. +
++The international community refused to recognize the Hamas-led government, and Fatah refused to cede power to Hamas entirely. After the two parties failed to reach a lasting power-sharing agreement, a brief civil war broke out. Hamas defeated Fatah’s forces, and though the group’s democratically elected lawmakers were expelled from the legislative council, it took control of the Gaza Strip while Fatah kept control of the West Bank. In Gaza, Hamas continues to support social services and govern 2.3 million people who have been subject to highly restrictive blockades by Israel and Egypt that made the availability of basic goods and services very limited even before Israel’s recent counterattack. +
++The need to manage millions of people changed Hamas, to some degree: “That responsibility made it contain ‘resistance’ and slow with any Islamic agenda, but it always made clear that this was a temporary outcome,” Brown said. For instance, while Hamas scaled back its aims of destroying Israel in a 2017 proclamation that tempered its rhetoric, it has continued to make clear that it wants to end what it calls a “racist, anti-human and colonial Zionist project” and take back much of the land that currently makes up the Israeli state. +
++Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel seems to be a gamble that it can one day do so. Brown said that he thinks the strike, which saw somewhere between a few hundred and a couple thousand Hamas militants breach Israeli’s defenses, may have been an attempt by some in Hamas to “break the modus vivendi with Israel that had emerged over the years.” That status quo saw Israel violently contain Palestinian resistance in Gaza for years at comparatively little cost to its own people. Hamas’s assault may have also been a response to the perceived opportunity in Palestinian politics, with rising alienation and radicalization among youth, he said. +
++Hamas remains a polarizing force in Palestinian society. While available data is limited, some research suggests that if a vote were to be held like the one in 2006, Palestinians would prefer Hamas’s leader to the deeply unpopular leader of the Fatah faction. At the same time, less than a third of Palestinians think the group deserves to represent them. +
++There has not been an opportunity, however, for elections. As Vox’s Jonathan Guyer explained, “Palestinians living in Gaza must endure an unrepresentative government which imposes some Islamic tenets and implements repressive policies against LGBTQ people and abusive policies against detainees.” +
++“Palestinians are deeply divided,” Brown said. “Some are members and strong supporters; some are sympathetic; some view it as problematic; some detest it. But most view it as part of the national fabric.” +
++Hamas’s current political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, and other Hamas leaders currently operate out of Qatar because Egypt restricts their movements in and out of Gaza. +
++Hamas counts Iran as an ally, sharing an opposition to Israel and the United States’ role in the region. As Vox’s Ellen Ioanes reported, Iran has supported the development of Hamas’s rocket, missile, and mortar programs. It has also joined Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shia militant group based in southern Lebanon, in providing funding, training, and intelligence to Hamas fighters. +
++But while Hamas has said that Iran supported its October 7 attack on Israel, “Hamas is not Iran’s proxy,” and its leadership and political agenda are distinct, Brown said. +
++More generally, the question of where Hamas gets its funding is a bit complicated. Some of its money comes from taxes collected on goods smuggled through the Egyptian-Israeli blockade; other income streams include private international donors sympathetic to the group’s cause, and foreign aid, which helps it provide basic governmental services. Beyond Iran, Turkey and Qatar have been suspected of providing financial backing as well. +
++What Hamas wants +
++At its core, Hamas wants an independent Palestinian state, one that, according to its 2017 manifesto, would at the very least include the land Palestinians held in 1967, a position Israeli governments have long said is out of the question. It also wants greater political power, both in Palestine and internationally. +
++“Its ultimate goal is the liberation of all of historic Palestine, but Hamas has declared its willingness to reach a long-term cease-fire with Israel in exchange for full withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza and the creation of a Palestinian state,” Syracuse University Middle Eastern history professor Osamah Khalil told Vox. +
++Hamas has a long track record of using armed resistance in order to achieve its aims, including conducting violent cross-border raids via tunnels and shooting rockets across the Gaza border. And as Vox’s Zack Beauchamp has explained, there’s a series of factors that may have contributed to Hamas’s decision to strike now — essentially, things the group wants to see stopped in the short term. +
++Those include what the group described as Israeli settlers’ desecration of the al-Aqsa Mosque, a Muslim holy site near sites also holy to Christians and Jews; Israeli settlers’ growing attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank; and a potential security agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which would harm Palestine’s bid for independence. More broadly, some experts have argued this attack was intended to fundamentally shift how the world approaches Israeli-Palestinian relations — a show of force and strength by Hamas as it seeks to keep the fight for Palestinian independence at the forefront of international discussion. +
++“Palestinian factions undertake operations like this one to keep the Palestine issue alive and to prevent any outside power from chipping away at the quest for Palestinian sovereignty,” said UCLA Middle Eastern history expert James Gelvin. “This is what Saudi-Israeli normalization threatens to do.” Experts have pointed to the potential Saudi deal, in particular, as a move that would have undercut Palestinians’ fight for statehood by further legitimizing Israel. +
++Ultimately, Hamas is eager to maintain its own power and to keep the fight for a Palestinian state a chief priority for its allies abroad, including Arab countries like Qatar and Turkey. If Israel is launching brutal military attacks on Gaza and civilians, like those that killed dozens at markets, schools, and hospitals on Monday, it makes it much harder for other Arab countries to normalize their relationship with the country (though it also harms the people Hamas is meant to govern). +
++As a Hamas spokesperson told Al Jazeera, these attacks were a decisive “message” to other Arab countries that they should not normalize ties with Israel. +
++Where do Palestine’s other political organizations, such as the Palestine Liberation Organization, fit into all of this? +
++One other thing Hamas wants is for its vision for Palestine to win out over that of its chief rival, Fatah. +
++Fatah, a reverse acronym for Harakat al-Tahrir al-Filistiniya (in English, Palestinian National Liberation Movement), is a secular party started in the 1950s that is also dedicated to establishing an independent Palestinian state. +
++It’s currently the dominant party of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a group of 11 (mostly now defunct) organizations that was created in the 1960s in part to give Palestinians a voice on the world stage. The PLO currently runs the Palestine National Authority (PA), which is a government of semi-autonomous areas in parts of the West Bank. +
++Fatah’s standing in Palestinian politics has been greatly weakened since its 2006 election loss to Hamas and subsequent infighting in the party. The PA is also presently led by President Mahmoud Abbas — the head of Fatah — and has faced significant scrutiny for failing to hold democratic legislative or presidential elections since 2006. Abbas has taken actions to consolidate his power in the absence of other elected lawmakers, further including reducing checks in the government’s three branches and cracking down on free speech. +
++Hamas and Fatah differ most notably in their approach to recognizing Israeli statehood and in their approach to advocating for a Palestinian state. Fatah recognizes an Israeli state while Hamas does not. Fatah also supports diplomacy in its quest for an independent Palestinian state, while Hamas supports armed resistance in pursuit of this goal. Previously, Hamas was strongly against the Oslo Peace Accords the PLO struck unilaterally in the 1990s which put a stop to PLO violence alongside an agreement for a two-state solution. That deal also set up the PA, which has attempted and failed to reach multiple peace agreements with Israel. +
++“Hamas sees the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank as a corrupt representative of the Palestinian cause and are considered political rivals, which has included fighting between armed elements of both sides in the past,” said Javed Ali, a University of Michigan national security expert. +
++Support for the PA among Palestinians has dipped in recent years as it has offered limited condemnation and response to Israeli violence, especially ongoing settler violence that has seen Israelis take land by force. The PA has also suffered from weaker, aging leadership — one of Fatah’s founders, Yasser Arafat, led the PA until his death in 2004; Abbas, now 87, has been in charge since 2005. +
++That has led many Palestinians, especially among the younger generation, to feel that Fatah is out of touch, and it has allowed Hamas to grow its backing among some who support its more aggressive focus on an independent state. +