"Cutting water, cutting electricity, cutting food to a mass of civilian people is against international law," said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in Muscat.
I’m not sure what other options are available at this point though.
Hamas is extremist to the point where they would be doing a genocide as well if they were in the position to do so.
People say separate the Hamas from the people, but that’s really hard when the members of Hamas are of the people and have the support of a good percentage of them.
If Israel invades on foot and Hamas is threatened they can simply fade back into the population and wait to try again. And the general population will support them in doing so.
The creation of the state of Israel was a mistake and the rise of Hamas is the direct result of decades of apartheid practiced against the Palestinians by the Israeli state.
… But as the issue stands today, I can’t blame Israel in taking extreme action to end the conflict that’s dragged on for nearly a century now.
There is no reasonable path to peace. A two state solution would end with the states at war anyway as both states have extreamists who want to genocide the other in government positions.
And there is no where that would accept the Gaza population as refugees even if you could get them to leave.
Well one option is they could get off the fucking land they stole and stop doing a genocide. Not sure why that option slipped your mind. Libs always trying to find hard solutions to simple problems.
It was Western powers that “gave” land that didn’t belong to them, and where other people already lived (and, of course, continue to support Israel). The Israeli government is not the only responsible party here.
It was the UN dividing the land between 1/3 jews and 2/3 muslims who were living there. It got voted 33-13 with most muslim countries voting against and 10 countries including Britain abstaining.
considering a lot of them have second citizenships elsewhere…how about those places?
and before you get to “but there are nazis all over europe/etc, the jews need to be safeguarded!” i’m 100% with you. killing every nazi the world over is the correct solution here, not wiping out an innocent peoples.
I wonder, seen your username, are you by any chance living in North America? If you do, would you consider emigrating to give the land back to the Native Americans who the colonists stole it from (with a little jazzy genocide) ? Or do you consider the situation to be completely different?
Look at South Africa. One state for everyone, equal rights, equal votes. That thought will be so repellent to many that they would rather leave, and good riddance to them.
Not that I as some western internet rando have some unique insight into how things can/should be resolved, just the opposite: some of this is so obvious that even a distant and privileged dummy like me can see it
I don’t give a shit tbh. The state of Israel is a rogue state that shouldn’t be recognized by anybody and should never have existed. The settlers can either become refugees or rely on the mercy of Palestinians.
Hamas is extremist to the point where they would be doing a genocide as well if they were in the position to do so.
The exact same nonsense was said about the end of apartheid in South Africa. That the extremist communist party and ANC would genocide white people. It never happened. This is literally a talking point from ex apartheid South African president PW Botha he said the same nonsense:
“I am not prepared to lead white South Africans and other minority groups on a road to abdication and suicide,”
I don’t think most people in South Africa desire that or even want that. White people are a tiny minority in South Africa, 7% of the population, if the majority of the country wanted white people gone, it would’ve happened already. People just wanted apartheid to end and historic inequalities to be dealt with. The first already happened, the second is happening at a snails pace, if it’s even happening at all in some cases.
white folks who have had their brains rewired to justify the genocidal histories of their peoples always think genocide is the default, against all fucking evidence
This is also because the apartheid government caved under not only international but more important domestic pressure as they were perfectly aware that there would be civil war and mass bloodshed if they had not given in to reforms and the end of apartheid. It’s not clear what would have happened otherwise if, for instance, they had doubled down or intensified the apartheid system with even more extensive fascistic slave-labour in the 80s. As South Africa had an economic model that was descended from the settler-colonial plantation system, as seen, and utilized extensive unpaid (effectively slave) labor, it’s not unimaginable that if they’re pushed the system deeper then there would have been far more retaliatory bloodshed.
well also being apartheid, settler colonial states, that relied on US support and technical military dominance over neighbours, and that developed nuclear weapons on their own
Hi comrade. Not coming at you personally or aggressively but I feel I do have to come back pretty hard on this take.
The same words can be used in different contexts with different implications, and in the one case they can be correct, in another they can be wrong. The difference which makes your analogy not hold is that the ANC is not Hamas, and pretending otherwise is either confused or disingenuous. They are extremely different organizations. The ANC was a broad-tent organization that included conservatives, nationalists, reactionaries, and revolutionary socialists, notably communists (especially in the armed wing). The armed wing did carry out military operations obvs, but they did not have as a common or explicit policy the indiscriminate torture of unarmed children or torture. They never carried out actions like Hamas has done. Not least because they were sufficiently progressive to recognize that this would politically idiotic, given that the anti-apartheid cause was perceived as depending on foreign pressure on apartheid SA. It seems clear to me that the same applies to the Palestinian case, thought the problem if ofc that the situation is so fucked that the main organization capable and willing of waging armed resistance would not only be terrible for a Palestinian left’s growth in the long-run but could also lead to a regional destabilization which would be harmful for the left in the region more broadly and would likely only benefit Islamists. The actual idea situation would be another leftist-led Intifada, but this has been prevented by Israel, but is also not in the interest of either Hamas or the PA, as it would undermine their authority and power they possess thanks to Israel in Gaza and the West Bank respectively.
By contrast, Hamas are very different. The is evidence for Hamas being the way they are has been there since their inception. They are Islamists. They are extremely fascistic in their politics. They explicitly equate Jews and Israel frequently in their media and they are otherwise clear in their genocidal anti-semitism. Murdering children in their homes is not national-liberation. I’d also add that Hamas are not identical to Palestinians and their actions are not immediately identical with, though they are unfortunately the main military vehicle currently available for, the struggle for Palestinian liberation. Not only that, but Hamas have consistently proven throughout their existence that they do not desire full Palestinian liberation, otherwise they would not have run affairs in Gaza (to the extent they are able in an Israeli open-air concentration-camp) the way they have. This is in no way surprising, given that the interests of Islamists are no less inimical to those of actual working class and liberation movements than fascists and ultra-nationalists, though the latter might also find themselves in the inferior position in asymmetrical warfare with an imperialist power and at the military head of the movement against said imperialism.
Quite frankly, it is an insult to the South African liberation movement to equate them with Hamas, as opposed to the genuinely progressive aspects of the Palestinian liberation movement.
I do think it is important to note these profoundly reactionary aspects of Hamas, otherwise we end up with a blinkered, confused view of what is happening, which is not simply reducible to Hamas being or leading a progressive revolution in Gaza. That in no way changes the fact that the mass of Palestinians who are taking part in these operations are attempting to combat Israeli apartheid and genocide and defend themselves. They evidently feel they have no other choice. But neither does the latter point make Hamas a progressive organization who should be explicitly supported as the solution to Palestinians’ oppression.
The right and need of Palestinians to depend themselves does not, however, in any way imply that every organization that happens to be the means they can do it through now is ideal, good, progressive, or that that will benefit them in the long run. Palestinian Marxists and other groups have found themselves in a situation where they feel they have no option or choice other than to form a front with Hamas in this. The deeper reasons and processes that led to that decision are not entirely clear from outside. We can unequivocally support Palestinian liberation and their self-defense while recognizing that Hamas is otherwise reactionary and therefore will not be the ideal vehicle
Also, frankly, I’m never going to support an organization that tortures gay people and throws their Marxist opponents off of rooftops. Unfortunately I’m a pessimist on the front of how the political situation will develop in the long-term as I think the situation’s possible developments are going to be catastrophic in any case, given the genocidal nature of the Israeli apartheid state, how profoundly reactionary Hamas are, and that the material conditions do not allow for the strength of a Communist movement. That would require more ideal conditions which are not to be found in Gaza, and I also don’t think will be brought closer by this current round of war. Israel does of course have ultimate responsibility for this as the genocidal apartheid occupying power, but reaction can bread reaction.
Not all national liberation movements are equal. Not all methods are politically or morally equal. People on this site seem to be able to make this realization in several other cases, such as with ostensibly ‘communist’ groups like the Khmer Rouge and Sendero Luminoso, yet unable to consistently make the same obvious realization in the case of groups in the middle east who’s interests are opposed to those of Western imperialism. There’s a deep and hysterical need among a lot of the western left, not only including but above all among those who are not Marxists but ultras of various types, to unequivocally identify Hamas with the Palestinian people and the cause of Palestinian Liberation with anything that Hamas does, which is a really bizarre and honestly perverse (especially in its reduction of Palestinians to Hamas) form of metaphysical argument by semantic shift of the meaning of the words being used, to make something appear to imply something which it actually does not.
The slightest glance at the history of the relationship of the USSR to national liberation movements makes clear that serious and intelligent socialists of the past who have actually held political power and had geopolitical relevance were perfectly aware that not all national liberation groups are politically equal. Their support was never unconditional, because they were not ultra edgelords on the internet. They were a serious geopolitical power with a specific socialist ideology, and their support was therefore conditional on there being a minimum of progressive aspects to the movements they supported. Of course, this did lead to cases of of questionable or debatable support (such as the Guomingdang or the Derg), and the case is even worse when we consider the CPC’s foreign policy. But that these were mistakes (if they were) is made clear by how they contradicted with the socialist principles which were explicitly underlying them in the minds of socialists politicians who determined foreign policy.
ANC would have looked a lot more like Hamas if the apartheid included putting every black person in a concentration camp for 70 years and randomly bombing them.
Who are you to judge humans that have been subjected to such a nightmare? To claim their fight is somehow tainted? This will end the moment Israel decides to take their boot off the neck of 2 million human beings.
Tbh, I’m not really sure what point you are making here (not trying to rude, so please feel free to clarify what the argument it).
Nowhere have I claimed that the Palestinian cause is tainted. Because I do not equate or identify the Palestinian movement with Hamas, and to do so is an external perspective.
You are correct that Israel bears ultimate responsibility for this. Yes the most important thing is that they stop the occupation. That’s not what this is about. Nor is it a judgment on the Palestinians or other Palestinian groups for feeling that they should, or have no choice but to, join a common front with Hamas. This is about perspective so that people don’t suddenly make the, frankly, stupid move of suddenly speaking of Hamas as if they are simply a progressive force. This is about recognizing that Hamas, precisely in virtue of who and what they are, will not be the ultimate force of Palestinian Liberation, and that in fact their interests are antithetical to it. The other groups also despise Hamas, and it’s important to ask why (not that they are necessarily great themselves). Because make no mistake, it is far from a given that these groups, let alone Palestinians in the West Bank or who are Arab Israeli citizens, are necessarily happy with this. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem also to be making the slip between ‘Hamas’ and ‘Palestinians’, when they are very far from the same thing. Do you think that every single Palestinian in Gaza is happy when they hear that Hamas has launched a new attack? It’s not that simple, even when, as we’ve seen, right now we see there is a display of general support among key groups, though again groups like the PA are also corrupt and do not speak for all Palestinians. But this is also as much a matter of maintaining legitimacy, because Hamas is dominant in Gaza and because now that Israel is launching a brutal attack and that it looks like they could be launching larger scale genocidal actions, especially once their military is more fully mobilized and they launch a ground operation into Gaza, there is naturally going to be a rallying against Israel, and that is justified, morally and politically.
Hamas were aware that that would happen. Hamas are perfectly aware that when they launch these kinds of attacks (made possible and caused ofc by Israel in the grand scheme of things), and Israel then attacks Gaza, this galvanizes support for them. Hamas are a product of Israel in more way than one. Also, and again, and I can’t stress this enough, as Islamists their political interests are not in the construction of a broad, radical, working-class movement which would launch another Intifada and force international powers to force Israel to a negotiating table to allow for a Palestinian state, as even if such a state were to be ruled by a national bourgeoisie, that would be preferable for the construction of Palestinian socialism to what they have now. Personally, i too would like a single, secular, state, but I also feel this is pie-in-the-sky idealism. Israel will never accept that, and neither will their imperialist backers. Nor will they accept a two state solution, as we know from their decades of sabotage of such an option. This is where my pessimism comes in, as the heydays of the secular Palestinian left of the 60s and 70s is gone, Israel is becoming more fascist by the day, and the main vehicle for armed opposition to Israel is Hamas. So I don’t see how this doesn’t even catastrophically. I don’t really see an opening for the left, except perhaps if a Palestinian left finds an opportunity to take prestige from Hamas, though the strength of religiosity makes this difficult, as does Hamas’ Islamism.
I feel like this is a point to try again to dispel some illusions some people are clearly in when they compare Hamas to groups like the ANC, the Vietcong. If anything they are like the FLN in Algeria. Now the FLN were completely fucked, vicious, ruthless and deeply reactionary, but they at least were attempting to construct a national bourgeois state with nationalist perspective and policies. I don’t think Hamas are even trying to do that honestly in that their s’ils seen broader. And even if they were, they are not the ANC or the Vietcong, who were genuinely progressive movements of national liberation.
And again, it’s amazing to me that self-described communists are able to make the obvious realization that if ostensibly ‘communist’ groups like Sendero Luminoso or the Khmer Rouge, even when fighting anti-imperialist struggles (complicated in the case of the Khmer Rouge as they were supported clandestinely by the US for geopolitical Cold War reasons) or at least struggling to overthrow their national bourgeoisie, engage in widespread indiscriminate atrocities against civilians, then their communism or status as a progressive force is compromised. Or to give another example: just because I support (or would have supported) unequivocally the Soviet struggle against Nazi Germany, would never in a trillion years say that the mass-sexual violence which occurred during the Soviet invasion of Nazi Germany was justified. That would be beyond depraved honestly, even though I understand that the men who did it had seen their country and families obliterated in the most depraved ways themselves. But revenge is not the basis of politics. That doesn’t mean it’s not always justified or permissible (like concentration camp survivors killing their guards), but I really don’t see how this is equivalent to killing children or unarmed workers intentionally.
Of course this situation is the result of where Palestinians have been pushed by Israel over the last 80 years. And yes. Intellectually I understand that. But that just a description. It’s not immediately a justification of anything. Nor does it establish by itself what the progressive form of political organization. For that the material conditions and the nature of the possible groups - such as Hamas - then has to be considered. I’m sure that if I saw my child die in front of my eyes due to an Israeli bomb, which I’m blessed enough to not have experienced, then I would want to do some pretty terrible shit to these people. Israeli guards and soldiers, when torturing Palestinians, have been known to joke that they’re like the Gestapo. It’s no surprise that this breeds desire for extremely violent retaliation. But jumping from that to what I’ve seen some people saying, namely ‘anything goes, the babies/kids have it coming’ or that that is politically or morally justified is a completely illogical leap no matter which way you spin it. And frankly that should be obvious. That is not a guide to thinking about what kind of political organization in Palestine is going to lead to Palestinian Liberation. In any case, I’m pretty sure that it’s not Hamas.
By-the-bye, the South African government did engage in militaristic repressions of its population, massacres, forced displacements, ethnic cleansing, torture, rape, terror, slavery. There was armed resistance, but the form this took was very different to Hamas. It was based on progressive movements, whereas Hamas is not.
Also, this is not a question about violence as such. Violence is necessary for the revolution. I wish it wasn’t but it is. When a Palestinian kills an Israeli soldier attacking their home, my heart cheers for them. But that’s not the same thing as an Islamist militant taking someone’s children hostage and raping and murdering the women. Hamas would cut our heads off in a heartbeat. And this is not an idle point that’s somehow irrelevant in some grand geopolitical third-worldist strategy. They are Islamists. They do not care about our revolution and their success, even
Thinking the political math is that simple is naive. If it weren’t, then groups like the Khmer Rouge would have been justified. This is not an idle or moralistic point because not all forms of organization or methods are politically equal. Not least because the moral qualities they have does affect how politically effective they are going to be. The indiscriminate killing of unarmed women and children is not going to serve the cause of Palestinian Liberation. Now on the one hand I admit there’s a sense of comeuppance to the blowback Israel is seeing, such as at the attacked rave. The rave, with plenty of well-off Israelis who live off the fruits of apartheid, rolling on ecstasy next to an open-air prison camp - from which, apparently, the rave’s music could actually be heard - is obviously completely depraved. But this is cruel emotion of mine. Not a guide to politics or ethics.
Hamas is extremist to the point where they would be doing a genocide as well if they were in the position to do so.
“the people being genocided would do the exact same thing if they come into power!” is just soft genocide denial. it’s colonizers telling on themselves, because that’s their solution to an unwanted indigenous populace.
People say separate the Hamas from the people, but that’s really hard when the members of Hamas are of the people and have the support of a good percentage of them.
israel was instrumental in destroying all non-hamas groups. their extremism is intentional, as it gives israel an excuse to continue doing genocide.
… But as the issue stands today, I can’t blame Israel in taking extreme action to end the conflict that’s dragged on for nearly a century now.
you…can’t blame the genocidal settler state for continuing to do a genocide in response to…people resisting the genocide they have been doing for 70 years?? are you fucking drunk?
Israeli settlers have, for years now, been slowly encroaching into territory officially recognized as Palestinian lands. These people absolutely have the choice to move back out of those areas and into lands officially recognized as belonging to Israelis. On the other hand, very few people can “just move, lol” and I wouldn’t be surprised if Israel specifically chose settlers that would be burdened economically if they attempted to leave.
To be clear, Israel has continuously acted in bad faith against Palestinians and, along with its allies, destroyed the peaceful (or, at least, less militant) groups that sought to unite the Palestinians. This is absolutely a problem of their own making and I would be surprised if there was a peaceful path forward with the current political climate in the region.
This is where it gets tricky and a lot of nuance is lost, I think. There reaches a certain point where it stops being zero-sum because two or more parties can each have an entirely independent and valid claim.
In your example, if you pass the money to your children, they reach 40 years old, spending the money they believe is theirs, and then suddenly they’re told they owe $2M they don’t have for something they didn’t do, that’s not fair on them. Have they benefitted from the $2M? Absolutely. Is it fair that they benefitted while the person/people you stole it from suffered? Absolutely not. But your children didn’t do anything to deserve punishment.
Now I’m generally fairly anti-Israel, and have been for years, so don’t take this as me being an apologist for colonisers. But for someone who has lived all their life in Israel - whose great-grandparents were colonisers - Israel is home and they feel they have just as much right to it as the people it was stolen from 80 years ago. The longer these conflicts go on, the more difficult it is to come up with a fair solution on a human level.
Israel is definitely in the wrong, though. It’s very clearly not fair from a Palestinian perspective. But no matter how you try to divide up the land now, there will be innocent people who suffer for it. There’s no easy solution to it, unfortunately. It’s more complex than just “give it back”.
Really? Your stance is “decolonization sounds complicated, let’s just let Israel genocide millions of people”? As other posters have said, send any dual citizens back to their country of origin, remove settlers from Palestinian land, end the siege of gaza, take down the wall and machine guns, prosecute IDF war criminals, and dissolve the criminal entity that is Israel. Will it be bloodless and free of violence? Of course not, I’m not naive, but the genocide of Palestinians will be much more bloody than any decolonization process
Decolonization is a bloody and violent process. Once you colonize a place and the people that live there, the only ways that it will end is the near-complete extermination of the colonized peoples by the colonizers, or decolonization. There can never be a lasting, peaceful status quo, as the interests of the colonized and the colonizers are inexorably opposed. The colonizer wants more of what is and was the colonized’s. The colonized want to keep their homes, and to not be subject to the colonizers. Both will use violence to achieve their ends.
The question of “how can peace be achieved in Palestine” is not “how can the current conflict be resolved,” but instead “should Palestinians be subject to ethnic cleansing, including violently and directly as occurred during the Nakba, or should Palestinians govern Palestine?”
i most certainly can. the instigator of violence always has the option to not continue and to make reparations. israelis are only targets for violence so long as they make life intolerable for palestinians.
And there is no where that would accept the Gaza population as refugees even if you could get them to leave.
So what’s left?
Did you just end your lengthy support of Israeli genocide with “No one wants them anyway, so what else is there but to kill them?” Because it sure sounded like that.
“And in response we will send 100 billion in lethal aid directly to Israel.”
Israelis are doing a genocide in Gaza right now and the whole western world will celebrate it at worst and tut about it at best. Disgusting
Yes, they are doing a genocide.
I’m not sure what other options are available at this point though.
Hamas is extremist to the point where they would be doing a genocide as well if they were in the position to do so.
People say separate the Hamas from the people, but that’s really hard when the members of Hamas are of the people and have the support of a good percentage of them.
If Israel invades on foot and Hamas is threatened they can simply fade back into the population and wait to try again. And the general population will support them in doing so.
The creation of the state of Israel was a mistake and the rise of Hamas is the direct result of decades of apartheid practiced against the Palestinians by the Israeli state.
… But as the issue stands today, I can’t blame Israel in taking extreme action to end the conflict that’s dragged on for nearly a century now.
There is no reasonable path to peace. A two state solution would end with the states at war anyway as both states have extreamists who want to genocide the other in government positions.
And there is no where that would accept the Gaza population as refugees even if you could get them to leave.
So what’s left?
Well one option is they could get off the fucking land they stole and stop doing a genocide. Not sure why that option slipped your mind. Libs always trying to find hard solutions to simple problems.
It was Western powers that “gave” land that didn’t belong to them, and where other people already lived (and, of course, continue to support Israel). The Israeli government is not the only responsible party here.
It was the UN dividing the land between 1/3 jews and 2/3 muslims who were living there. It got voted 33-13 with most muslim countries voting against and 10 countries including Britain abstaining.
And go where?
considering a lot of them have second citizenships elsewhere…how about those places?
and before you get to “but there are nazis all over europe/etc, the jews need to be safeguarded!” i’m 100% with you. killing every nazi the world over is the correct solution here, not wiping out an innocent peoples.
That only accounts for maybe 20-30% of the population these days. Most Israelis alive today were born in the country, not immigrants.
So again, where do they go?
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I wonder, seen your username, are you by any chance living in North America? If you do, would you consider emigrating to give the land back to the Native Americans who the colonists stole it from (with a little jazzy genocide) ? Or do you consider the situation to be completely different?
Because someone specifically told me that every Israeli should just leave Israel?
Are you not following the converstation here?
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Look at South Africa. One state for everyone, equal rights, equal votes. That thought will be so repellent to many that they would rather leave, and good riddance to them.
Not that I as some western internet rando have some unique insight into how things can/should be resolved, just the opposite: some of this is so obvious that even a distant and privileged dummy like me can see it
I don’t give a shit tbh. The state of Israel is a rogue state that shouldn’t be recognized by anybody and should never have existed. The settlers can either become refugees or rely on the mercy of Palestinians.
The exact same nonsense was said about the end of apartheid in South Africa. That the extremist communist party and ANC would genocide white people. It never happened. This is literally a talking point from ex apartheid South African president PW Botha he said the same nonsense:
I don’t think most people in South Africa desire that or even want that. White people are a tiny minority in South Africa, 7% of the population, if the majority of the country wanted white people gone, it would’ve happened already. People just wanted apartheid to end and historic inequalities to be dealt with. The first already happened, the second is happening at a snails pace, if it’s even happening at all in some cases.
white folks who have had their brains rewired to justify the genocidal histories of their peoples always think genocide is the default, against all fucking evidence
This is also because the apartheid government caved under not only international but more important domestic pressure as they were perfectly aware that there would be civil war and mass bloodshed if they had not given in to reforms and the end of apartheid. It’s not clear what would have happened otherwise if, for instance, they had doubled down or intensified the apartheid system with even more extensive fascistic slave-labour in the 80s. As South Africa had an economic model that was descended from the settler-colonial plantation system, as seen, and utilized extensive unpaid (effectively slave) labor, it’s not unimaginable that if they’re pushed the system deeper then there would have been far more retaliatory bloodshed.
Israel and South Africa really are very similar countries
Unfortunately, both were apartheid states at one point…
Thankfully one no longer is
well also being apartheid, settler colonial states, that relied on US support and technical military dominance over neighbours, and that developed nuclear weapons on their own
Actually Israel and apartheid South Africa developed and tested nuclear weapons together, see the vela incident…
Indeed.
But the ANC and Hamas are not similar at all.
Hi comrade. Not coming at you personally or aggressively but I feel I do have to come back pretty hard on this take.
The same words can be used in different contexts with different implications, and in the one case they can be correct, in another they can be wrong. The difference which makes your analogy not hold is that the ANC is not Hamas, and pretending otherwise is either confused or disingenuous. They are extremely different organizations. The ANC was a broad-tent organization that included conservatives, nationalists, reactionaries, and revolutionary socialists, notably communists (especially in the armed wing). The armed wing did carry out military operations obvs, but they did not have as a common or explicit policy the indiscriminate torture of unarmed children or torture. They never carried out actions like Hamas has done. Not least because they were sufficiently progressive to recognize that this would politically idiotic, given that the anti-apartheid cause was perceived as depending on foreign pressure on apartheid SA. It seems clear to me that the same applies to the Palestinian case, thought the problem if ofc that the situation is so fucked that the main organization capable and willing of waging armed resistance would not only be terrible for a Palestinian left’s growth in the long-run but could also lead to a regional destabilization which would be harmful for the left in the region more broadly and would likely only benefit Islamists. The actual idea situation would be another leftist-led Intifada, but this has been prevented by Israel, but is also not in the interest of either Hamas or the PA, as it would undermine their authority and power they possess thanks to Israel in Gaza and the West Bank respectively.
By contrast, Hamas are very different. The is evidence for Hamas being the way they are has been there since their inception. They are Islamists. They are extremely fascistic in their politics. They explicitly equate Jews and Israel frequently in their media and they are otherwise clear in their genocidal anti-semitism. Murdering children in their homes is not national-liberation. I’d also add that Hamas are not identical to Palestinians and their actions are not immediately identical with, though they are unfortunately the main military vehicle currently available for, the struggle for Palestinian liberation. Not only that, but Hamas have consistently proven throughout their existence that they do not desire full Palestinian liberation, otherwise they would not have run affairs in Gaza (to the extent they are able in an Israeli open-air concentration-camp) the way they have. This is in no way surprising, given that the interests of Islamists are no less inimical to those of actual working class and liberation movements than fascists and ultra-nationalists, though the latter might also find themselves in the inferior position in asymmetrical warfare with an imperialist power and at the military head of the movement against said imperialism.
Quite frankly, it is an insult to the South African liberation movement to equate them with Hamas, as opposed to the genuinely progressive aspects of the Palestinian liberation movement.
I do think it is important to note these profoundly reactionary aspects of Hamas, otherwise we end up with a blinkered, confused view of what is happening, which is not simply reducible to Hamas being or leading a progressive revolution in Gaza. That in no way changes the fact that the mass of Palestinians who are taking part in these operations are attempting to combat Israeli apartheid and genocide and defend themselves. They evidently feel they have no other choice. But neither does the latter point make Hamas a progressive organization who should be explicitly supported as the solution to Palestinians’ oppression.
The right and need of Palestinians to depend themselves does not, however, in any way imply that every organization that happens to be the means they can do it through now is ideal, good, progressive, or that that will benefit them in the long run. Palestinian Marxists and other groups have found themselves in a situation where they feel they have no option or choice other than to form a front with Hamas in this. The deeper reasons and processes that led to that decision are not entirely clear from outside. We can unequivocally support Palestinian liberation and their self-defense while recognizing that Hamas is otherwise reactionary and therefore will not be the ideal vehicle Also, frankly, I’m never going to support an organization that tortures gay people and throws their Marxist opponents off of rooftops. Unfortunately I’m a pessimist on the front of how the political situation will develop in the long-term as I think the situation’s possible developments are going to be catastrophic in any case, given the genocidal nature of the Israeli apartheid state, how profoundly reactionary Hamas are, and that the material conditions do not allow for the strength of a Communist movement. That would require more ideal conditions which are not to be found in Gaza, and I also don’t think will be brought closer by this current round of war. Israel does of course have ultimate responsibility for this as the genocidal apartheid occupying power, but reaction can bread reaction.
Not all national liberation movements are equal. Not all methods are politically or morally equal. People on this site seem to be able to make this realization in several other cases, such as with ostensibly ‘communist’ groups like the Khmer Rouge and Sendero Luminoso, yet unable to consistently make the same obvious realization in the case of groups in the middle east who’s interests are opposed to those of Western imperialism. There’s a deep and hysterical need among a lot of the western left, not only including but above all among those who are not Marxists but ultras of various types, to unequivocally identify Hamas with the Palestinian people and the cause of Palestinian Liberation with anything that Hamas does, which is a really bizarre and honestly perverse (especially in its reduction of Palestinians to Hamas) form of metaphysical argument by semantic shift of the meaning of the words being used, to make something appear to imply something which it actually does not.
The slightest glance at the history of the relationship of the USSR to national liberation movements makes clear that serious and intelligent socialists of the past who have actually held political power and had geopolitical relevance were perfectly aware that not all national liberation groups are politically equal. Their support was never unconditional, because they were not ultra edgelords on the internet. They were a serious geopolitical power with a specific socialist ideology, and their support was therefore conditional on there being a minimum of progressive aspects to the movements they supported. Of course, this did lead to cases of of questionable or debatable support (such as the Guomingdang or the Derg), and the case is even worse when we consider the CPC’s foreign policy. But that these were mistakes (if they were) is made clear by how they contradicted with the socialist principles which were explicitly underlying them in the minds of socialists politicians who determined foreign policy.
ANC would have looked a lot more like Hamas if the apartheid included putting every black person in a concentration camp for 70 years and randomly bombing them.
Who are you to judge humans that have been subjected to such a nightmare? To claim their fight is somehow tainted? This will end the moment Israel decides to take their boot off the neck of 2 million human beings.
Tbh, I’m not really sure what point you are making here (not trying to rude, so please feel free to clarify what the argument it).
Nowhere have I claimed that the Palestinian cause is tainted. Because I do not equate or identify the Palestinian movement with Hamas, and to do so is an external perspective.
You are correct that Israel bears ultimate responsibility for this. Yes the most important thing is that they stop the occupation. That’s not what this is about. Nor is it a judgment on the Palestinians or other Palestinian groups for feeling that they should, or have no choice but to, join a common front with Hamas. This is about perspective so that people don’t suddenly make the, frankly, stupid move of suddenly speaking of Hamas as if they are simply a progressive force. This is about recognizing that Hamas, precisely in virtue of who and what they are, will not be the ultimate force of Palestinian Liberation, and that in fact their interests are antithetical to it. The other groups also despise Hamas, and it’s important to ask why (not that they are necessarily great themselves). Because make no mistake, it is far from a given that these groups, let alone Palestinians in the West Bank or who are Arab Israeli citizens, are necessarily happy with this. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem also to be making the slip between ‘Hamas’ and ‘Palestinians’, when they are very far from the same thing. Do you think that every single Palestinian in Gaza is happy when they hear that Hamas has launched a new attack? It’s not that simple, even when, as we’ve seen, right now we see there is a display of general support among key groups, though again groups like the PA are also corrupt and do not speak for all Palestinians. But this is also as much a matter of maintaining legitimacy, because Hamas is dominant in Gaza and because now that Israel is launching a brutal attack and that it looks like they could be launching larger scale genocidal actions, especially once their military is more fully mobilized and they launch a ground operation into Gaza, there is naturally going to be a rallying against Israel, and that is justified, morally and politically.
Hamas were aware that that would happen. Hamas are perfectly aware that when they launch these kinds of attacks (made possible and caused ofc by Israel in the grand scheme of things), and Israel then attacks Gaza, this galvanizes support for them. Hamas are a product of Israel in more way than one. Also, and again, and I can’t stress this enough, as Islamists their political interests are not in the construction of a broad, radical, working-class movement which would launch another Intifada and force international powers to force Israel to a negotiating table to allow for a Palestinian state, as even if such a state were to be ruled by a national bourgeoisie, that would be preferable for the construction of Palestinian socialism to what they have now. Personally, i too would like a single, secular, state, but I also feel this is pie-in-the-sky idealism. Israel will never accept that, and neither will their imperialist backers. Nor will they accept a two state solution, as we know from their decades of sabotage of such an option. This is where my pessimism comes in, as the heydays of the secular Palestinian left of the 60s and 70s is gone, Israel is becoming more fascist by the day, and the main vehicle for armed opposition to Israel is Hamas. So I don’t see how this doesn’t even catastrophically. I don’t really see an opening for the left, except perhaps if a Palestinian left finds an opportunity to take prestige from Hamas, though the strength of religiosity makes this difficult, as does Hamas’ Islamism.
I feel like this is a point to try again to dispel some illusions some people are clearly in when they compare Hamas to groups like the ANC, the Vietcong. If anything they are like the FLN in Algeria. Now the FLN were completely fucked, vicious, ruthless and deeply reactionary, but they at least were attempting to construct a national bourgeois state with nationalist perspective and policies. I don’t think Hamas are even trying to do that honestly in that their s’ils seen broader. And even if they were, they are not the ANC or the Vietcong, who were genuinely progressive movements of national liberation.
And again, it’s amazing to me that self-described communists are able to make the obvious realization that if ostensibly ‘communist’ groups like Sendero Luminoso or the Khmer Rouge, even when fighting anti-imperialist struggles (complicated in the case of the Khmer Rouge as they were supported clandestinely by the US for geopolitical Cold War reasons) or at least struggling to overthrow their national bourgeoisie, engage in widespread indiscriminate atrocities against civilians, then their communism or status as a progressive force is compromised. Or to give another example: just because I support (or would have supported) unequivocally the Soviet struggle against Nazi Germany, would never in a trillion years say that the mass-sexual violence which occurred during the Soviet invasion of Nazi Germany was justified. That would be beyond depraved honestly, even though I understand that the men who did it had seen their country and families obliterated in the most depraved ways themselves. But revenge is not the basis of politics. That doesn’t mean it’s not always justified or permissible (like concentration camp survivors killing their guards), but I really don’t see how this is equivalent to killing children or unarmed workers intentionally.
Of course this situation is the result of where Palestinians have been pushed by Israel over the last 80 years. And yes. Intellectually I understand that. But that just a description. It’s not immediately a justification of anything. Nor does it establish by itself what the progressive form of political organization. For that the material conditions and the nature of the possible groups - such as Hamas - then has to be considered. I’m sure that if I saw my child die in front of my eyes due to an Israeli bomb, which I’m blessed enough to not have experienced, then I would want to do some pretty terrible shit to these people. Israeli guards and soldiers, when torturing Palestinians, have been known to joke that they’re like the Gestapo. It’s no surprise that this breeds desire for extremely violent retaliation. But jumping from that to what I’ve seen some people saying, namely ‘anything goes, the babies/kids have it coming’ or that that is politically or morally justified is a completely illogical leap no matter which way you spin it. And frankly that should be obvious. That is not a guide to thinking about what kind of political organization in Palestine is going to lead to Palestinian Liberation. In any case, I’m pretty sure that it’s not Hamas.
By-the-bye, the South African government did engage in militaristic repressions of its population, massacres, forced displacements, ethnic cleansing, torture, rape, terror, slavery. There was armed resistance, but the form this took was very different to Hamas. It was based on progressive movements, whereas Hamas is not.
Also, this is not a question about violence as such. Violence is necessary for the revolution. I wish it wasn’t but it is. When a Palestinian kills an Israeli soldier attacking their home, my heart cheers for them. But that’s not the same thing as an Islamist militant taking someone’s children hostage and raping and murdering the women. Hamas would cut our heads off in a heartbeat. And this is not an idle point that’s somehow irrelevant in some grand geopolitical third-worldist strategy. They are Islamists. They do not care about our revolution and their success, even Thinking the political math is that simple is naive. If it weren’t, then groups like the Khmer Rouge would have been justified. This is not an idle or moralistic point because not all forms of organization or methods are politically equal. Not least because the moral qualities they have does affect how politically effective they are going to be. The indiscriminate killing of unarmed women and children is not going to serve the cause of Palestinian Liberation. Now on the one hand I admit there’s a sense of comeuppance to the blowback Israel is seeing, such as at the attacked rave. The rave, with plenty of well-off Israelis who live off the fruits of apartheid, rolling on ecstasy next to an open-air prison camp - from which, apparently, the rave’s music could actually be heard - is obviously completely depraved. But this is cruel emotion of mine. Not a guide to politics or ethics.
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“the people being genocided would do the exact same thing if they come into power!” is just soft genocide denial. it’s colonizers telling on themselves, because that’s their solution to an unwanted indigenous populace.
israel was instrumental in destroying all non-hamas groups. their extremism is intentional, as it gives israel an excuse to continue doing genocide.
you…can’t blame the genocidal settler state for continuing to do a genocide in response to…people resisting the genocide they have been doing for 70 years?? are you fucking drunk?
That’s what makes the whole thing complicated, isn’t it?
Israel shouldn’t have existed to begin with and when it did, it shouldn’t have acted the way it has since its inception.
Yes, Israel is to blame for Hamas having power in Gaza today as well.
I’m not arguing that Israel isn’t a bad guy here.
What I’m arguing is I don’t see an alternative that doesn’t just kick the can down the road.
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what of the poor Germans who moved into the homes seized from Jews where would they go if we gave those homes back
Besides the vast majority of Israelis didn’t come from Germany anyways, so there shouldn’t be as much of a displacement.
I was actually just comparing what Israel is doing now to a policy of nazi Germany regarding racial redistribution of property
The vast majority of Israeli’s were born there at this point.
It’s not a stolen home to them. It’s the only home they’ve ever known.
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Israeli settlers have, for years now, been slowly encroaching into territory officially recognized as Palestinian lands. These people absolutely have the choice to move back out of those areas and into lands officially recognized as belonging to Israelis. On the other hand, very few people can “just move, lol” and I wouldn’t be surprised if Israel specifically chose settlers that would be burdened economically if they attempted to leave.
To be clear, Israel has continuously acted in bad faith against Palestinians and, along with its allies, destroyed the peaceful (or, at least, less militant) groups that sought to unite the Palestinians. This is absolutely a problem of their own making and I would be surprised if there was a peaceful path forward with the current political climate in the region.
If I steal 2 million dollars from you and hang on to it until I have children and give it to them, is that their money or is it still stolen?
This is where it gets tricky and a lot of nuance is lost, I think. There reaches a certain point where it stops being zero-sum because two or more parties can each have an entirely independent and valid claim.
In your example, if you pass the money to your children, they reach 40 years old, spending the money they believe is theirs, and then suddenly they’re told they owe $2M they don’t have for something they didn’t do, that’s not fair on them. Have they benefitted from the $2M? Absolutely. Is it fair that they benefitted while the person/people you stole it from suffered? Absolutely not. But your children didn’t do anything to deserve punishment.
Now I’m generally fairly anti-Israel, and have been for years, so don’t take this as me being an apologist for colonisers. But for someone who has lived all their life in Israel - whose great-grandparents were colonisers - Israel is home and they feel they have just as much right to it as the people it was stolen from 80 years ago. The longer these conflicts go on, the more difficult it is to come up with a fair solution on a human level.
Israel is definitely in the wrong, though. It’s very clearly not fair from a Palestinian perspective. But no matter how you try to divide up the land now, there will be innocent people who suffer for it. There’s no easy solution to it, unfortunately. It’s more complex than just “give it back”.
Really? Your stance is “decolonization sounds complicated, let’s just let Israel genocide millions of people”? As other posters have said, send any dual citizens back to their country of origin, remove settlers from Palestinian land, end the siege of gaza, take down the wall and machine guns, prosecute IDF war criminals, and dissolve the criminal entity that is Israel. Will it be bloodless and free of violence? Of course not, I’m not naive, but the genocide of Palestinians will be much more bloody than any decolonization process
I’d love to hear your explanation for how you totally aren’t a fascist
Decolonization is a bloody and violent process. Once you colonize a place and the people that live there, the only ways that it will end is the near-complete extermination of the colonized peoples by the colonizers, or decolonization. There can never be a lasting, peaceful status quo, as the interests of the colonized and the colonizers are inexorably opposed. The colonizer wants more of what is and was the colonized’s. The colonized want to keep their homes, and to not be subject to the colonizers. Both will use violence to achieve their ends.
The question of “how can peace be achieved in Palestine” is not “how can the current conflict be resolved,” but instead “should Palestinians be subject to ethnic cleansing, including violently and directly as occurred during the Nakba, or should Palestinians govern Palestine?”
i most certainly can. the instigator of violence always has the option to not continue and to make reparations. israelis are only targets for violence so long as they make life intolerable for palestinians.
Holy hell, liberals are at the point of nakedly and explicitly calling for genocide, by name.
I don’t know why people are bothering to give serious replies to trash like you. You belong in a ditch with a bullet in the head.
go re-watch the terrorism episodes of TNG and the Kira episodes of DS9 you ridiculous clown.
Did you just end your lengthy support of Israeli genocide with “No one wants them anyway, so what else is there but to kill them?” Because it sure sounded like that.