The preconditions for a settlement in Palestine
Posted on Monday 5 January, 2009
Filed Under International
PERHAPS the most dispiriting aspect of the invasion of the Gaza Strip is the utter pointlessness of the exercise; while military victory is all but certain, at every other level, Israel can only be the loser.
Decades of refusal to allow Palestinians their legitimate political rights has not left it even marginally more secure, and its current savage actions will only serve further to galvanise support for Hamas.
The brutalities that the Israel Defense Forces are perpetrating right now guarantee the rocket launchers and the suicide bombers more recruits then they will know what to do with, for a generation and more to come.
Meanwhile, the 100:1 ratio of the death tolls has horrified liberal opinion everywhere. Even the European Commission is now openly accusing Israel of breaching humanitarian law.
What, then, can possibly be the motivation of Israel’s political establishment for a course of action both murderous in the literal sense and spectacularly misconceived at the strategic level?
One issue is of course the need to restore IDF credibility in the wake of the Lebanon debacle. Then there is the desire of Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak to out-Netanyahu Netanyahu himself in the run up to general elections next month. Why should they concern themselves with the growing pile of corpses – and they are 99% Palestinian corpses, after all – when such vital issues of credibility are at stake?
Let it be stressed at once that the open admiration for the reactionary Islamists of Hamas – so obviously on display in some quarters of the left – is profoundly misplaced.
Nevertheless, the organisation won the Palestinian elections in 2006 because it articulated opposition to Israeli oppression, and because of popular revulsion at the corruption of the Palestinian Authority. That gives it an undeniable popular mandate and makes it central to the quest for a solution, whether we like that reality or not.
Opinions as to what constitutes a viable settlement to the Palestine question differ, and at times like this, all of them seem somewhat chimeric. But a precondition of ever reaching one is an Israeli leadership that is both aware of the extent of the injustices meted out since 1948 and determined to rectify them. That is clearly not the Israeli leadership we see right now.
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74 Responses to “The preconditions for a settlement in Palestine”
“the open admiration for the reactionary Islamists of Hamas – so obviously on display in some quarters of the left…”
And citations to back up this statement would include what ?
Phew you mean Israel does not really want the piece of land called Gaza then.
Yeah, Eddie. Try the new SWP pamphlet called ‘Nakba’, for instance. Will add some quotes when I next have the work to hand.
Robert – I reckon Gaza is more use as a bantustan than anything else.
I asumme Eddie that Dave is referring to this:
SWP web page: “This attack is Israel’s bloody answer to an offer of a new truce by the Palestine’s democratically elected Hamas government.”
If anyone imagines that Hamas was ‘democratically elected’ can speak with authority over the corpses of our left comrades in the PLO and PFLP, and bloody bodies of the secularists, feminists and gays HMAS heve murdered.
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/610/hamas.htm
This looks more widely at the left ignoring reactionaries .
a quote from the above article :
“After the US invasion of Afghanistan, Socialist Worker featured an article by Talat Ahmed and Kevin Ovenden, in which they desperately tried to defend the Taliban’s imposition of the full-body burqa on all women: “The Taliban believed that imposing their model of behaviour could bring some order to the country.” Therefore the Taliban “imposed … the burqa, banning women from public activity”. This, say our two SWP comrades, was designed to protect women and prevent them from “being raped” en masse (December 1 2001, not available online).”
Ahh how the left twist and turn to justfiy reactionary behaviour .
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=16777
this is also uncritical .
‘the utter pointlessness of the exercise’
Dave, believe me, I’m a fan. But really.
Consider the utter pointlessness of lobbing rockets at a very well armed neighbouring state.
Consider the effect that years of screaming ‘death to the jews’, blowing up Pizza parlours and making programs like Tomorrow’s Pioneers has on the Israeli public.
Consider what zio-nazi plot inspired the pogroms of 1927 and 1936-9.
Consider the words ‘Then the Jews again returned to evil-doing and consequently Allah sent against them others of His servants, until the modern period. Then Allah brought Hitler to rule over them. And once again the Jews have returned to evil-doing, in the form of “Israel” which made the Arabs, the owners of the Land, taste of sorrows and woe. So let Allah bring down upon the Jews people who will mete out to them the worst kind of punishment’ Qubt as quoted in R.L. Nettler, Past Trial and Present Tribulations: A Muslim fundamentalist’s view of the Jews, (Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1989)
Consider the words ‘[The enemies of Allah] do not know that the Palestinian people has developed its [methods] of death and death-seeking. For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahideen and the children. This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: “We desire death like you desire life.”’ Hamas MP Fathi Hammad
The tragedy of the situation is that people are being killed and there can be no ceasefire, no peace because this is the ideology, central and vital, of one of the parties, death for us or you. Israel might have been brutal, it might have denied rights, it might have stolen pre-1967 land. But that is beside the point for Hamas. The fact there are Jews unbowed, not being meek and submissive, that is the insult, that is why they have called on death as arbiter.
When the Arrow Cross won the majority in working class districts in Budapest in 1938, did that make it okay for them to murder Jews on the street? They had suffer exploitation and great violence at the hands of the Horthy state and the capitalists, but does it excuse them, does it make them legitimate when they seek mass murder? The Palestinian people have suffer more from their fellow Arabs that Israel full stop. So why not boycott Aleppo University or businesses in Amman
Hamas are not a political party, they are a genocidal organisation dedicated to killing and martyrdom, like the Ustasha, the Iron Guard, the GIA and the Interahamwe. They have no program beyond a totalising discourse, indoctrination and massarce. If anybody can suggest a way that Israel can secure its citizens from these theocrats without the tragedy ongoing in Gaza, please speak, please lord speak because the ineviability of these deaths comes from the nature of these ‘green revolutionaries’
Yet another good article, time to crack open a few more of the far left’s ‘shibboleths’ methinks
So in Andrew Coates book just pointing out that Hamas were democratically elected counts as “the open admiration” that Dave refers to.
Dave, I’ll wait to see what you pull from the SWP’s pamphlet but the point has to be made that Hamas are a product of the struggle of the Palestinians and, crucially for the left, the total failure of the Arab nationalist / secular left in the 1970′s.
That’s a fact and to attempt to bait people on the left as supporters of terrorism or Islamism just because they recognise this fact is just brainless tabloid style name calling.
Hamas are the elected representatives of the Palestinians in Gaza, a straightforward and incontrovertible fact.
Eddie, I do write:
Nevertheless, the organisation won the Palestinian elections in 2006 because it articulated opposition to Israeli oppression, and because of popular revulsion at the corruption of the Palestinian Authority. That gives it an undeniable popular mandate
This is indeed a straightforward and incontrovertible fact. Just as their reactionary Islamist character is a straightforward and incontrovertible fact.
Or do you agree with their constitution claiming that Zionists caused the French revolution, FFS?
Socialrepublican, are you really gullible enough to believe this is taking place because Hamas is a nasty organisation? Do you live in a world as black and white as Israel = eternally good and Hamas = eternally evil?
What Hamas are, and I don’t know whether it is on the bones of Palestinian Left or not, is the Resistance. They appear the only Resistance.
Billowing Left social democrats will always seize on every minor (and major) statement; either in or out of context, to somehow weasel out of their staring down the barrel of the question of the hour:
- You, the war has started, whose side are you on?
Who gives a damn whether they think Zionists caused the French revolution. More fool them if they do (I do wonder about the provenance of some of this outlandish stuff – and anyway, does their average brave fighter in his tunnel now either know this, or give a damn). What the hell have their idiocies got to do with the role they are playing now – the only ones firing back?
If when the French re-occupied the Ruhr in the 20s, the Nazis had organised the resistance against them, I would have supported Hitler & Co for their resistance against those seeking to nationally oppress the Germans and keep them under occupation.
As I have written before Marx was completely clear in his support in such struggles. Fervently religious fanatics, the Indian mutineers, in 1857 savagely raped and murdered many European women at Kanpur but it was them, not the ‘civilised’ Brits and who were officially in support of womens education that he supported.
I don’t care whether Hamas read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion every night and sleep under a swastika bedspread (I suspect the reading material of prominent rulers of Israel will be even worse – although of course, different. I could easily see them expelling all Arabs from Israel; I think a few might consider disposing of them in other, more permanent, ways).
I support Hamas fully in their life and death struggle now. Communists should, at this period, support Hamas 100%.The only question at the moment is that of the war.
Shame on those ‘Left’ dilettantes who attack instead of support the defenders of Gaza from the horrific onslaught
As I said before, I wish some of their religious co-thinkers in Pakistan could smuggle them some nukes. For the defeat of Israel and the victory of the Gaza resistance.
Dave, one of the many benefits of an education in Militant at the height of the miners strike was that we were taught to look at and analyse social movements as opposed to looking at politics as a spectator sport in which you ‘ra ra ra’ for one side or another.
The bottom line, however, being that you sketch out a perspective that offers a socialist perspective on the situation.
Socialists who are serious about discussing social movements should have no time for those who want to set the context of a discussion from the very start by shouting the odds about the evils of Hamas and denigrating those who don’t join in the shouting by baiting them about some horror or another.
For every Hamas horror story there’s Jewish fundamentalist one to counter it with.
So, do you take the course of shouting at each other or do you proceed with a discussion on the nature of Hamas and the future of the Palestinian struggle ?
“For every Hamas horror story there’s Jewish fundamentalist one to counter it with.”
Huh? You mean a Zionist one I take it? And you’re not seriously suggesting that the two sides are equivalent?
Since 2005 the Zionists have killed 1700 Palestinans, since 2002, 19 Israelis have been killed in rocket attacks.
An education in the Militant isn’t such a great thing maybe?
let’s not forget Hamas’s own words:
and of course, old fashioned socialists will remember that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a hoary old piece of antisemitic propaganda, the stable stuff of the extreme right
and Nazis.
Henry Ford was a great fan of it, along with that well known Austrian.
http://skepdic.com/protocols.html
Indeed there is no need to forget Hamas words.
But that doesn’t mean that in defending Gaza against the Zionist slaughter they are not playing an important role, notwithstanding their words.
AVPS – I am gullible enough to believe there can be no peace between a Jewish state and Hamas. Are you gullible enough to believe that Hamas would allow any Jew to get in their way, let alone hold political power?
‘Israel = eternally good’ If you can find where I said that anywhere, I owe you a beer
SPP
When the Ustasha took over Croatia in april 1941, the Communists said ‘Welcome to the Black Revolutionaries’. After most of them were either killed or forced into the mountains and several thousands people had been butchered by these ‘comrades’, the message had changed a bit.
Marx was no fan of Hindu nativism, rather he saw in the mutiny the first mass political movement in Idia. He was a fan of the Imperial regime as it smashed the older forms of social organisation. He supported the North in the American Civil War because Slavery wasn’t ‘an authentic social situation’ nor a ‘sovereign right of resistance’. Capitalism was superior to these. He supported Hungarian Liberalism against Croat and Romanian nationalism in 1848 because the latter he saw as essentially forms of feudalism. Idiot
Should the comrades of the Tudeh be happy they were killed because Islamic Iran is now such a firm ‘anti-Imperialist’ power? Should the comrades of the KDP having marched under the banner, ‘Hitler first, then us’, not caring if they had ‘read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion every night and sleep under a swastika bedspread’?
You are an idiot, you prove this again and again. Be thankful you don’t lived under the theocrats you support ’100%’ because if they didn’t chuck you off a building, they might crack open your skull and shit down the cavenous hole.
No enemies to the left, my pert and perfectly formed arse
not forgetting the Sky News interview with Hamas leader, Khalid Mashaal
http://skypressoffice.new.clinic.co.uk/SkyNews/Resources/showarticle.asp?ID=2433
I am wondering if any Western supporters or sympathisers of Hamas could explain Khaled Meshaal’s comments?
And more importantly, do they agree with him that the “the Zionists had exaggerated the number” in the Holocaust?
Or if they are repulsed by Meshaal’s comments can they finally acknowledge the racist nature of Hamas?
PS: got the video too, so there’s no issue of “translation”, that’s what he said
As Marx said, apropos the Indian insurrection, the form of resistance is shaped by its oppression. Mau-mau was demonized by the British media, yet its atrocities were only a fraction of those of the racist Kenyan settler state and the British government. It’s the same with the chauvinist and sectarian Israeli settler state.
Hamas, notoriously, were encouraged by the Israeli state in order to combat the secular PLO, just as Osama bin Laden was once a buddy of the freedom-loving west.
Hamas are a legitimate resistance to Zionism, just as the French CP was a legitimate resistance to Nazi occupation, even if its members were gullible enough to worship Uncle Joe.
Zionism is not short of connections to fascism (Andrew Coates and the other apologists for the Jewish supremacist state should check out the biography of Eichman).
Israel could have peace any day of the week by reinventing itself as a democracy with equal rights for all citizens, instead of a shitty little chauvinist state in total denial of the monstrous injustices and barbarisms it has inflicted on Palestinian civilians for over sixty years.
But Israel does not want peace and it does not want even a viable Palestinian state. It wants a broken, compliant people caged in Bantustans controlled by collaborators, or total ethnic cleansing. Israel has never wanted peace or justice and it is a gross fraud to pretend otherwise.
Andrew coates write, ‘If anyone imagines that Hamas was ‘democratically elected’ can speak with authority over the corpses of our left comrades in the PLO and PFLP, and bloody bodies of the secularists, feminists and gays HMAS heve murdered.’
The real attitude of Hamas to feminists and the PFLP can be seen here
http://www.palpress.ps/english/index.php?maa=ReadStory&ChannelID=2363
‘Woman mayor for Ramallah
2005-12-31 11:44:50
A woman has been installed as mayor of the Palestinian Authority’s political capital Ramallah thanks to the support of the Islamist movement Hamas, officials said yesterday.
Janette Khuri, a 62-year-old Christian, became the first woman mayor of a major West Bank municipality when she was elected by a majority of her 15 fellow councillors.
Khuri, a member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), triumphed over the ruling Fatah faction’s candidate Ghazi Hanania when the three Hamas members voted for her.’
But Andrew Coates would never let facts get in the way of his ignorant and idiotic rants.
I don’t regard as ‘dispiriting’ the prospect of Israel failing in its endeavour to exterminate the Palestinians in Gaza.
And the security of the Israeli state comes nowhere near the top of the list of hoped for outcomes that I want to see emerge from this situation.
I also don’t think that parity of casualties would make the actions of Israel any the more palatable.
Hamas on Gays and Dancing, in their own words:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article575744.ece
Modernity, what are YOUR preconditions for a settlement in Palestine? You’ve been doing some fantastic denouncing in the past few days but I don’t recall reading you say anything so vulgar as what you’d actually like to see done, practically, and whether you think the bombing should stop.
It’s thoroughly depressing to hear leftists discussing this issue, brandishing quotations at each other to bolster their prejudices. In particular, the relevance of the Hamas charter (not constitution), written in 1985 when the organisation had a completely different context and leadership, and of which the vast majority of Hamas supporters today have never heard, is questionable to say the least. I am old enough to remember a time when the Modernity’s of this world never lost a chance to remind the world that Anwar Sadat was a youthful admirer of Hitler; this was quickly and permanently forgotten when he recognised Israel, however. And indeed this habit of brandishing ancient quotes to stymie debate can never advance any peace process.
Thankfully, however depressing things are now, people from religious backgrounds are more creative than sterile leftists. Consider this story from Ha’aretz earlier this year, which belies some of the stereotypes being flung around from all sides here: “Rabbi Menachem Froman of the West Bank settlement of Tekoa has for years been involved in interfaith dialogue toward Israeli-Palestinians peace. For several months he has been working closely with Khaled Amayreh, a Hebron-area journalist who is close to Hamas.
“Our proposal was presented to the highest political echelon in the Hamas government in Gaza and gained 100-percent approval,” Amayreh told Haaretz Sunday, while refusing to name the government officials. Froman said the document was presented to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has yet to respond to it.
Even if the attempt turns out to be merely an academic exercise, say Froman and Amayreh, its elements could be used by the Jerusalem and Gaza governments. It does not, for example, include the recognition by Hamas of the State of Israel, instead “recognizing that there are Jews living in the Holy Land,” according to Froman.
The Hebrew and Arabic document contains verses from the Koran and the Bible and states, “God is the greatest of all and He alone can bring an end to the problems between the noble Palestinian people and the distinguished Jewish people in the Holy Land.”
The proposal calls for Israel to lift its sanctions on the Gaza Strip, permit economic relations between Gaza and the outside world and open all border crossings. The Israel Defense Forces would end “all hostile activities toward the Gaza Strip, including targeted assassinations, the setting of ambushes, aerial bombardments and all penetrations into Gazan territory, in addition to ending the arrest, detention and persecution of Palestinians in the Strip.”
The Palestinians would be obligated “to take all the necessary steps to completely end the attacks against Israel,” including stopping “indefinitely all rocket attacks on Israel,” assaults “on Israeli civilians and soldiers” and “to impose a cease-fire on all groups, factions and individuals operating in the Strip.”
Makes a lot more sense than anything I’m hearing here.
The mistake you’re making is that Modernity, social republican, Andrew coates etc. are not leftists.
You cannot be a leftist if you are neutral about the Zionist onslaught of Gaza.
There is nothing “leftist” in thinking that it is in any way justifiable for the Zionists to slaughter the Palestinian population with F-16 bombers, howitzers and white phosophous shells.
At present Hamas fighters, at this minute, are valiantly defending the population of Gaza from the Israeli massacre. There is no reason to pretend they are not what they are, but that is a fact.
As it is a fact that it is the Israelis who are butchering the innocents.
Incidentally, I hate to break this to you, Modernity, but the population of California recently decided that they were opposed to gay marriage also. Perhaps you have deduced from this that they are all fascists who deserve to be exterminated?
The Israeli state would have to bomb the Vatican first, before advancing on the California Republic and the Mormons in Utah.
Personally, I would be gratified if Hamas gave up their genocidal racism
Let us not forget that the election of a Hamas was a close-run thing with approximately 3% dividing the parties, it was not a landslide victory.
Further, remember that that was back in early 2006 and since then they have accomplished a number of achievements:
1) scampering round the Middle East to get suitcases of money to buy arms
2) throwing handcuffed members of Fatah off of buildings
3) increasing their rocket range from approximately 8 miles to about 25 miles
4) implementing an excise duty on goods smuggled through the tunnels
5) condoned attacks on the Nahal Oz oil depot
6) scabbed on the Gaza teachers strike
7) and apparently recently rounded up Fatah members in Gaza, just in case.
Additionally, you can look up the racist pronouncements of various Hamas leaders via google
All in all an unsavoury mix, but if they had given up their genocidal attitudes I would have gladly argued that Israel should negotiate with them.
However, in the last two years Hamas would rather see the people of Gaza pauperised than acknowledge Israel’s right to exist (somewhat of a prerequisite in negotiating, and you can’t negotiate with someone if you don’t acknowledge their right to exist)
I think that as ethno-religious conflicts are best resolved via peaceful negotiating, with both sides making concessions and I think Israel should withdraw completely from the West Bank, etc.
I don’t favour military solutions on EITHER side. I would like Palestinians to live in peace next to Israeli, free from genocidal racists like Hamas.
eventually, I imagine that a final solution could look something like the Geneva Accords
see http://www.geneva-accord.org/
Southpawpunch doubts the provenance of claims that Hamas believes the Jews caused the French revolution. So he clearly hasn’t read the Hamas Charter.
SPP is thus quite happy to support an organisation without bothering to read its founding document.
The relevant passages, in which Hamas blames everything it doesn’t like on an international Jewish conspiracy, are as follows: “With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there”.
The charter continues: “With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there”.
We also learn that the Jews were behind both World Wars and founded both the League of Nations and the UN: “They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it”.
This is just 1930s fascism in Islamic garb. But for SPP, this is irrelevant because he doesn’t think most Hamas militants have read their charter. No doubt many members of the Nazi Party didn’t bother to read Mein Kampf from cover to cover either.
SPP has also abandoned some of the basic tenets of the bolshevism he has previously espoused. “The war has begun, whose side are you on?”, he asks. Lenin and Trotsky, however, had no difficulty in envisaging wars in which socialists didn’t support either side.
Then we have all this nonsense about Hamas “resisting” Israel. It is doing no such thing. It is merely sacrificing Palestinian lives in its own long term drive to evict Jews from all of historic Palestine.
Hamas is not calling for peace, or for any kind of ceasefire. It calculates that the pictures of dead and maimed Palestinians on TV screens all over the globe will be very useful for building support for its eventual goal of re-establishing a caliphate.
Of course, the Israeli state is committing appalling crimes against the people of Gaza. But the left should keep its eyes and ears open, and understand that Hamas, far from resisting these crimes, welcomes them.
The task facing socialists is how to express solidarity with Palestinians without collaspsing into the arms of far right organisations such as Hamas.
I can’t believe SPP is a socialist! What sort of socialist 9or even social democrat) calls for the nuking of anyone! How can he justify that? Sounds to me that the fellow has psychological issues, which is why he gets off on extreme violence.
Seems to me that the Israelis have information that Hamas has extra powerful weapons and they want to destroy them before they are used against Israel. Yes, it’s sad that Palestinian civilians are being killed and to be honest, in a revenge culture, I don’t know how wise it is, the Israelis could just be storing up problems for later. Interesting that they are doing it during the American transition period. One of Obama’s advisers was a Major in the Israeli army, so I reckon it’s a way of making sure he’s not tainted by it when he assumes office. He’s evaded saying anything about it.
I hate to say it, but one has become so habituated to reading about Muslims being blown up, that one does become a little desensitized. Only this morning it was reported that 16 pilgrims were blown up in Iraq, and there are regularly 50 or 60 blown up in market places or tribal meetings in Pakistan, Afghanistan etc etc.
“I hate to say it, but one has become so habituated to reading about Muslims being blown up, that one does become a little desensitized.”
I doubt the people being blown up feel quite so desensitised, though that may not be as important as how western consciences are pricked (or not).
The milk of common humanity is veritably coursing through this thread.
‘relevance of the Hamas charter (not constitution), written in 1985′ – it was written in 1988.
If it is so unimportant, why is it not changed? Why have a standing document around that explicitly calls for the genocides of the neighbouring peoples? Why do Hamas continue to pump out programs and properganda with the Jew of the Protocol as the central demon with no equivication about Zionists or what-have-you?
‘The mistake you’re making is that Modernity, social republican, Andrew coates etc. are not leftists’,
billj, I could say it is possible to have contrary views on the conflict from within the same socialist tradition. I could say that this might even be a sign of the health of such a tradition. I could add that discussing this view is an essential part of a democratic and socialist environment. Indeed, the fact I am cut up about the events in Gaza and yet still cannot think of a solution that can prevent it might suggest I have really thought hard on the subject. But instead I’m going to say ‘fuck off’
Using the protests across the world to justify its tactics and to suggest they endorse Hamas is clearly part of Hamas’s strategy, on the News its spokesperson referred to the global protests and said, Hamas won’t let you down’ whatever that means.However, when pressed, he did say Hamas wanted the rockets into Israel to stop now,
SPP is clearly barking and if he is representative is a clear example of why the Far Left is flailing and failing. The events in Palestine are obscene, but this cheerleading for more retalitory violence from armchair generals is also sickening. Perhaps the left should be raing money, etc, for the victims as many local PSC committees are doing as well as protesting about the horrendous bombing etc of innocents.
Look, my point is a simple one.
It is alleged that Hamas is a fascist organisation or at least a deeply anti-Semitic (homophobic etc) one. (I’m not fully convinced, not least by the politics of those making this case, often apologists for Zionism at best).
But anyway, even if the ‘Boys from Brazil’ story was true (and the crap 70s films was just to throw everyone off the sent) and out from the ruins of Gaza appears a group of monotesticular men with a pencil moustache, dressed as Hamas and shouting in German
i.e. Even if Hamas was 100% fascist, then communists would still support them in their defence of Gaza. If you don’t, you’re not a communist.
@socialrepublican. The idiot is you. Marx was completely clear in his support for ‘Hindu nativism’ (as you put it) against the Raj in the ‘Mutiny’ (and an aim of the mutiny was to restore the Mughal Muslim emperor).
@fauvet “The war has begun, whose side are you on?” he asks. Lenin and Trotsky, however, had no difficulty in envisaging wars in which socialists didn’t support either side.”
That’s a completely correct comment but also a deeply mendacious one as I’m sure you are aware. Bolsheviks were completely clear in supporting the oppressed in a battle for self determination e.g. Dublin 1916(remember Trotsky’s comment on ‘branding with a bullet’ those who didn’t support the priest-ridden republicans). The question still rings clear and you dodge it at your political shame.
@various. No-one Left would support Hamas against any internal Left enemies, as per the Tudeh example etc. You are deliberately or idiotically missing the point. Gaza is being invaded – for a united military front against the Zionists.
It’s not doubting the provenance of ‘Zionists caused the French revolution’ (Islamists for Marie Antoinette, maybe?) that’s an issue – it’s completely irrelevant and just the sort of scarp throw out by Zionist supporters to befuddle the waverers.
And yes, I admit to not reading the founding document of say, the Paris Commune or the IRA; clearly you can never support such unless you are a historian (and can you not be a Zionist unless you are familiar with the Israeli constitution, maybe?)
And as ‘Jon’.
Those being blown up are ensured their place in Paradise, which is more than I am. So, why should I feel sorry for them?
SPP – when I became active in the (far) left in the mid ’70s the standard formula relating to national liberation struggles elsewhere was “critical but unconditional support”. In practice the “critical” meant nothing and we became patronising cheerleaders often contorting ourselves, over time, to justify the unjustifiable. Many of our “heroes” turned out to have feet of clay – Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Ortega in Nicragua…and more
So the politics of the resistors and liberators we support is important. It’s important in the places where a future is being built and for the credibility and impact of solidarity movements.
Many people who went on last Saturday’s very impressive demo in London went to support the slogans “Free palestine” and “end the Siege”. We didn’t go there to support the politics of Hamas which are a mixture of the staple core of human rights demands that Fatah pushed for many years (end the occuaption, stop the settlers, free the prisoners, return refugees) and a much more reactionary brew that includes antisemitism, homophobia, mysogyny, clericalism, anti-communism, anti-trade unionism etc.(and yes those documents do regurgitate standard antisemitic conspiracy theories)
In the longer term the Palestinians need to rebuild a secular, progressive, united movement that can challenge Israel’s occupation and relate to the growing opposition within Israel. Hamas politics as presently constituted not only can’t do that but actually suit Israel very well. Israel prefers to have an enemy that articulates the conflict in religious terms – Muslims v jews as this undercuts opposition in Israel
So of course we support the right of the occupied people and the victims of aggression to resist, and recognise that Hamas are in the front line of that resistance but we also need to see the bigger picture – there have been mass arrests of Palestinians opposing the war within Israel over the last 10 days; 10,000 Israelis marched against their own government, against war last weekend, Israel is continuing its thoroughly repressive practices on the occupied West Bank (where Hamas is much weaker) while the war goes on.
We need a strategy for supporting the Palestinians (and Israeli oppositionists) in all these spheres rather than just tailing Hamas.
Well, longer version of my commen here
Quicker version – war is contrary to the aims and interests of the workers movement, our solidarity must be with the workers involved anywhere in this conflict, irrespective of the bullshit of “National liberation” nonsense.
Anyway, SPP, I think you are really called Bonniface McGrubberchucker – that’s my first guess in what could become a fun and longlasting game.
Right there with you, Dave. My post on Sunday sparked a huge argument about how evil Hamas and Israel are, but like you said I don’t see any movement by Israel towards peace.
@David
You may have been a ‘patronising cheerleader’ for e.g the Sandinistas, (like the USFI were) but, as a Trotskyist, I never was. Of course I supported them fully against Somoza but not against those in Nicaragua who may have condemned them for failing to establish a workers state after they won.
I would have had no problem supporting the demo “Free palestine” and “end the Siege” (and I’m sure some would have marched there supporting the resistance and say, killing gays,. And you marched alongside them – and rightly so).
I supported ‘Troops Out’ as well as the IRA; many liberals supported just the former- and that’s fine.
That’s the point isn’t it; you don’t need Hamas to sign up to a petition supporting the rights for gays to adopt in order to support them on the question of the hour – the War. You don’t need to agree a full programme to support someone militarily.
Also “We need a strategy for supporting the Palestinians (and Israeli oppositionists) in all these spheres rather than just tailing Hamas.” I agree and don’t do the former.
And no the politics of Hamas are not important in their role as resistors. Which side do you support, as the bullets fly. I support the resistance, I support Hamas.
“However, in the last two years Hamas would rather see the people of Gaza pauperised than acknowledge Israel’s right to exist (somewhat of a prerequisite in negotiating, and you can’t negotiate with someone if you don’t acknowledge their right to exist)”
Quite. But I would be very interested to hear socialist arguments in favour of a “Jewish state” which, at the same time, exclude possible justifications for Islamic states, White states, Black states et cetera. Is it not true that, in Israel, there are plots of land (owned by the Jewish National Fund) which are set aside for Jews only to rent? The fact that, in practice, this racist organization has to moderate its behaviour (by renting out property to many non-Jews) is evidence that even it cannot defend its policies. In truth, any person who supports such a policy is, quite frankly, a couple of shortbread fingers short of a cookie tin – it is explicitly racist. Yet what does the Israeli state do in response? It does the only thing a self-declared “Jewish state” can do: set up a committee (the Gadish Committee) to investigate this practice. The resulting legal and parliamentary tussling over the issue contrasts sharply with how any reasonable, functional secular state would deal with the issue: ban such leasing restrictions outright as a racist practice.
No reasonable person, then, can accept the right of a “Jewish state” to exist (just as no reasonable person should accept the Islamic identity of the Iranian goverment either). As Modernity correctly states, that does indeed mean that there is no peaceful solution to the Israel/Palestine problem. And this is where I think some “socialists” get confused, for many of them have this rather noble, but slightly adolescent, belief that there is no conflict which cannot be resolved through peaceful means. I think people like Southpawpunch and myself have a more mature attitude – yes, we should aim for peaceful solutions, but not reify this aim into an axiomatic belief in the absolute power of diplomacy and negotiation to resolve all situations.
On the question of supporting Hamas in the face of their explicit bigotry, I am not particularly surprised by some of the contributors. Most of them are the very same contributors who will attack the ultra-left position of not participating in mainstream politics because to do so would involve playing the bourgeois-democratic game. And this is what REALLY offends them about Hamas (and far-left support for Hamas, however qualified); Hamas are extremists who have in fact taken the step which the ultra-left in the West NEED to take i.e. play the bourgeois-democratic game AND maintain the front of violent class confrontation.
What David Rosenberg said!
As well, Matt Yglesias points out that:
“the risk [is] that weakening Hamas will only lead to the rise of more extreme groups. The high level of power that Hamas had achieved as of last week was, after all, precisely the result of a deliberate Israeli campaign to weaken Fatah. The hope was that this would bring some more accommodationist Palestinians to the fore, but instead the reverse happened. And now that Israel is going about trying the same thing with Hamas, one needs to worry that Hamas will be displaced by Salafist groups who think Hamas is too weak-kneed.”
Even if Hamas was 100% fascist, then communists would still support them in their defence of Gaza. If you don’t, you’re not a communist.
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Good one.
The PFLP has come up here as being victims of Hamas. A PFLP statement was posted on the Socialist Unity Network, and someone calling themselves Jonah then went off on a rant about the PFLP, who are not a religious organisation and have roots in the secular left, being terrorists. The only good Palestinian is one who surrenders, for such a mind as Jonah.
It is because Hamas, PFLP and others fight that they are called terrorists. Things like what is in their charter are red herrings.
http://www.pflp.ps/english/?q=general-secretary-turn-gaza-graveyard-occupation-s
‘General Secretary: Turn Gaza into a graveyard for the occupation soldiers
Comrade Ahmad Sa’adat, the imprisoned General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, issued a statement from his prison cell on January 5, 2009, calling for Gaza to be turned into a graveyard for the occupiers and for the Palestinian resistance to unite and strike the occupation everywhere they can in order to defeat the enemy.
General Secretary Sa’adat also called upon the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to immediately release its political prisoners and for PA President Mahmoud Abbas to make clear where he stands – on the side of the resistance, or on the side of the enemy. The General Secretary’s call was widely distributed by Arab media.
Aziz Dweik of Hamas and Marwan Barghouthi of Fateh, Palestinian national leaders also imprisoned by Israel, also issued statements echoing Comrade Sa’adat’s sentiments, calling for national unity and resistance to the occupier.
A statement from Palestinian political prisoners inside Israeli jails was issued last night, signed to by all national and Islamic forces, calling for steadfastness in front of the Israeli crimes and massacres in Gaza and for unity in the battlefield in the struggle.’
Will we see Moddy and Coartey joining the PFLP in solidarity with the Gazan resistance? Or did they use the PFLP as a ‘White Phosphorus’ smokescreen for their pro-IDF position.
I think “white phosphorus” is what it is about. You will find that people who rant about Hamas being reactionary and religious turn out on closer inspection to have problems with the Palestinian secular groups, at least the ones that are fighting. Because it is the fighting that is decisive, not the words.
While the IDF are busy slaughtering the population of Gaza the issue is who’s side are you on?
Do you want them to lose?
Do you abstain?
Do you want them to win?
Given the IDF’s overwhelming military superiority abstaining because Hamas are religious and therefore carry many of the prejudices of religious organisation, is tantamount to support for the IDF.
As a socialist and leftist I want the IDF to lose. I want the slaughter to stop. I want the Palestinians to win. So I support those who are fighting them at the moment Hamas amongst others.
While pointing out that Hamas relgious politics are in fact a hinderance in their struggle against the Zionists.
Just as a matter of interest, does anyone know what is happening in the various Palestinian refugee camps located Lebanon, Syria etc? Is there any solidarity action going on?
> PS: got the video too
A night in at your place must be boring as fuck, modernityblog.
The Hamas charter is some words on a bit of paper. Your view, that it justifies the bombing of schools/hospitals/police stations/mosques/ambulances, is bonkers.
And when you’re not cheerleading for Zionist atrocities, you’re boring us all rigid with your flat-cap-wearing prolier-than-thou routine.
You really are a tedious arsehole, modernityblog.
“The Hamas charter is some words on a bit of paper.”
So the founding statements of am organisation are meaningless (which btw they have had plenty of time to change ).
So presumably all the words and words written by left groups about what they are fighting for are also meaningless?
Or was Mein Kampf meaningless as well?
Yes we have to support Palestinians, but it is also possible to be critical of what Hamas believe and enact .
They are anti semitic and thats a reality the left need to be honest about, rather than shout down those who mention it.