An insight into Hamas
JVL Introduction
The pervasive media justification for the genocide being perpetrated in Gaza rests upon an uneasy combination of two distinct postulates of Israeli propaganda:
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Hamas is a terrorist organisation akin to ISIS and is motivated by a fanatic desire to exterminate Jews.
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Hamas is embedded in the civilian population of Gaza who act as their “human shields” and are therefore legitimate collateral victims of Israel’s “war of self-defence”.
While postulate (2) elicits a certain disquiet even in official circles in the UK, postulate (1) has remained largely unquestioned.
Indeed it now takes extraordinary courage to challenge this dogma, since any attempt to do so is immediately translated as a moral justification for the atrocities of October 7 or as “far left antisemitism”.
In the following thoughtful piece a Palestinian academic from Gaza now living in the UK gives a nuanced account of the manner in which both social organisation and Hamas ideology have evolved in Gaza, and of the complex interplay of different social institutions.
It is a sad reflection on the officially approved racist repression that the author feels obliged to remain anonymous.
GW
This article was originally published by the Balfour Project on Mon 20 Nov 2023. Read the original here.
How the Palestinians of Gaza live with Hamas
A personal view by a Palestinian from Gaza who grew up in the era of the resistance group’s rise to power.
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Very grateful for this article. All good but especially useful and informative are the last four paragraphs that give a more plausible explanation for the events of 7th Oct than the absurd “mindless barbarism” explanation that has been given by the mainstream media. As more information emerges, we will see that much of the violence and destruction in the two kibbutz and elsewhere was the result of Israeli bombing and indiscriminate gunfire. It is all tragic and horrifying but dehumanising the actions of Hamas, does not help us move towards a solution.
So, it was reported this morning that the Metropolitan police have warned people on demonstrations not to display support for Hamas. They should read the resolutions of the General Assembly of the United Nations, of which Britain is a member, on the right of the resistance to occupation. I suppose it is too much expect that they would read this excellent article.
A very useful and clear antidote to the constantly repeated European and US prevailing message.
So all that makes 7 October OK, does it? Not one word about the taking of hostages. Not a word about the brutality of the assault.
Instead we are offered this: “Hamas for them and all Palestinians remain rational interlocutors with whom it is possible and necessary to conduct diplomacy and pave grounds for peace, despite 7 Oct.”
“Despite 7 October”? It will take decade to repair the damage now being created. Israelis will be even least trustful after the blood-letting of 7 October and all the Israelis are doing with their genocidal siege of Gaza is establishing the base for the emergence of utterly reactionary forces even worse than Hamas.
Why can’t the left, in the UK and internationally, get it into its head that outfits like Hamas and the Iran-cuddly Hezbollah are not on our side any more than the off-the-wall right-wingers running the show in Israel.
We are supposed to be socialists but here we are publishing an article that attempts to paper over or rationalise the enormity of the crimes of 7 October, crimes that were bound to produce an even grosser criminal response.
I always thought socialists opposed war because the only people who get hammered are the innocent, smashed to the floor, while their rulers – medieval obscurantists in the case of Hamas and racist authoritarians in the case of the Netanyahu government – fight it out in a war from which no worker or peasant can benefit.
Until the popular masses in the Middle East can break decisively from and overthrow the gangsters that lead them hope of progress is forlorn.
In the meantime, with no mass socialist movement in sight there, that means supporting neither side in this war and demanding “Stop the War”, a call that undermines both sides and offers a road out of the Israel-inflicted torment of Gaza.
The assault on 7 October demonstrated one thing at least: the gross incompetence of Hamas which, at a time when civil conflict was about to erupt in Israel with massive anti-government demonstrations, chose a course of action that then only re-united most ordinary Israelis behind the Israeli government.
Really clever, that was.
Thank you to the Author.
Reading this made me start thinking of what my thoughts would have been if I had been a Palestinian living in Gaza.
I’m sure I would be permanently angry and that anger would grow after every bombing raid by Israel.
What would I be thinking, would I have a single idea come to mind, I would obviously know that Israel had such a massive advantage in Military capability that I’m positive that I would feel helpless even desperate and after one of Israel’s bombing sprees, which would have killed many innocent Palestinians, possibly even friends or relatives, what would I think then, how would I sleep etc.
I’m only surmising and I feel desperate for a solution to come to mind but nothing does. Tomorrow morning I can talk to my wife about what we might be doing for Christmas etc, what will Palestinians be talking about tomorrow morning, I feel desperate for them.
We must keep campaigning and protesting against this Genocide, call out the BBC and its Biased reporting, share information across Social Media, get as much of the truth out into the open, in the hope that the tide starts turning against Israel, there are more politicians speaking out against Israel, that’s the only positive that I can see.
I think I know the author! A very thorough and thought provoking document. Every leader of the western world should read it. They know these truths already, and still support the Israeli right wing.
Thank you very much, whoever you are, for this attempt to give a reasoned analysis of a complicated group of people all assembling under the one label that stretches from those wanting to make women wear headscarves to those running playgroups and nurseries in the most disadvantageous conditions, to those willing to give their lives for the cause of ending the occupation and achieving the right of return..
The inclusion of the reference to the 2017 amended charter is particularly helpful since security “experts” we hear on the BBC always quote Hamas as being committed to the elimination of Israel – as if this meant Israelis.
As Sir Jeremy Greenstock said in 2010 during an interview on the “Today” programme and at the time of “Cast Lead”, “The truth is not being told.”
Nothing changes in that way!
Interesting context.
Was Oct 7 a rogue act or intended as a military assault which went hideously out of control? Or something else? Certainly many of the brutalities fly in the face of the revised charter. Hamas is clearly a broad er mosque but I’m wondering what discipline exists within it or doesn’t it work like that? What discussions or strategies exist within it now?
Not victim blaming here but certainly Oct 7 has given Netanyahu the pretext for stepping up genocidal policies.
Inevitability ever greater militancy and violent resistance will emerge, maybe more reactionary.