Third post tonight but I'm posting anyway.
Personally, I don't see how the Palestinian resistance has any chance of winning this conflict unless Hezbollah and/or a foreign nation like Lebanon, Syria, or Egypt for instance joins in.
Third post tonight but I'm posting anyway.
Personally, I don't see how the Palestinian resistance has any chance of winning this conflict unless Hezbollah and/or a foreign nation like Lebanon, Syria, or Egypt for instance joins in.
People saying there should be all out attacks by neighbors need to get off their Armchair General chair imo or stop playing Age of Empires. Like please actually consider realistically what will happen and analyze materially what is going on.
If Iran was to launch a all out attack on Israel then Israel and the US would likely escalate to the point of using their nukes. Then it’s an Armageddon situation, and the left, and ultimately the mass of people in the Middle East, are not going to benefit. To the extent that anyone will benefit it will be Islamists, who’s objectives and interests are fundamentally at odds with those of socialist movements.
If anyone thinks this would be productive for the Middle Eastern left then they haven’t gone their head screwed on right.
Those other nations are not led by idiots or ultra edge lords on the internets. They are ware that to attack Israel at this point would be catastrophic for everyone involved. They have their own interests and will likely use diplomatic pressure. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’d be shocked.
Hezbollah is different as they are an Islamist group which have someone like a state within a state in Lebanon. They have shelled, but have not launched anything like a massive attack, not least because if they did either Israel or even the US may the intervene seriously in Lebanon or stay bringing out their more serious weapons of war so to speak. They have more interest, as always, like the leadership of Hamas, in milking the deaths of countless Palestinians for their own political benefit and legitimacy. Any other view of these groups is naive imo.
In terms of how the Palestinians can win, well I’d point first of all how neither Palestinians nor the range of opposition is identical to Hamas, which is a mistake that people on this site still incapable of not making. They are not democratic representatives of either Gazas nor obviously the Palestinians in the other territories.
The way Palestinians would win is by brining Israel economically to its knees and forcing them to accept a Palestinian state, though at this point. I’m pessimistic no matter the outcome. Just as Leninists recognize that indiscriminate terrorism is not going to being about revolution, but mass-organized labour groups are, the same applies in Palestine. It tells me volumes that people on this site don’t seem to be aware or are conveniently ignoring that Hamas, like the PA and Israel, have actively prevented any organic, mass labour movements from emerging in a form like the First Intifada. They are terrified of that possibility because like all Islamists they are acutely aware that that is antithetical to their interests.
Its already an uphill battle organizing in a regular capitalist society, but in a situation as uniquely oppressive as Israel is to Palestine, unfortunately sometimes you have to make due with what you got. Nobody here said that Hamas is the democratic representative of Palestinians, but a fairly large chunk of them accept them as way more fair and less hostile than Israel.
Lesser of two evils does not make them good. They are accepted because there is no alternative. Something that Hamas has tried very hard to maintain.
I never said it makes them good, but I would like to see more reading about how Hamas tried hard to maintain that, if you have links.
Yeah I agree with that. But I think that even in the best of outcomes the situation is going to be pretty dire.
Would not Hamas rule be a necessary step in the healing process? Was not the Taliban taking over Afghanistan an unfortunately necessary step that is incrementally better than US control of Afghanistan?
I’m not sure. At times I think so and at others I’m more sceptical. I in no way claim to have an answer. The situation is worse than a dilemma. However it’s a dilemma because two things im confident of is (1) that Hamas will (unfortunately in several key respects) remain the main armed opposition capable of opposing Israel, and so will inevitably play a key role in the struggle against Israel; and (2) that they will never be an organization who will lead to a long term solution to these issues nor will they introduce the socio-economic reforms and political revolution that Palestine needs, even in the best of scenarios. Though Palestinian comrades seem to still see cooperation with them as tactically necessary though is does make me worry for them for obvious reasons. Their opinion does have to be respected.
Hence my pessimism (which does not imply that there should be no struggle, but that it should focus on making the most of the concrete situation presented. It in fact obligates even more rigorous struggle, and the most important thing those in western countries can do is show support for Palestine and make clear that their countries are supporting a genocidal apartheid fascist state. Ideally there would be more mass demonstrations and support attempts to pupressure but hat is looking difficult. But then again who knows how things will develop as this shit continued to get worse.
But I also this that this support should not be explicitly describing Hamas in positive terms other than as the only vehicle Gazas (and Palestinians in a sense) have for militarily opposing Israel, though I also disagree with Hamas’s tactics (not that that matters of course, like who am I), and think other mass radical labor organization to economically squeez Israel would have been ideal, but I also recognize that the situation is so fucked and Israel has so brutally sabotaged any other alternative that that has become impossible for the time being. Another reason in terms of optics I think they need to be distinguished is that the one of the best weapons that Western media has is the trump-card of anti-semitism, and Yh when you see people holding signs like ‘queers for Hamas’ or ‘Jews for Hamas’ it looks insane if you know much about Hamas’s or Islamist ideology regarding Jewish people and what Hamas media and charters have said about it over the years, or when you know their social positions such as on LGBT issues (I.e that it’s an evil deviance the Jews have spread to corrupt Muslims). Of course the reality is complicated by the fact that western media is already doing its utmost to destroy the distinction between support for Palestinians and strong ideological support for a group like Hamas. Though the real ambiguity’s and problem is that Hamas is still the main force through they exert there opposition for the time being. I’m not saying I’ve figured my way out of that other than by saying that we can’t condemn Palestinians decision and we mousy stand with them while also being honest Kong ourselves regarding the progressive potential and it’s limitations for the struggle when int his framework, which again is not to say that a better one is going to present itself any time soon.
On the Taliban given how extremely reactionary they are it does make that kind of judgment very emotionally difficult. My honest opinion is that it is unclear. Honestly a liberal bourgeois government would have been more advantageous to the growth of socialist politics imo. But that was also not realistically going to be produced by the Americans, given how brutally extractive and destructive their occupation was.