Be careful what you wish for
Why we should support Palestinians without endorsing Hamas
BY Yifat Sisskind
Photography by Reuters: Morteza Nikoubazi
In June, Hamas fighters forced the Fatah militias of Mahmoud Abbas out of the Gaza Strip. Hamas claims it was a pre-emptive strike, aimed at preventing the Fatah militias—which are armed and funded by the U.S. and Israel—from using those weapons to crush Hamas. As a result of the fighting, Gaza and the West Bank are effectively split, with Hamas governing exclusively in Gaza and Fatah confined to the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The new situation leaves Palestinians at an even greater risk of human rights abuses—in particular, people in Gaza face the threat of another Israeli military invasion.
As North American progressives, our primary job remains the same as before: to work for an end to Israeli occupation. It is Israel’s occupation and U.S. meddling in Palestinian affairs that are the root causes of today’s crisis, and our response now must be strategic solidarity with the people of Palestine, through a politics that moves us closer to the world we want to inhabit. To this end, we need to support the people of Palestine, but without endorsing the worldview of Hamas. For while Hamas opposes the occupation, it does not share a commitment to ending militarism and promoting the full range of human rights, including rights based on gender and sexuality.
We must also avoid reinforcing the Bush administration’s anti-Arab, anti-Islamic rhetoric. How we do that is by taking a stand for a sane and humane policy in the Middle East. When we demand an end to Israeli occupation and U.S. attempts to control the resources and governments of the region, we refuse to be conscripted into Bush’s “war on terror.”
Some people worry that criticizing Hamas means casting doubt on the legitimacy of its leadership. It doesn’t. Hamas won a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council through a fair election and must be part of any future negotiations. Moreover, Hamas has enabled many Palestinians to survive the ravages of Israeli occupation by providing health care, education and other critical social services to families in need.
Some say it is wrong to criticize Hamas because it is the only major Palestinian party that has not caved in to U.S./Israeli pressure to compromise on Palestinian national rights. That is arguably true, but it is a mistake to exalt Hamas as a liberatory movement just because it is opposing the U.S. and Israel. Parts of the left have made this mistake before.
In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, some activists lionized nationalist leaders such as Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia. These men were applauded because they opposed attempts by the U.S. and Europe to dominate their countries. They were applauded despite the fact that they ran corrupt and murderous regimes that persecuted pro-democracy activists, socialists, pacifists and other progressives.
Others argue the only way to support Palestinians is to end Israeli occupation. Afterward, they say, questions about the rights of women, gays, lesbians, atheists and anybody else who may not fit Hamas’s vision of Palestinian citizenship can be raised. The problem with that argument is that there is no “afterward.” The world is full of examples of people who were told to wait for their rights to be respected. Many of those people are now dead, in exile, or in jail.
We’ve learned from the bitter experience of Iranian leftists and feminists who initially supported the anti-imperialist Islamists in their country, but were rounded up once the Islamists took power. And we’ve learned that the political process of attaining our vision for society is no less important than the end point. In fact, there is no end point; there is only the ongoing historical process of changing our societies. We need to identify the Palestinians who share a progressive vision, and support them in their work for a society in which the full range of human rights are protected for all people.
