news

even assuming totally rational actors, the Israeli and Palestinian proletariat would be unwilling to work together because imperialism is the primary contradiction here, not the contradiction between the classes

it's honestly a really good distillation of that concept. if you hear a communist say something like "Iran deserves critical support despite being a capitalist country with a bourgeoisie that exerts political control, as it opposes the United States and its empire" then certain stripes of left-wingers get uneasy because it (outwardly) seems to fly in the face of supporting the working class and opposing the capitalists of any and all countries, but with a very tangible example of Israel and Palestine, it's much easier to understand that opposing the Israeli government and opposing Hamas and the Palestinian authorities inside Gaza is totally nonsensical and if you hold that position, you deserve to be forced into a clown outfit for the rest of your life

The 300 Zionists with a conscience are not much to ally with

https://orinocotribune.com/special-interview-with-khaled-barakat-no-one-in-gaza-demands-ceasefire/

From an interview with a Palestinian communist in November 2023:

“Today the PLO and the Palestinian Authority leadership are traitors and tools in the hands of Israel,” he continued. “And Hamas is leading the Palestinian resistance, but not just the armed resistance. If you look at elections, let’s say the student movement elections or labor elections or any kind of really popular assembly elections, Hamas will win with majority. Palestinian people are voting for Hamas in the most prestigious Palestinian liberal universities, like Birzeit University, Hamas will win student council elections. Even in Christian universities, Hamas will win by Christian votes. Does that mean that the Palestinian people don’t understand Hamas? And these Western liberals understand the situation more than we do?… I do not think it is naive or ignorant when they repeat this, it is a calculated distortion. The idea behind these allegations is to say that Palestinians are not capable of creating their movement, someone else must have done this for them.”

Barakat emphasized that Hamas is a national liberation movement of the Palestinian people. He recalled that Western media never mentions that Hamas was actually elected by Palestinians. “They say things like Hamas controls Gaza or Hamas did a coup, as if an elected government is going to do a coup against itself,” he said. “It’s just garbage that Western media put out to mislead people.”

When consulted about the rejection expressed by some sections of the Western left towards anti-imperialist movements that have a religious base, such as Hamas, Barakat called it “an extension of a colonialist mindset.” “They want a Palestinian resistance that fits their image and their criteria, and not how reality is and how Palestinians are,” he said. He added that the same sectors used to criticize the Marxist-Leninist PFLP when it lead the armed struggle during the 1960s-70s, calling the organization “too extreme.”

In this regard, he traced the history of the origin of Islamist anti-imperialist trends in the region. “In the 50s our people were shouting slogans for socialism,” he commented. “They supported Nasser in Egypt… And there were no religious groups anywhere in the movement carrying out any kind of national liberation tasks. Being affected by the situation worldwide—Vietnam, Cuba, Algeria, national liberation movements across Asia and Africa, Palestinians founded the PFLP, the DFLP, and other progressive forces. But that changed. And the reason that things change is not because people are wrong, but because these political parties or these political entities haven’t delivered what they were supposed to deliver. Whether it’s Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Arab national movements that were defeated in 1967, or whether the socialist organizations and political parties retreated in 1990 with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc.”

“The popular classes and the working classes are not going to rest until the left rebuilds itself,” Barakat stressed. “They’re going to support the forces that are still fighting. And when there is a vacuum, someone needs to fulfill the vacuum. In that atmosphere, with the 1979 Great Revolution of Iran, a new era began in the region,” and religious movements took up the task of the Palestinian resistance.

He called out the inherent Islamophobia in the “anyone but Hamas” view, and stated, “We are part of the discourse of Liberation Theology. It’s not just churches, mosques can be revolutionary too… If a mosque is calling for the liberation of Palestine and for equality and for supporting the marginalized and the workers, then this mosque is playing a good role, a positive role. But if a mosque is calling for supporting the Saudi prince and extend the life of bin-Salman of Saudi Arabia, that’s a reactionary mosque and a reactionary imam. The way we look at churches, we should look at mosques with the same objectivity and the same way.”

“Those who want to see the left rising and having military capabilities, they should go and support the left instead of saying they don’t like Hamas,” he advised. “It’s just a very bad position and not one Palestinian would respect that position, including any revolutionary leftist.”