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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://consortiumnews.com/2024/01/03/asad-abukhalil-hamas-arab-public-opinion/">consortiumnews.com</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">AS`AD AbuKHALIL: Hamas & Arab Public Opinion</h1>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">January 3, 2024<br></div>
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<p><strong><span><span>The Palestinian people have been waiting for a moment to shake the earth underneath the Israeli army.</span> </span></strong><br>
<span id="gmail-more-104762"></span></p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_104774" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-104774" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/23279864172_63f2f9e44f_k.jpg" alt="" width="391" height="260" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-104774" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>Palestinian flag in the West Bank city Ramallah, the de facto administrative capital of Palestine, 2015. <span>(Chetanya Robinson, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)</span></span></p></div>
<p><span><b>By </b><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/asad-abukhalil/"><span><b>As`ad AbuKhalil</b></span><b><br>
</b></a><em><span>Special to Consortium News </span></em></span></p>
<p><span><span><strong>U.</strong></span>S.
President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, trying to
appear sensitive, claim that Hamas does not speak for the Palestinian
people. All along they have sought to portray the war on the
Palestinian people as a war on Hamas. </span></p>
<p><span>More than 21,000 Palestinian have been murdered and the war
ostensibly is still solely targeted against Hamas, according to U.S.
and Israeli officials. </span></p>
<p><span>(Israel at least admits more than half the dead are not Hamas
combatants, wildly exaggerating the number of Hamas fighters killed in
order to camouflage genocide. Israel brags it has killed “only” over
10,000 Palestinian civilians). </span></p>
<p><span>The Biden administration made its preference clear: they want
the Fatah movement (after its “revitalization” or “revamping”) to rule
over Gaza (on behalf of Israel). </span></p>
<p><span>But the Palestinian Authority is widely hated and despised by
the Palestinian people and its leaders are rightly perceived as thugs,
criminals, embezzlers and collaborators with Israel. </span></p>
<p><span>The Palestinian Authority can only stay in power by force of
arms, just like repressive Arab regimes. It is for good reason that
Fatah has refused to hold any election since Hamas won in 2006. Nor does
the U.S., which used to press the Palestinians to hold elections, want
to allow elections to take place because it is clear that the Fatah gang
would be ousted in a vote. </span></p>
<p><span><strong><span>Repressive Palestinian Authority </span> </strong></span></p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_104767" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-104767" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/President_Donald_Trump_participates_in_arrival_ceremonies_with_President_Mahmoud_Abbas_of_the_Palestinian_Authority_at_the_Presidential_Palace_Tuesday_May_23_2017_in_Bethlehem._02.jpg" alt="" width="391" height="261" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-104767" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>The Palestinian Authority’s Presidential Palace in Bethlehem, 2017. <span>(White House, Flickr, Shealah Craighead)</span></span></p></div>
<p><span>The rule of the PA is now like any Arab authoritarian
government and the repressive army of thugs is run by U.S. intelligence.
Hamas has run Gaza far less repressively than Fatah ran the West Bank,
and Hamas only went after who they found to be Israeli collaborators and
spies.</span></p>
<p><span>The competition between Hamas and Fatah was long settled.
Hamas has been favored by the Palestinians for many years, and for many
reasons. </span></p>
<p><span>Hamas is not corrupt while Fatah is the personification of
corruption; Hamas fights Israel, while Fatah collaborates with Israel;
Hamas leaders live among the people, while Fatah leaders live in
well-protected mansions; Hamas leaders live a modest life, while Fatah
enjoy extravagant lifestyles. Furthermore, Fatah is rightly blamed for
the failed and miserable path of the Oslo accords, which Hamas never
supported.</span></p>
<p><span><span>But Hamas is now undergoing a second rebirth. One
military operation can make a difference in the history of Palestinian
national struggle for independence. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>The <a href="https://www.palquest.org/en/highlight/165/battle-al-karama-1968">Karamah battle</a>
of 1968 (in which Yasser Arafat and Fatah wildly exaggerated their
exploits) propelled the Fatah movement into the position of preeminent
leadership within the PLO. Hani Hassan (one of the Fatah leaders) tells
how thousands of Palestinians flocked to join the movement after
Karamah. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>But the Hamas operation (“The Deluge of Aqsa”) of Oct. 7</span><span>, will be more significant than Karamah in Palestinian historical memory, and indeed in Arab historical memory. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Regardless of Western condemnations and recriminations —
or maybe partly because of them — Arabs and Muslims worldwide were
impressed with the daring operation and the ability of Hamas fighters to
take the Israeli army by surprise.</span></span></p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_104769" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-104769" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/3-Popular_celebration_of_Al-Aqsa_storm_in_Iran.jpg" alt="" width="391" height="324" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-104769" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>Iranians celebrate the Al Aqsa Flood attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.<span> (Ahamadreza Madah, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)</span></span></p></div>
<p><span><span>The details of what happened on that night remain murky
and Israel is very secretive about what transpired to suppress news of
its <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/27/israels-military-shelled-burning-tanks-helicopters/">complicity</a>
in the killing of Israelis. The nature of the attacks on civilians are
still being debated and many Arabs disbelieve Israeli narratives and
blame the Israeli army for the death and destruction that ensued. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Hamas made it clear that it did not engage in the
atrocities or sexual assaults that Israel claimed happened on that day,
and there is absolutely nothing in Hamas history to corroborate Israeli
claims of sexual assaults.</span></span></p>
<p><span>The Palestinian people have been waiting for a moment to shake
the earth underneath the Israeli army. The Oslo process and the
creation of a collaborationist regime in Ramallah (which serves as an
appendage of the Israeli occupation and takes its orders from regional
U.S. intelligence officials), smashed the hopes of masses. </span></p>
<p><span>Those who dreamt for decades about the liberation of Palestine
experienced even worse stages of the occupation, and the cruel siege of
Gaza only got tighter over time. </span></p>
<p><span>Palestinians in the West Bank, for the first time, had to deal
with fellow Palestinians who were put in charge of them to prevent them
from engaging in resistance or even criticizing the collaborators. </span></p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_104771" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-104771" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/4565875919_34d6274284_k.jpg" alt="" width="391" height="260" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-104771" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>A Palestinian confronts a group of charging Israeli soldiers in Bilin in the occupied West Bank in 2010. <span>(Edo Medicks, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)</span></span></p></div>
<p><span>There was an expectation that something would happen to break
the hold of the occupation and the PA over the lives of Palestinians.
And in Gaza, the miserable life that Israel forced on the Palestinians
could not last forever. </span></p>
<p><span> Hamas broke out of the prison, and there was unanimous support for its action in Palestinian and Arab public opinion. </span><span>(For
some reason, Western media assume that Western opinions influence
people around the world. They discovered in the Ukraine war that the
“world” is not the West).</span></p>
<p><span>Moreover, Arab governments — under the leadership of Saudi
Arabia and the UAE — have all but abandoned the Palestinian cause. They
have concluded that normalization with Israel is a requirement to
receive the most advanced weapons from the U.S. government, and that it
is a great guarantor of American indulgence of human rights abuses. </span></p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_60676" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60676" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/50346331571_2d4c2c601f_k.jpg" alt="" width="391" height="261" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-60676" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>Sept.
15, 2020: From left: UAE’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah bin
Zayed Al Nahyani, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Bahrain’s
Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zay and U.S.
President Donald Trump during the signing ceremony for the Abraham
Accords. <span>(White House, Joyce N. Boghosian)</span></span></p></div>
<p><span>Egypt’s Anwar Sadat experienced that first hand and for that,
in the months preceding his assassination, went on a rampage of
repression, crackdowns and persecution of dissidents. </span><span>The West supported him all the way, as it supports present-day despots, provided they don’t bother Israel and its occupation. </span></p>
<p><span>The Palestinians did not pin their hopes on Arab governments,
but the level of open Gulf hostility toward the Palestinians killed any
chance that Arab governments would help recover Arab lands from Israel.
Far from it, the Saudi regime media embarked on a campaign of
demonizing Palestinians, especially Hamas. </span></p>
<p><span>In the wake of the Deluge of Aqsa, admiration for Hamas and for
its perceived bravery and daring spread among the Arab people. The
videos of Abu `Ubayda (the military spokesperson of the military wing of
Hamas) were a huge hit, and were widely circulated in traditional Arab
and social media. </span></p>
<p><span>The image of `Ubayda was painted on walls and children dressed
like him, covering their faces with the traditional Palestinian
kufiyyahs. </span></p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_104770" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-104770" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/HamasSpokesmanIstanbul.jpg" alt="" width="391" height="288" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-104770" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>Poster of Hamas’ military spokesman Abu <span>`<span>Ubayda</span></span> at the Istanbul city wall, Nov. 10, 2023. <span>(Mahmoud al-turki, Wikimedia Commons, CC0)</span></span></p></div>
<p><span>The quality of Hamas military propaganda improved greatly and
people were glued to their screens in anticipation of the next
pronouncement. The tone of defiance in Hamas statements impressed many
in the Arab world and they contrasted that with the abysmal political
and military performance of the PLO. </span></p>
<p><span>Three months into the fighting, and the mighty Israeli army
could not score a notable military victory and is still unable to reach
to the top command of Hamas (yet, it bragged about capturing a shoe of
Hamas leader, Yihya Sinwar and hitting an apartment that it claimed was
once used as a hideout). [On Tuesday, Israel<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/02/middleeast/beirut-lebanon-hamas-official-killed-intl/index.html"> killed</a> Saleh Al-Arouri,<strong> </strong>deputy head of the political bureau of Hamas, in a drone attack in Beirut, Lebanon.]</span></p>
<p><span>In 1982, the Israeli army crossed the entire South Lebanon
region into the outskirts of Beirut in a matter of hours, despite the
presence of thousands of fighters from the PLO and the Lebanese National
Movement. </span></p>
<p><span><strong>New Quality of Resistance</strong></span></p>
<p><span>Arab public opinion has taken notice that the new resistance
movements, in Lebanon, Palestine and Yemen are of a different quality
from those of the past. That the personalities of the new leaders of
the resistance are fierce and even ruthless in comparison to PLO leaders
who did not hold up well under pressure (even Arafat who handled
pressure better than many of his colleagues, experienced bouts of doubt
and exhibited severe temper tantrums during the siege of Beirut,
according to the account of the then Lebanese prime minister, Sa’eb
Salam, in his recently posthumously released memoirs). </span></p>
<p><span>The rise of Hamas will continue, and it will dominate the Palestinian political scene for many years to come. </span><span>The
name of Hamas is heard in all the chants of Arab demonstrators and the
names of its leaders can be recognized in street graffiti. </span></p>
<p><span>The UAE and Saudi Arabia meanwhile want to promote the
Palestinian Authority as the alternative (the UAE wants to replace
Mahmoud Abbas with the thuggish, Muhammad Dahlan, a tool of Muhammad Bin
Zayid). </span></p>
<p><span>The Palestinian political spectrum is likely to shift after the dust settles in Gaza.</span></p>
<p><span>It is likely that those Fatah officials who built their careers
on corruption and fealty toward the Israeli army will be ostracized or
even assassinated. The end of the Gaza war will usher in a phase of
internecine Palestinian war, where collaborators will be targeted (Yahya
Sinwar, the political leader of Hamas, has a history of chasing and
punishing Israeli collaborators and infiltrators). </span></p>
<p><span>The Palestinian Authority is unlikely to spread into Gaza,
despite the wishes of the Biden-Blinken team. Hamas, in the wake of
Gaza, will be more emboldened and the plan (by the U.S. and Israel) to
eliminate Hamas will ensure that it will remain the backbone of the
Palestinian liberation movement. </span></p>
<p><span>Paradoxically, while Israel and the U.S. insisted that Hamas
will be eliminated, the genocidal war in Gaza and the stiff resistance
by Hamas has guaranteed it a prominent place of the movement in
Palestinian and Arab public opinion. Hamas will not be dislodged no
matter how much brutal force Israel employs.</span></p>
<p><span><b>As`ad AbuKhalil is a Lebanese-American professor of
political science at California State University, Stanislaus. He is the
author of the Historical Dictionary of Lebanon (1998), Bin Laden, Islam
and America’s New War on Terrorism (2002), The Battle for Saudi
Arabia (2004) and ran the popular The Angry Arab blog. He tweets as </b><a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%40asadabukhalil&src=typd"><b>@asadabukhalil</b></a></span></p>
<p><span><i><span>The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of </span></i><b>Consortium News.</b></span></p><br></div></div></div>
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