Hamas And The Holocaust

There is nothing positive for the working class and the oppressed masses in supporting any fraction of the bourgeoisie in "national liberation struggles". Not only are the latter deviod of any positive content, and have been for a century, they are a positive danger to the working class in that it is led to support one fraction of the ruling class against another and, inevitabley, against the workers and the masses. The argument used above by Black and Red, effectively answered by Tree, is the classic leftist argument of the "lesser evil".

Agree, but Hamas pre-empted Dahlan before shit was about to hit the fan.

Dahlan and his goons had been involved in a very low-intensity civil war/thuggery for quite some time before Hamas took control. (E.g. the kidnapping of the BBC journalist back in the day - showing that Gaza can't be run safely by Hamas). However, the actual open civil war that was coming was preempted by Hamas. They knew what was coming - Dahlan goons had been training in Jordan and Egypt and had got shiny new toys to play with. No doubt open civil war would have lasted much longer had not Hamas pre-empted. (Incidentally this is almost exactly the same that Hezbollah recently did in Beirut by taking out the Future movement).

But Hamas was still waging civil war on a large part of the population. It wasn't just Dahlan goons that were harassed, detained etc. but also quite normal Fatah members, and this has continued now that Hamas has gotten a pretend state to play in.

I agree. They certainly did have their arm twisted by more militant members (before that they had adopted a "wait and see" policy) and would have lost members to Islamic Jihad or the secular nationalist groups (which would have been significant as the Gaza MB weren't that big at the time). What is important about this is that this could very well be one of the main reasons that Hamas are now launching rockets into Israel. Islamic Jiahd was doing it, the al-Aqsa folks were doing it and a number of smaller militant groups. Hamas wants to maintain their image as being the resistance they still need to engage in armed resistance regardless of its efficiency.

The Zionists wish for a certain ethnic composition in as big an area as they can, to be simplistic, one that involves a Jewish majority but does include enough of a minority to keep everyone on their xenophobic toes. They do encourage the precarious importation of non-Jewish, non-Arab migrant workers (and, in fact, do allow for the precarious work of non-Israeli Arabs from the territories, making their life a living hell is very profitable). The point is, if Israeli, Palestinian, Thai, Chinese, Romanian, Philippinian, etc. workers are encouraged to pass Israel over and arrive at the UK, say, the Zionists would have no-one to do any actual work. I know it might not be mentioned much in the international press, but the life of even Jewish Israeli working people has been getting worse in the past few years, and while the Sheckel (Israeli currency) is getting stronger, only the bourgeois get to improve their life as a result. It's getting much less taboo to dodge the draft and to get the fuck out of Israel (I hear tons of people talking about how they're going to make their score selling oil paintings in the US, for example), and this can be encouraged by giving migrant workers in, say, the UK a warmer welcome.

You're right on all counts. Particularly that it wasn't just the Dahlan gang harassed (and not even only Fateh, see e.g. : http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/PressR/English/2007/131-2007.html ). The only thing I took exception to was the lone statement that Hamas "waged a civil war against half of the population". I think that's an inaccurate picture without the context of pre-emption that you describe above. In fairness to TOJ, I'm sure he is aware of this context, but his brief comment was missing this, so my point was more for the benefit of others not familiar with the situation.

Yea! The funny thing about that is that there was a significant period (before the onslaught of massacres accompanying deputy war minister Matan Vilnai's "we're gonna make a holocaust" comment) when Hamas was on a pretty much total unilateral ceasefire -- including rockets. Meanwhile other groups were still firing rockets and they included al-Aqsa Brigades (whose fighters are Fateh people)! And all the while US and UK media were going on about the evil Hamas and the "moderate" Fateh...

I was replying to this:

I found the notion that the worst you can say about Hamas is that they've barred some people from praying at a bunch of mosques ridiculous. That was the context.

'Inside Hamas'. http://www.smh.com.au/news/tv-reviews/cutting-edge-inside-hamas/2008/05/05/1209839536786.html

It was highly critical of Hamas, and made out as if they have no chance for re-election.

Just to clarify, the writor of the film is Jewish.

I say that because, it was after all a documentary by a Jewish writor, which if you apply the same standards the pro-Israel right use towards Arab journalists, how can you take it seriously?
There is no doubt that Hamas isn't the savior of the Palestinian people, but you must agree that its hard to read a news article today that contains no direct bias towards Zionism.

It depends on what news you read. Most mainstream stuff is relatively biased towards Israel or is completely ahistorical (as in the reporting of "facts" to avoid bias). On the whole the latter ends up being biased against the Palestinians in the views of the audience (e.g. believing that Israel and Palestine have military parity, Palestine is a state, there are equal number of Palestinian and Israeli deaths etc). The book Bad News from Israel is very illuminating on how the conflict is reported in the UK and the understanding people get of the conflict from this news.

However, there are good news articles out there. Electronic Intifada, that ToJ linked to above, is quite good. Some articles in Haaretz (by Hass, Rapaport, Levy, though I've heard rumors they've been fired or will be) are excellent, and even in some of the more mainstream American newspapers (LA Times and WaPo comes to mind) you will find good pieces. Mind you, I don't think it is a problem to read so-called biased news articles as long as you have a critical mind and don't mind doing your own research (and this applies for anything really).

All true, especially the last point. It's important to know your enemy. The FT and Telegraph are good for this. As is the NYT. Interesting about the rumour on the few good Ha'aretz reporters. I'd not heard that. You have any more details or sources on that? While on the whole Ha'artez is not as critical as we might like to think, it's still better than the US press (though that's not hard), Hass and particularly Levy are very good.

p.s. Looks like this is not the same docu I saw, but whatever.

Pro-Israel bias maybe. But in the UK and other European press this is mostly out of bias towards US/imperialist policy rather than loyalty towards Zionism per-say. Note the BBC picture of it as a "conflict" in which "both sides" have "legitimate grievances" (which also conveniently fits in with the myth of the British Empire in mandate-era Palestine being stuck "between two sides"). In my opinion, this is almost more poisonous than outright "ra-ra-Israel" propaganda (Fox News stylee), because it is a harder doctrine to overcome in public perception, relying as it does on muddying the waters.

In the US press there is more loyalty towards Zionism, but my feeling is that it's still mostly out of loyalty to the almighty state. If US govt. support for Israel dried up tomorrow (hypothetically) you'd see the supposedly indestructible power of the Israel lobby evaporate overnight.

That's what one would call a non sequitor. News articles suffer from a bias relating to those owning the presses, why does that mean that you should be singling out religious inconvenience as your only concrete criticism of Hamas? Maybe you're biased into singling out religious persecution as the Issue, ignoring more mundane aspects such as murder and physical violence.

Well, it is just a rumour so I don't have any reliable sources. It seems to have orginated on this blog (I don't know anything about it tbh). I first saw it on Reddit which linked to this. The comments on the story have some more non-substantiated stuff.

Edit: I just looked into it again (it's four days ago I first read it). Re-reading the original blog post and a follow up I found a link to this, which contains a letter from Don Alfon (the editor of Haaretz) and Hass. So, no rumours anymore. Hass is on a sabbatical and Rapaport was indeed fired (along with others due to cutbacks).

Thanks for that. Man that sucks. So that just leaves Levy, who is already pretty sidelined.

Grr, that is shit. Hass and Levy were the best things about Ha'aretz / Israeli corporate media...will be interesting to see what happens to Levy now.

Very good article and i can not understand why is unreported in European media even at Indymedia.

I think that the most people in Europe do not know how this situation began before 60 year and that's why some people make wrong impressions for Palestinians.

My Solidarity to all the people who fight against the enemies of Freedom!

Israel won't stop the blockade until Hamas is out though will they? Just out of interest, are there are any palestinians on this forum - and what do they think about the future for Gaza in terms of what red stripe says - that they are fighting oppression. Israel enforced the blockade back in sep / oct when things got nasty in terms of rockets so the oppression for everyday civilians of Gaza in terms of them living like prisoners because 1) there is no fuel so they are forced to drive on carcanogenic veg oil so they can't physically get anywhere and b) many are unemployed etc little money c) lack of medical supplies, and the prevention of many from ganging medical permits meaning the ill will remain ill and then die d) water and food shortages forcing many to waste their lives in queues. so they are oppressed now but how do they see things in terms of a lack of a blockade - do they mean the oppression of Israel coming and setting up a zionist state and kicking them out because if they do, there will never be a solution, because they can't turn back time, and go back to Israel without any Jewish people there. And even if they conceive of a land in which jews and palestinians live side by side, do they think they can achieve that by bombing the jews? and by setting off rockets surely they are just going to cause innocent people in gaza to suffer indirectly due to the shortages that Israel will impose again. I am just looking at the Hamas point of view here since this is what the discussion relates to, in terms of how Israel has treated the Palestinians there is lots to be said but that would deserve a whole separate discussion.

just going back throught the comments i saw red riot you wrote this

i guess the Hamas views I have discussed above are the exteme views the media presents - but the media also presents Gaza's victims - those who are in the queues, those who are dying from treatable cancer, those who can no longer teach because they can't drive to the school. They don't show the opinions of people like you who are trying to logically resolve the problems.

I don't think they will stop regardless who is in "power" in Gaza. Israel's so-called withdrawal from Gaza was just a strategic reshuffling of the occupation, very much like what they did through the Oslo process. If Fatah came back in Gaza I would imagine that the siege would be alleviated somewhat but not lifted. And Hamas or no Hamas, there would still be rockets attacks into Israel and F-16, helicopter gunships and "incursions" fucking up life in Gaza.

Does anyone else think it's far too late to even discuss zionism? I mean, if you don't agree with zionism, then this would mean you want the Jews to leave Israel surely, and where would the Jews go - to their "home" where is this ? the autonomous region in Siberia? Germany? Brazil? the jews live all over the world, there wouldn't be anywhere to send them. so why even discuss it. The jews are there to stay. so zionism doesn't come into it. The question is whether the land can be shared peacefully surely, and the problems are paricularly prevailant since a joint religious history obvioulsy means that sites and land have similar meaning to everyone ie. in Hebron. If you can't share a religious patch with someone of a different religion it really is a sad thing.

AGREED, good post.

Colonization is happening right now, and rich American and French Jews are buying up lands and having them de-Arabified right now in the present, on both sides of the Green Line, so I don't think Zionism can be said to be dead just yet.

ah ok I see what you mean, in other words zionism should now be understood as a plan to not only just move the jews into israel but to completely "de-arabify" that is almost something else and is very grim indeed.

ah ok I see what you mean, in other words zionism should now be understood as a plan to not only just move the jews into israel but to completely "de-arabify" that is almost something else and is very grim indeed.

Plans are one thing, we all hear about "peace plans" and "road-maps to peace", but the practice proves otherwise.

but from the hamas point of view - what do they want? the jews to leave, or the jews to stay but give the arabs more land? plus i suppose its difficult to "share" certain places of religious sentiment as well?

What do they want? Power, I imagine? I think Khawanga's more knowledgeable about it than me.

The ultimate goal of Hamas is the creation of an Islamic state on historical Palestine, or that it is a Muslim society. Hamas sees historical Palestine as a religious endowment (waqf) by Allah - which interestingly enough is very very similar to religious settlers' view that God is basically just a landlord (they've even referred to God as this). Now, Hamas is very pragmatic (comes with getting power, but they were that even before their electoral successes) and not homogenous at all so the ways in which they want to achieve this goal varies from person to person. Currently a broad consensus seems to be that Gaza and West Bank (pre-67) can be taken by either military or political means, but that regaining the territories lost in 1948 should be a political struggle and something for the future generation.

What is important though is that Hamas as a political movement wants to capture the state and use that as a vehicle for the Islamization of society. I.e. this means forcing belief and conduct upon people (which they've tried with some success in Gaza, but they've also met fierce resistance). The competing view is obviously that society turns Muslim through belief alone, a grass roots hearts and minds campaign. However, this is not what Hamas is trying to do. Though in practice this is where their power comes from initially. Since 1979 and the acceleration of the intifada and deepening occupation, Palestinian society has turned more and more conservative Islamic (obviously Hamas being viewed as 'the resistance' or less corrupt than Fatah as has been mentioned earlier are also sources of their current power).

So, Hamas doesn't want power for the sake of power, they have a goal. But basically they're just another bourgeoisie faction fighting over the control of the state, and they're no friends

I'd recommend you reading up on what is known in Israel as "transfer" (a euphemism for ethnic cleansing, though this doesn't necessarily mean murdering) and the "delicate demographic balance" (i.e. areas need to have a fixed Jewish majority, I think it is roughly 70%).