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Palestinian uprising on a scale not seen in 50 years just started
(edition.cnn.com)
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this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2023
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You're completely correct on the presence of brainworms, and Palestinian struggle should be supported not only in principle unequivocally as a struggle against a fascist settler-colonialist state which has been practicing continuous ethnic cleansing of varying speed over the last 80 years, but also in it's concrete forms.
But it's important to recognize a contradiction this puts us in, and which is clearly the source of the (abstract, priviledged) moral dilemma that you see many comrades experiencing. Namely, that the only current institutional and organizational forms of potential armed resistance to Israel in the West Bank are through Hamas and Islamic Jihad, who are as politically reactionary as you can imagine in the social realm. While I wouldn't call Islamism fascism simply for clarity so as to not muddy the water by suggesting that the material conditions which have produced fascism in the European, American, Japanese or Indian are the same as those which have produced Islamism (though sometimes they are), it's not a coincidence that Islamism shares alot of features with fascism.
I hope that this isn't news to anyone here, but frankly no-one should arrogantly be suggesting that unconditionally supporting Palestinian self-defense should imply that this also means condoning or justifying the torture, killing of unarmed women and children, and sexual violence that Hamas is known to practice.
There are many tragic aspects of the history of modern Israel of historic proportions. Adorno said that poetry could not be written after Auschwitz. What we've seen is many genocide survivors and their descendants carry out their own fascistic ethnic cleansing and mass murder. History repeats, first time as tragedy, second time as tragedy, but also as farce. Here as Marxists we see the issue of a political struggle which is now so fucked that resistance to Israeli fascism is unavoidably mediated by this Islamism.
Be careful to not argue against ghosts or create strawmans, as cliche as it may be, no real Marxist is out there condoning terrorism or genocide. At the same time we live in world where the libs are literaly defending actual living in 1945 Nazis.
Don't waste your breath trying to bring nuance when talking to people that are as nuanced as an elephant's foot. Say with all your breath uncritical support and watch the liberal Nazis screech hysterically. If that means war then so be it.
The local Palestianinan marxists are supporting this operation, so weird to paint this as the sole project of Hamas and the other reactionaries tbh
It's not painting it as anything. It's a description of the facts of the balance of power among the Palestinians politicals orgs of Gaza. Anything else is idealism ignoring the material conditions. The idea that Hamas is not the politically dominant group in Gaza is simply false. They have ensured their political dominance by brutal suppression of their opposition. The economic and social situation is so fucked that it is no surprise that Marxists are not dominant. The political groups who would ascend to political dominance are going to be Islamist in this context unfortunately. The time of the secular PLO-style secular and progressive Palestinian nationalism is long-passed.
The Palestinian Marxist groups are in a difficult position where the only form of resistance they can muster against Israel is inevitably going to be in conjunction with groups like Hamas. Again, nothing I've said criticizes that. They have every right to do so, not that it practically matters whether I nor any else on this site condones it or not. The revolutionary position at this conjuncture, in the contradiction between western imperialism and the global south, is evidently that which supports the Palestinian revolutionary cause against Israeli settler-colonialist apartheid. The fact that it's mediated by Islamist political and military structures is unfortunate but unavoidable and does not imply that support for Palestinian resistance should not apply. We should make no mistake though and bear in mind that Islamist groups see us as just as decadent and depraved as liberals, and have never hesitated to eliminate us when convenient. Their social project is diametrically opposed to our own.
I hope we get to a point where Christians, Arabs, and Jews can all live together in harmony in the single state of Palestine. But if in the meantime Palestinians start dragging Israeli men, women, and children out into the street, shooting them once in the stomach, tossing them into a large pit, then burying their still writhing corpses in quicklime, then my response will be a resounding
Yo are you actually fucking condoning the mass murder of children and throwing them in pits? Anyone who is liking this comment you're equally fuck in the head and there is nothing communist about you.
With all due respect comrade, I'm really not sure how anyone could come so confidently to the view that it is "a lot fucking better" to live under Hamas. I really don't even think the immediate question is which is preferable to live under. They are both horrific. For Palestinians in Gaza it's not a choice. There is no disagreement on the point that that Zionism is a fascistic settler-colonial project. But they are not only under Israeli occupation or in an Israeli open-air concentration camp, but also, in Gaza, under the local dominance of Hamas. Hamas are themselves a material product of Israel and Zionism, and so separating them in practice is not that easy. If you mean in terms of quality of life, then the quality of life of an Arab Israeli Palestinian or a Palestinian in the West Bank is in no way clearly worse than that in Gaza on average or generally; actually its probably the opposite. Obviously, as just mentioned, this is Israel's effect as well, but Hamas are part of the equation and we don't know exactly what an independent society under Hamas would look like, though the material conditions of Palestine and the examples set by other Islamists indicates that it would almost certainly still be pretty terrible.
The primary or principal contradiction of the progressive material interests is going to prioritize the ending of the Israeli occupation. Then the concerns of Marxists there can turn more fully towards combating Islamism (though they would the immense problem of the political legitimacy that Islamist opponents would have gained after any serious defeat of Zionism). But while Hamas ofc do not secure their position simply through coercion, but also use consent and their limited provision of social services, they also ensure dominance through killing, torture, intimidation and extremely regressive social views and policies, most obviously when it comes to gender and sexuality. They have eliminated secular opposition through assassination, torture, sexual violence and intimidation.
Islamism intrinsically, taken relatively in abstraction, is no less reactionary. In a particular concrete situation the question of whether or not its effects are more reactionary overall than Zionism is another question, and depends on the context. In the current context the cause of Palestinian Liberation and the general position of Palestinians makes support for the cause despite the Islamist forms of it clearly the side to support. If the question is whether or not the quality of life for a Palestinian is preferable under the Israeli government in Israel or the West Bank as opposed to in Gaza, then Gaza seems worse for clear reasons, though ofc we're comparing terrible to even more terrible here. Again, they are Islamists. Islamism is profoundly reactionary. They see women as effectively cattle for baby production, are socially regressive across the board, despise secularism and socialism and are extremely hierarchical. This has immediate effects on your quality of life as a Palestinian, especially as a woman, sexual minority or socialist.
I think people really need to get over the mind-numbingly simplistic and immature idea that because they are opposing Israeli apartheid they are therefore a progressive force outside of the extrinsic function they have of being a vehicle to oppose Zionism. Nationalism also plays a role here as something that, in historical context, can be a limited vehicle for progressive forces in unfavorable political conditions. It's not incoherent to recognize the fact that Hamas are both extremely reactionary but from a strategic political and geopolitical view are the only vehicle for Palestinian military opposition to Zionism. That absolutely does not imply that it is good to live under them or that it would be better for a Palestinian to be born in Gaza rather than in Israel or the West Bank. The quality of life is worst in Gaza. Obviously, again, this is the fault of Israel, but that does not change the character of Hamas. You are fucked in any case as a Palestinian in this situation. The hope is that their historical role in opposing Zionism will lead to a situation where they can be politically contested and so then a Palestinian society no longer under either Zionism or Islamism can develop materially, economically, socially, politically and ideologically. There will be new contradictions there and new forms of political struggle and class conflict. Were Palestine to become more formally independent of Israel or if Israel were to collapse, even disregarding the international crisis and war which would almost certainly follow, Hamas in the local Palestinian context would return to violent conflict with other Palestinian political orgs, including Marxists, unless a united front against western imperialism were maintained, and would then also face class conflict with the mass of Palestinians, as the elite of Hamas constitute an extremly corrupt economic and political elite within Gaza.