Because the situation of the Palestinians is hopeless. And it has BEEN hopeless since 1948 and even before. There are strong world powers that have always been against the Palestinians, starting with Britain, then the U.S. and Israel. But no organized power, no government, has ever really been on their side. Sure, Arab states have talked a good game at times- but they don’t even do THAT anymore! And Iran doesn’t care enough to go to war with Israel, a heavily armed nuclear power backed by the U.S. and Europe. Iran didn’t even retaliate when Israel was murdering its nuclear physics INSIDE IRAN, and sabotaging its nuclear facilities (with U.S. connivance- such as the notorious malware used to wreck Iran’s uranium centrifuges).Because the situation of the Palestinians is hopeless. And it has BEEN hopeless since 1948 and even before. There are strong world powers that have always been against the Palestinians, starting with Britain, then the U.S. and Israel. But no organized power, no government, has ever really been on their side. Sure, Arab states have talked a good game at times- but they don’t even do THAT anymore! And Iran doesn’t care enough to go to war with Israel, a heavily armed nuclear power backed by the U.S. and Europe. Iran didn’t even retaliate when Israel was murdering its nuclear physics INSIDE IRAN, and sabotaging its nuclear facilities (with U.S. connivance- such as the notorious malware used to wreck Iran’s uranium centrifuges).
So why does the hopelessness of the Palestinians’ situation mean that ONLY HAMAS can fight back? Because HAMAS is fanatical. And it takes fanatics to ignore reality and fight hopeless causes.
I’m not arguing that fanaticism is a good thing. I am pointing out an objective fact. Fanatics ignore the hopeless odds because of their fanatical dedication to their cause. What HAMAS did on October 7, 2023, has had disastrous consequences. (Similarly, Adolf Hitler’s fanaticism had disastrous consequences for Germany. Although Germany recovered, backed by the almighty U.S.A. The Palestinians never will.)
The same argument about the utility of fanaticism applies to Hezbollah in Lebanon. But that wasn’t hopeless, just nearly so. Yet Hezbollah finally drove out the Israeli occupation forces from Southern Lebanon, and defeated Israel’s Quisling Lebanese “army” Israel created.
Fanatics will undertake hopeless tasks. John Brown, the fanatical American abolitionist and martyr to the anti-slavery cause, is a good example.
Hamas did have success in driving the Israeli colonizers out of northern Gaza. Then prime minister Ariel Sharon, a man who literally spent his entire adult life killing Palestinians, first as an army commando leader who raided Palestinian villages in the 1950s, then as “Defense” minister who oversaw the massacre of thousands of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, and finally as the prime minister who ordered the murder of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, a murder from which the Palestinians have never recovered. This elimination enabled the U.S. and Israel to install a puppet “leadership” at the head of Fatah, designate them the “Palestinian Authority,” have the CIA create a secret police for them, and allow them to oppress the Palestinians trapped in the West Bank in partnership with Israel. Now that Israel is conducting a full-scale pogrom in the West Bank, with 500 murdered since October 7, 2023, and massive theft of Palestinian homes, lands, livestock, and other property, this puppet “leadership” has outlived its usefulness for Israel. Its “president,” Mahmoud Abbas, has recently taken to occasionally issuing a pathetic bleat about the ongoing atrocities against the people he pretends to lead.
Now we are almost 7 months into a Palestinian Holocaust in Gaza. The U.S. is the main culprit here, since it cannot occur without U.S. weapons and other support. Europe too has played a despicable, morally depraved role. And in the U.S. and Europe, the so-called “democratic West,” the mask is off the facade of “rights” and “freedom,” as happens every time there is really opposition from part of the populace to the criminal “policies” of the rulers. There has been violent police repression of nonviolent protest camps on several college campuses in the U.S. In Germany, the police prevent conferences on the ongoing genocide to be held. Displaying the Palestinian flag is a crime in Germany. In the UK the story is the same. Empty blather from prime minister Rishi Sunak about the “right” to protest, immediately qualified with a promise to back the police in suppressing the protests. In the U.S., president Genocide Joe Biden says he respects the right to protest, but not the current ones, which are creating “chaos,” a big lie repeated incessantly by the power establishment media and demagogic politicians who serve Israel, not the U.S. Protests against the atrocities are deemed expressions of “anti-Semitism,” and their suppression is demanded by politicians and endorsed by the propaganda system (aka the “mainstream media,” that is, the official propagandists of the corporate oligarchy).
In other words, the mask of “guaranteed rights” and “freedom of expression” is off, and once again, as always in U.S. history when the chips are down, the face of Bourgeois Totalitarianism is exposed.
PLEASE go to democracynow.org to follow the ongoing Palestinian Holocaust. And badger people you know about this issue to try and get them to care. Send them links to pieces on democracynow.org.
Israeli soldiers proudly take credit for the utter destruction of Gaza.
Israeli soldiers with Palestinian hostages, in a perfect site for another mass grave.
War isn’t all grimness. Fun-loving Israeli conquerors enjoy a Palestinian woman’s stolen underwear.
