The idea that the Palestinian people have only been able to persist because of their religion is ridiculous to me. They are resisting because colonialism, apartheid and genocide are very bad things to which nobody would want to be subjected, not because of Islam. If Palestinians were atheists, is he suggesting that they wouldn't have the strength or the will to resist? Would their lack of a belief in the supernatural turn them into doormats for Isn'treal?
I like Hakim's content, but his position on religion is quite frustrating. He is a Muslim first and a Marxist second. Also, Joram van Klaveren is still a right-winger.
I'm very familiar with the concept, being a member of Leninist orgs and having been in Maoist orgs.
I agree that there are not any other alternatives at the moment. No where have I claimed otherwise. But that doesn't imply that they are not reactionary. It speaks to how fucked the situation is that, as I see it, it is tragic necessity that the only vehicle currently available for armed struggle against Israeli apartheid, settler-colonialism and ethnic cleansing is in Palestine in Hamas. I agree with you. But political forces and movements can be multifaceted. Hamas, on the one hand, provide social services in Gaza. They are also a deeply misogynistic, anti-communist, homophobic and anti-semitic organization (them removing the the Elders of the Protocols of Zion from reference in their public constitution notwithstanding).
My basic point is simply that Communists need to not lose sight of the reactionary aspects of these organizations or they are going to be lead into embarassingly incorrect judgements in the long-run, and will de-legitimize themselves in their own national contexts, by tacitly assuming that these orgs are less reactionary than they actually are. Honestly if people are so moralistically offended by this point then they are lacking the basic political realism of actual Marxists. If that offends them, then I guess they will have to dirty the reputations of most Marxists in history who have also recognized that oppressed classes, notably who have been lumpen-proletarianized, are often vulnerable to reactionary ideology and radicalization. At best, Hamas acquiring dominance in a state in Palestine would lead to conditions for the creation of a national bourgeoisie. But as other Islamist cases demonstrate, even in the less extreme cases of somewhere like Iran, these situations are pretty much never good for the left.