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Yeah fair enough I went on a weird tangent there. What I was trying to say was that the Western interest and support you were talking about was the kind that needed a good faith Israeli effort to amount to anything. There was no interest in forcing peace on Israel, is the point I was trying to make. Thatās why when Israel put its foot down and said ānopeā pretty much everyone played along, as best exemplified by the absolute shitshow that was Western reaction to the 2006 Palestinian elections. The kind of abject horror thatās now making four different heads of state say āwe are not exporting weapons to Israelā (with varying degrees of truthfulness) to placate their populations simply wasnāt there. So to respond to your point: Western governments and people did want to being peace to Palestine, but it was viewed as just another regional conflict, not as settler colonists ethnically cleansing an indigenous population with Western support, so they were just another participant in the farce.
What reaction was it that you regard as a shitshow to the 2006 Palestinian elections?
Yes, thatās taken an additional 20 years of Israeli massacres.
None of that has anything to do with the point regarding Hamas and whether its behavior has been in some way central to Western awareness of Gaza.
Is your argument that Hamas running a disproportionately conservative mafia state in Gaza, funded by Israel and American āalliesā like Qatar, and the resulting tensions between Hamas and Fatah, wherein elections have been impossible for nearly 20 years now, has been in some way pivotal towards Western awareness of Israeli crimes?
Or has it been that the past 25 years of total domination of the Israeli right over the Israeli government has resulted in a government policy by the Israeli right that is, necessarily, more naked and brutal than ever to appeal to their core constituencies and hold onto power, alienating foreign allies to shore up domestic support, and Hamasās contribution has been limited to boosting the polling numbers of Bibi et co?
Enjoy. The short of it is what you probably already expect: The Quartet (most relevantly the EU and US) imposed sanctions on the PA, Israel arrested a ton of Palestinian MPs, ministers and Hamas members, the US and Israel conspired with Fatah to overthrow the democratically elected Hamas government (either by calling new elections or by force) and the Quartet (again, most relevantly the EU and US) managed to somehow ignore all this and call on Hamas to moderate, accept Israelās right to exist and denounce violence, nonsense that stopped working in 1996. Basically Western countries spat in the face of the democratic process they promoted when it didnāt produce the puppets they wanted it to produce. And to rub salt in the wound who did they want to lead after Hamas was deposed? Fucking Mahmoud Abbas, the guy who has been running Fatah (and therefore the West Bank) for 20 years.
No effective resistance was going to make it without Israeli massacres. I could list examples all the way from the 1930s, but most relevantly we have the anti-occupation resistance in Lebanon, the First Intifada (2000 dead) and the Second Intifada (3500 dead). If Palestinians intended to avoid Israeli massacres their only course of action would be to give up. Now the current genocide is clearly a whole different beast, but something like the 2008 Gaza war is very much in line with what one would expect when resisting Israeli occupation.
It does. Western āinterest and supportā after 1996 was a farce, and not at all something that could lead to peace, therefore for all intents and purposes yes the West didnāt give a shit about the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza or elsewhere, in the same way your average white moderate didnāt give a shit about the suffering of black people during the Civil Rights Movement.
Okay if you believe what youāre saying and are trying to have an honest conversation then ignoring everything thatās relevant from the other sideās argument and treating that as a gotcha is really not a good look. Hamasās conservative mafia state hasnāt been pivotal towards Western awareness of Israeli crimes, but them picking fights with Israel politically and militarily in ways that despite Israelās best efforts end up in global news in very unflattering ways. At least, thatās the argument youāre supposed to be arguing against, not that Hamas banning dog walking and cracking down on dissent is the peak of Palestinian resistance.
Hereās the thing: You need something to highlight the nakedness and brutality (which Iād argue is the same as ever, just with a brief stint with sanity in the early 1990s, but thatās not relevant here), because Israeli settlements just donāt make global news. I mean how many non-Hamas related events in Palestine have gotten global outrage since 2007? The West Bank is almost completely under the rule of the deeply compromised Fatah, and thatās why itās always playing second fiddle to Gaza in global discourse.
I have a lot I could say on this, but for now, Iāll keep it at āThis is what I understood the reaction to be and I disagree with your characterizationā, since this conversation is already covering a whole lot of shit.
Thatās not my point. My point is that Hamas is not what has raised awareness, but the increasing intensity of the Israeli state in massacring the Palestinian people for the aforementioned domestic political reasons.
Ah, no TRUE interest and support. Got it. Just had to narrow and redefine the criteria once the initial claim was disproven.
By the way, how is the Western āinterest and supportā now, with Hamasās heroic efforts, going to lead to peace?
Are we counting the total genocide of the Palestinian people as peace?
Or is it fingerwagging as effective action?
ā¦ do you think Israel would be refraining from these crimes were it not for Hamas?
Thatās not at all fucking true. Jesus Christ. It was a major issue in the US, poster child for āI only know geography because of warā, during Bush Jrās term, even despite the other much more major foreign policy issues taking up air in American electoral politics at the time.
āIsrael is focused on genociding Gaza, therefore, whoever is in charge there is the TRUE hero of The Resistanceā¢ and Making A Differenceā¢, unlike whoever is in the West Bank!ā
Love that Fatah is ādeeply compromisedā while the literal Mossad plant is lionized.
No, I had to state my criteria, which I didnāt initially because I wasnāt writing a thesis. You seem to disagree disagree, but as stated above I consider Western conduct during 1996-2007 nothing short of farcical, so morally upstanding global citizens such as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair can take their so-called interest and support, shove it up their asses and die in a ditch so the next generation can at least try and get something done.
By cutting Israelās access to trade and weaponry from its closest allies? This isnāt a hypothetical; this is actually happening (I know, not the most impartial source). To repeat, Palestinians have to survive Israelās genocide first, but if they clear that (admittedly pretty big) hurdle their chances of liberation within a generation or two are actually looking pretty good.
Yes, in their place theyād be (and are, in the West Bank) committing other crimes that are no less abhorrent but more ignorable on the global stage.
Bush Jrās term, which coincided with checks notes the Second Intifada. This is exactly what Iām talking about; you need something ānewsworthyā to highlight all the horrible shit Israel does to Palestinians daily. Issues like settlements, Palestinian detainees and the Gaza blockade (until October 7th) only take prominence against the backdrop of a major upheaval by Palestinians or a major atrocity against them. It didnāt need to be Hamas doing (or being the excuse for) these things, but it is.
I have no love for Hamas, but the idea that theyāve irrelevant to the Palestinian cause simply makes no sense. Would Good Friday have happened without the IRA? What about the overthrow of Apartheid without the ANC?
I mean why is fascists being short-sighted assholes who only care about their own self-interest at the expense of the national interest (in this case oppressing Palestinians for as long as possible) that hard to believe? These guys supported the formation of a Hamas because they were āharmless apolitical Islamists;ā thatās already enough evidence to declare them terminally stupid.
Holy fucking shit.
This is pure delusion.
No less abhorrent? Fucking what. Do you understand what the difference between the treatment of the West Bank and Gaza?
What the fuck.
Yes, launched by the PLO.
Other than the dubious argument that there has been always been upheaval in Palestine - which would render the question of why Hamas is so bootlick-worthy - when exactly do you think there has been ācalmā with which to contrast your argument of supposed Western disinterest? Go on. Cite me a time when you think that Western disinterest was high.
And how did that go, āhighlightingā the treatment before Oct 7th? Surely there were dividends - increased Western support before Oct 7th, right? Awareness?
Oh, wait, of course, it wonāt be ātrueā awareness, because ātrueā awareness is only when itās in support of Hamas.
This is more like ābrilliantlyā maneuvering themselves into being slaughtered and their entire nation dismantled. You operate by citing groups which were at the head of a mostly-united struggle against their foe, and who eventually won - Hamas is not the united face of the Palestinian struggle, and it sure as shit is looking like anything but winning. āWould resistance have succeeded without resistance groups???ā is completely ignoring that not all resistance groups are successful. Far fucking from it - they can be outright counterproductive. But I guess thatās only something that can be understood if the lionized Islamists du jour arenāt involved.
Counterculture as a lens of viewing politics is fucking cancer.
I love that Fatah are fascists now. Deeply unfucking serious. Doubly absurd considering the lengths youāre going to play apologist for Hamas.
Thanks ;).
Okay I misspoke there. The wars that Israel periodically launches in Gaza are worse than anything that happens in the West Bank. Outside of those, however, the scale is pretty comparable; you have airstrikes and the blockade on one hand and pogroms and arrests (glorified kidnappings) on the other.
Yasser Arafatās PLO and Mahmoud Abbasās PLO are completely different entities and should be viewed as such. Yasser Arafat certainly wasnāt organizing crackdowns against Palestinian resistance organizations to appease Israel; he came from the era when the PLO conducted and organized resistance.
Any time before 1987, and the period between 1993 and the Second Intifada. Also the gaps between uprisings, wars and the like post-2007, so for example 2017.
Again, whether the West was interested doesnāt matter; the problem is whether they cared. How much grassroots action was there in Western countries to stop Israel from ethnically cleansing Palestinians before 2007?
Uhā¦ Yes? BDSās size and reach is a good shorthand for how much Western sympathy that matters is with Palestine, and, well, you can see for yourself. I mean seriously thereās a reason Zionists hate these guys so much and itās not because they were irrelevant until a year and a half ago.
What? Absolutely not. If itās gonna lead to action their opinion regarding Hamas doesnāt matter. I mean I definitely want Hamas gone and replaced with a less tyrannical government.
They pretty much are. I mean they only really represent Gaza, but since the West Bank hasnāt really been doing much since the Second Intifada, the Palestinian struggle is only really happening in Gaza with a few flare ups in the West Bank every now and then, no thanks to the PA.
As opposed toā¦ doing nothing? Because again thatās what Fatah has been doing since 2006ānothing. Theyāve cracked down on Palestinian opposition to Israel more than theyāve done to oppose Israel.
Huh? I was referring to the Israeli right, which shouldāve been obvious from context.
The period between 1993 and 2000? You mean when it was one of the core foreign policy issues in US politics!?
2017? The first year of the fucking Trump administration, when the issue of Israel was front and center?
This is deeply unserious.
Palestinian activism was one of the issues of Western left-leaning parties outside the US in the 90s and 2000s, and of the left wing of the Dems in the US.
BDS is overwhelmingly the result of a change in tactics, notably pre-dating Hamasās ascendency, and popular support in the US for Palestine was largely static until Oct 7th.
Oh, cool, so howās the struggle in Gaza going?
Oh, theyāre about to have the entire strip ethnically cleansed?
Good thing that Hamas was the one which managed to get international recognition towards a Palestinian state, it would have been really awful if those do-nothings in the PLO were the ones busy recieving international support while Hamas did Mossadās bidding. I mean, wouldnāt it be horrific if it turned out that Hamasās only achievements were helping Israel murder Palestinians, and people were defending them for it?
Not that I think Fatahās current route is productive, but yes, doing nothing is, by definition, better than doing something counterproductive. Thatās literally what counterproductive means.
Then I misread it. Apologies. That leaves the comment it was originally responding to uncontested, though, as Fatah being ādeeply compromisedā while Hamas is lionized is absurd considering Hamas has been explicitly supported by Israel as their ideal partner in Palestinian genocide.
Well, yes. It was a core foreign policy issue in US politics, but not core enough to put someone with some geopolitical muscle to flex in charge of mediation instead of fucking Norway.
Then Iāll concede that until I have information either way. Also, since Iām evidently running off incomplete information here do you know where I can learn more about this? I tried looking it up but no luck.
Yes, but not by much. Most of the period where boycotting Israel was been a thing in the West was after Hamas took power in Gaza, and given that Hamas and similar organizations were the main actors in the Second Intifada, it can be argued that the change in tactics youāre talking about came after the start of the modern period of organized Palestinian political violence (which is really what Iām arguing about here; I donāt care that much about Hamas itself), but letās not get into that.
Yeahā¦ no. By 2021, Democrat and Democrat leaning Americans were sympathizing with Palestinians almost as much as Israelis, and in 2020 they sympathized with Palestinians more, and similarly Israelās advantage with younger generations had been falling off a cliff. These changes seem smaller in graphs that cover the whole population because theyāre in arithmetic means with some pretty irreverently Zionist groups, but a rapidly expanding core of anti-Zionism had been forming among key demographics as early as 2014, likely in response to the Gaza war/massacre of that year. This isnāt much compared to the much more radical shifts weāve seen since October 7th, but itās still very significant.
Yeah, which was a massive miscalculation by Hamas and, as far as we can tell at this point in time, very counterproductive. However, as Iāve said more than once, thatās not the point. My argument is that Hamas activities have affected the Palestinian cause a lot more than by just āboosting the polling numbers of Bibi et all,ā in both positive and negative ways.
I mean thatās true, but taking the spot of Leader of the Resistanceā¢ and then doing nothing is pretty counterproductive, because it prevents other people from doing more productive things with that title and authority. Their activities (or lack thereof) are counterproductive in the same way, say, the DNCās āactivitiesā are counterproductive. I mean, Iād say that decorated resistance leaders like Chuck āplay deadā Schumer are worse than a net zero for the causes they claim to support.
What I was trying to say is: The Israeli right propping up Hamas was a short-sighted attempt to derail peace negotiations that only served to compromise Israelās chances of maintaining its apartheid regime. Netanyahu for example liked/likes Hamas not because they benefit Israel, but because they benefit him by giving him a boogieman to drop bombs on. āIf we help the Islamists just a little more theyāll finally give us convince the world Palestinians are terribleā has always been an Israeli rightwing cope with little basis in reality. I mean, why are you respecting the decision-making ability and judgement of people who thought supporting āapolitical Islamistsā was a good idea to undermine Palestinian will to resist? Thereās a reason the sane part of the Israeli political establishment was spooked that much by the First Intifada, and itās not because mass Palestinian resistance would only mean better polling numbers. Meanwhile, Fatah literally does nothing except defend its own authority, suppress Palestinian dissent and subcontract for Israel, which is much worse than if they just did nothing. Iām not calling them compromised because I hate them (though I definitely do); Iām calling them compromised because theyāre compromised, as in they actively suppress Palestinian resistance and provide no alternative. What can Mahmoud āNo, we do not support the boycott of Israelā be other than compromised?