[News] It is time for Arabs to stop blaming Hamas for the genocide in Gaza. Blame yourselves, instead

[Anti-Imperialist News]

middleeastmonitor.com
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240815-it-is-time-for-arabs-to-stop-blaming-hamas-for-the-genocide-in-gaza-blame-yourselves-instead/>
It is time for Arabs to stop blaming Hamas for the genocide in Gaza. Blame
yourselves, instead
Middle East Monitor
August 15, 2024
------------------------------

The overwhelming majority of ordinary Arabs and Muslims support and
sympathise with the Palestinian people. They usually express this support
and show such sympathy through their use of words in referring to Hamas and
other resistance groups fighting Israel. They commonly call them heroes,
courageous men and, when they want to elevate them into a higher and more
holy status, they borrow the Quranic description of such people, calling
them Mujahedeen.

In doing so, the common man still feels the pain and suffering inflicted by
Israel on the people in Gaza. Millions of Arabs are traumatised because of
the murdering of children and women in the ten months’ war.

However, this is not the case with the few who consider themselves to know
better and who are always trying to go deeper in analysing the Israeli war
on Gaza, while attempting to make their point. They usually end up
grounding their analysis in one of the imaginary ‘conspiracy theories’
flying around from the day Hamas launched its incursion into Israel. Such
pundits tend to propagate their own governments’ position in a more
fashionable manner.

*OPINION: **Sadistic violence in war: The Israeli aggression in Gaza*
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240814-sadistic-violence-in-war-the-israeli-aggression-in-gaza/>

The governments of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco did not
even condemn the Israeli genocide in clear statements and, when they did,
like Bahrain, they condemned Hamas before equating
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQV4Gc7BPiQ> it with Israel. Their elite
supporters went further and accused Hamas of being in conspiracy with Qatar
or some other imaginary country to bring havoc and destruction on Gaza and
the entire Palestinian Territories. Ask them to back up their views and
they would go on ranting about many things, but not the subject at hand.

Almost all of them refer to the fact that Hamas is an offshoot of the
Muslim Brotherhood organisation and this, to them, is enough to make it
evil by default. This kind of cheap talk contradicts two things: firstly,
even if it is true that the Brotherhood is evil, no one can deny their role
in fighting colonial powers, starting in Egypt itself where the Movement
once flourished. Secondly; Hamas, being Islamic-based ideology, is totally
different from traditional other branches of the Brotherhood, simply
because its very existence and legitimacy stems from the fact that it is
fighting Occupation. Hamas fighters are not fighting for power and the
privileges it brings. All of them know too well that they are being hunted
down and they could die at any time, just like their top leader, the late
Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in Tehran last month. From Yahya Sinwar, all the
way to the last fighter in Jabalya, they believe death is round the corner
but the cause is so worthy that they cannot flee the fight.

Others blame Hamas and Islamic Jihad for being allies to Iran. They point
out that Iran is Shia and Hamas is nothing but a Tehran proxy—the most
disgusting term to use to describe Hamas. They justify such outrage by
saying that Iran is using Hamas and Islamic Jihad to further its ambitious
agenda in dominating the mostly Sunni Arab world. But they forget the
simple fact: Hamas and Islamic Jihad would welcome any support they can get
from anywhere. As liberation movements, they do not have the luxury of
choosing their allies, as long as such allies agree with them on the
principle: liberation and freedom for Palestine.

Furthermore, and in a religious context, Jihad does not have any
prerequisites other than fighting colonialism, in this case. Nowhere in the
Quran has it said that you have to be a Shia or Sunni to be accepted as
Mujahid, simply because true Islam does not recognise the sectarian version
of Islam revised and being presented to Muslims by the West. Such ideas are
meaningless talk that cannot stand up to scrutiny.

If being Shia means fighting apartheid colonial Israel, I am sure the
majority of Palestinians and Arabs, including myself, would not hesitate in
announcing their allegiance to the Shia! Being a Shia does not mean you are
Iranian or supporter of Iran or being its proxy.

Other analysts and political gurus raise the issue of timing by asking if
it would not be better if Hamas had accumulated more power before launching
its incursion into Israel. The question appears an honest one but, in fact,
it is far from it. It implies that, if Hamas had delayed its attack, it
might have become more powerful to prevent the amount of losses and
destruction in Gaza. But this kind of discussion ignores the simple fact
that timing of any operation against the Occupation is a complicated issue
and only the people on the ground can decide the best moment to go ahead.
Also, operational timing is determined by, among other factors, what the
ultimate goal is of launching an attack.

*OPINION: **From Gaza to Jenin, international complicity with Israel must
not be ignored*
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240813-from-gaza-to-jenin-international-complicity-with-israel-must-not-be-ignored/>

7 October came to prevent the unprecedented wave of selling what remained
of Palestine by some Arab and Muslim states for nothing. Normalisation of
ties between countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel was almost a done deal
and had to be stopped or, at least, delayed. The Saudi Kingdom is not any
other country and having ties with Israel would have been much more
detrimental to the Palestinians than, say, Libya doing the same. If the
Oslo Accords made Palestinian Territories mere disputed Territories, as the
late Palestinian thinker, Edward Said, once said, then having the Israeli
embassy in Riyadh would make the entire Palestinian people a mere
misfortuned nation roaming the planet, begging for handouts.

Finally, many advocates of defeatism blame Hamas for the huge price being
paid by the Palestinians. This is the most outrageous and silliest of all
arguments to make against Hamas. It is outrageous because it ignores the
entire human history in fighting colonialism and it completely overlooks
the Palestinian fighting history. Even in the regional Arab context, such
an argument is fictitious, to say the least. Some 1.5 million Algerians
were killed before colonial France was defeated in 1962, some 132 years
after it colonised Algeria. Almost three quarters of Libyans, 83,000, were
killed at the hands of Italian colonialists during nearly three decades of
Italian occupation. In the wider world, Vietnam would serve as a perfect
example here. Between 970,000 and three million people, including
civilians, lost their lives before Vietnam became an independent country. I
am not calling for the killing of more Palestinians, but freedom has price
to be paid.

If anyone is to be blamed, it is the 22 Arab countries who are watching
helplessly. Palestine is part of the Arab League and a signatory to the
Arab Joint Defence Treaty
<https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/arabjoin.asp> of 1950, obliging
other members to come to its defence. So where are they?

Indeed, the price is huge and the death rate is almost impossible to even
comprehend, but this is how it is and there is no other way. The entire
world is hurting and sad because of what genocidal Israel is doing in Gaza
but what alternatives do Gazans have, other than to stay put and fight back?

*OPINION: **Ghassan Kanafani’s ‘Letter from Gaza’: A timeless testament of
resistance amidst war*
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240811-ghassan-kanafanis-letter-from-gaza-a-timeless-testament-of-resistance-amidst-war/>

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
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