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I posted this perspective previously ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38071749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38071749 ) but it was immediately flag

I posted this perspective previously ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38071749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38071749 ) but it was immediately flagged out: https://libcom.org/article/voices-front-line-against-occupation-interview-palestinian-anarchists https://libcom.org/article/voices-front-line-against-occupat... >I want you to know something else, which is that the Palestinian Authority and President Mahmoud Abbas do not represent us, the Palestinian people, at all. We reject authority and we reject Abbas and all his ministers. I do not know whether you have heard of the security coordination agreement between the Zionist occupation and the Palestinian Authority. Years ago, the Palestinian Authority concluded an agreement under which it would serve the occupying entity in terms of security. That is, all the young Palestinian activists who fight the Zionist occupation in one way or another and the occupation cannot arrest them, the Palestinian Authority pursues them, arrests them, and hands them over to the occupation, and then no one knows the fate of that young man or that girl. These do not represent us, nor any other Palestinian. These are completely rejected in the Palestinian street, but unfortunately they are officially and internationally recognized by the United Nations and supported by the United States of America.

ZunarJ5 3y ago
Additional friendly reminder that Bush Jr is responsible for Hamas. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/was-hamas-elected-to-govern-gaza-george-w-bush-2006-palestinian-election.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/was-hamas-electe...
- hersko 3y ago
  Don't treat the Palestinians like they have no agency...
  - roenxi 3y ago
    Based on what I know about Palestinians, they appear to be close to having no agency. They don't control what crosses their border, the Israeli government may well be trying to destroy them and their politics are the plaything of regional and non-regional powers. For example, Israel played a role in incubating Hamas [0, 1]. Now if I were in Gaza my opinion is that what they are doing is stupid. They don't really have a choice but to like it and make the best of their situation with charity, tolerance and love. All the other plays lead to worse results. But there aren't many political bodies with less agency. [0] https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/07/30/how-israel-helped-create-hamas/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/07/30...
  - ZunarJ5 3y ago
    Never said that they were saints. It's important to know what you're actually dealing with though. From the article: "In other words, Hamas’ absolute rule of Gaza is not what the Palestinians voted for back in 2006. In fact, since the median age of Gazans is 18, half of Hamas’ subjects weren’t even born when the election took place." I cannot help but see most of the arguments that people make equating Hamas with Palestinians as bad faith. Explanations are not excuses and knowing why things are happening is the first real step towards fixing anything.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > In fact, since the median age of Gazans is 18, half of Hamas’ subjects weren’t even born when the election took place. And, for the same reason, the ones that were born largely couldn't vote.
      - ZunarJ5 3y ago
        Yes, it's inferrable with some caution. There's also the obvious elephant in the room that Israel is executing a disproportional response to the terror attacks and the conditions they're creating will only extend this conflict and create more terror. As the article states, it's pretty well understood that citizens need stable material conditions before voting really works well, otherwise they tend to trend towards the reactionary.
  - NotSammyHagar 3y ago
    They have no power, and israel and hamas are killing them in the middle of their war. That is just a misleading comment. They have very very very little power to change things right now. It looks like people are just hoping not to die, and people are dieing all around them.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Additional friendly reminder that Bush Jr is responsible for Hamas. Israeli policy during the occupation is responsible for Hamas, and it existed before W had any foreign policy influence. Blaming Bush for Hamas because he was somehow responsible for the elections happening is stupid. The elections happening was a good thing. Fatah stupidly rejecting the idea of a national unity government was a bad thing. Israel deliberately seeking to assure a Hamas victory by interfering with campaigning, and voter registration, conducting a targeted campaign of arrests of Palestinian politicians, and doing everything possible to make the Fatah-led PA look weak, complicit, and corrupt in Israel's favor in the immediate runup to the elections was horrible -- but predictable given the entire history of Israel actively promoting Hamas, from its founding, as a tool to divide Palestinians and assure that there was a public face of opposition less sympathetic to, particularly, the population of Israel's Western Allies (particularly the US) than the more secular nationalists of the PLO during the height of occupation, and Fatah as a political party once there was an entity to have political parties.
  - ZunarJ5 3y ago
    Sorry, it was an oversimplification, but the article here is pretty decent. The major takeaway is that conditions were not right and the whole election cycle was a bit ham fisted. Your break down is appreciated as it's got a lot of moving parts!
__blockcipher__ 3y ago
> These are completely rejected in the Palestinian street, but unfortunately they are officially and internationally recognized by the United Nations and supported by the United States of America. To me a smoking gun here is that Biden's administration wants the Palestinian Authority to rule Gaza "after Hamas" (as an aside, I sincerely doubt Israel will be successful in destroying Hamas, but ofc even if they do there will just be a more radical group taking its place anyway); history shows pretty well that the US only installs a power when they know they will be a vassal/puppet of US interests. There's many examples but the most recent one is when we (I'm American) propped up the bogus Afghanistan "Government" only for it to instantly collapse and be replaced again by the Taliban the moment we withdrew. Really hope there's a path forward that gives the Palestinians real autonomy and an end to the bloodshed. In reality, I expect this conflict to continue indefinitely and us to just continue supporting the occupation, which I find heartbreaking but my rational mind is convinced is the most likely outcome.
- qwytw 3y ago
  > history shows pretty well that the US only installs a power when they Instead of coming up with conspiracy theories we could consider what other options there are. There are effectively only three powers which could control Gaza if/when Hamas is defeat: Egypt, Israel and the PA. Egypt certainly doesen't want anything to do with the region or Palestinians anymore. So US can only chose between supporting a direct Israeli occupation or a semi-indirect one (through the Palestinian Authority). I don't think the US government wants to install a puppet regime in Gaza, they'd rather have absolutely nothing to do with at all. Tangential but when it comes to Afghanistan I'm almost certain that stupidity and incompetence (and one might guess a good dose of corruption) rather than outright malice or imperialism were to blame for that entire disaster. > Palestinians real autonomy Well to some extent Hamas was the closest they got to that for decades.
  - __blockcipher__ 3y ago
    > Instead of coming up with conspiracy theories we could consider what other options there are. There are effectively only three powers which could control Gaza if/when Hamas is defeat: Egypt, Israel and the PA. I'm sorry, but the US installing powers that are favorable to it is not a conspiracy theory. It's a conspiracy fact. How do you think Pinochet and others happened? It certainly wasn't organic (at least not entirely so). Anyway, regarding the options, there's technically a few more like Jordan or other arab states, or a new organization arising (albeit in reality the US and others would intervene to stop them taking power). But beyond those quibbles I don't disagree with you that there's no good options, I'm just stating my belief that if we support organization X, it's because organization X is directly controlled by us or indirectly its incentives align well with our own. > Well to some extent Hamas was the closest they got to that for decades. Agreed fully, and that's one of the problems. > I'm almost certain that stupidity and incompetence (and one might guess a good dose of corruption) rather than outright malice or imperialism were to blame for that entire disaster. Why not both? Imperialism is a pretty stupid ideology, at least if one's goal is to keep one's country safe and powerful. If one's goal is to extract resources from one's own country at the cost of lots of bloodshed of your citizens and others', then it achieves the goal fine.
starik36 3y ago
[flagged]

ZunarJ5 3y ago

Additional friendly reminder that Bush Jr is responsible for Hamas. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/was-hamas-elected-to-govern-gaza-george-w-bush-2006-palestinian-election.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/was-hamas-electe...

hersko 3y ago
Don't treat the Palestinians like they have no agency...
- roenxi 3y ago
  Based on what I know about Palestinians, they appear to be close to having no agency. They don't control what crosses their border, the Israeli government may well be trying to destroy them and their politics are the plaything of regional and non-regional powers. For example, Israel played a role in incubating Hamas [0, 1]. Now if I were in Gaza my opinion is that what they are doing is stupid. They don't really have a choice but to like it and make the best of their situation with charity, tolerance and love. All the other plays lead to worse results. But there aren't many political bodies with less agency. [0] https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/07/30/how-israel-helped-create-hamas/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/07/30...
- ZunarJ5 3y ago
  Never said that they were saints. It's important to know what you're actually dealing with though. From the article: "In other words, Hamas’ absolute rule of Gaza is not what the Palestinians voted for back in 2006. In fact, since the median age of Gazans is 18, half of Hamas’ subjects weren’t even born when the election took place." I cannot help but see most of the arguments that people make equating Hamas with Palestinians as bad faith. Explanations are not excuses and knowing why things are happening is the first real step towards fixing anything.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > In fact, since the median age of Gazans is 18, half of Hamas’ subjects weren’t even born when the election took place. And, for the same reason, the ones that were born largely couldn't vote.
    - ZunarJ5 3y ago
      Yes, it's inferrable with some caution. There's also the obvious elephant in the room that Israel is executing a disproportional response to the terror attacks and the conditions they're creating will only extend this conflict and create more terror. As the article states, it's pretty well understood that citizens need stable material conditions before voting really works well, otherwise they tend to trend towards the reactionary.
- NotSammyHagar 3y ago
  They have no power, and israel and hamas are killing them in the middle of their war. That is just a misleading comment. They have very very very little power to change things right now. It looks like people are just hoping not to die, and people are dieing all around them.
dragonwriter 3y ago
> Additional friendly reminder that Bush Jr is responsible for Hamas. Israeli policy during the occupation is responsible for Hamas, and it existed before W had any foreign policy influence. Blaming Bush for Hamas because he was somehow responsible for the elections happening is stupid. The elections happening was a good thing. Fatah stupidly rejecting the idea of a national unity government was a bad thing. Israel deliberately seeking to assure a Hamas victory by interfering with campaigning, and voter registration, conducting a targeted campaign of arrests of Palestinian politicians, and doing everything possible to make the Fatah-led PA look weak, complicit, and corrupt in Israel's favor in the immediate runup to the elections was horrible -- but predictable given the entire history of Israel actively promoting Hamas, from its founding, as a tool to divide Palestinians and assure that there was a public face of opposition less sympathetic to, particularly, the population of Israel's Western Allies (particularly the US) than the more secular nationalists of the PLO during the height of occupation, and Fatah as a political party once there was an entity to have political parties.
- ZunarJ5 3y ago
  Sorry, it was an oversimplification, but the article here is pretty decent. The major takeaway is that conditions were not right and the whole election cycle was a bit ham fisted. Your break down is appreciated as it's got a lot of moving parts!

__blockcipher__ 3y ago

> These are completely rejected in the Palestinian street, but unfortunately they are officially and internationally recognized by the United Nations and supported by the United States of America. To me a smoking gun here is that Biden's administration wants the Palestinian Authority to rule Gaza "after Hamas" (as an aside, I sincerely doubt Israel will be successful in destroying Hamas, but ofc even if they do there will just be a more radical group taking its place anyway); history shows pretty well that the US only installs a power when they know they will be a vassal/puppet of US interests. There's many examples but the most recent one is when we (I'm American) propped up the bogus Afghanistan "Government" only for it to instantly collapse and be replaced again by the Taliban the moment we withdrew. Really hope there's a path forward that gives the Palestinians real autonomy and an end to the bloodshed. In reality, I expect this conflict to continue indefinitely and us to just continue supporting the occupation, which I find heartbreaking but my rational mind is convinced is the most likely outcome.

qwytw 3y ago
> history shows pretty well that the US only installs a power when they Instead of coming up with conspiracy theories we could consider what other options there are. There are effectively only three powers which could control Gaza if/when Hamas is defeat: Egypt, Israel and the PA. Egypt certainly doesen't want anything to do with the region or Palestinians anymore. So US can only chose between supporting a direct Israeli occupation or a semi-indirect one (through the Palestinian Authority). I don't think the US government wants to install a puppet regime in Gaza, they'd rather have absolutely nothing to do with at all. Tangential but when it comes to Afghanistan I'm almost certain that stupidity and incompetence (and one might guess a good dose of corruption) rather than outright malice or imperialism were to blame for that entire disaster. > Palestinians real autonomy Well to some extent Hamas was the closest they got to that for decades.
- __blockcipher__ 3y ago
  > Instead of coming up with conspiracy theories we could consider what other options there are. There are effectively only three powers which could control Gaza if/when Hamas is defeat: Egypt, Israel and the PA. I'm sorry, but the US installing powers that are favorable to it is not a conspiracy theory. It's a conspiracy fact. How do you think Pinochet and others happened? It certainly wasn't organic (at least not entirely so). Anyway, regarding the options, there's technically a few more like Jordan or other arab states, or a new organization arising (albeit in reality the US and others would intervene to stop them taking power). But beyond those quibbles I don't disagree with you that there's no good options, I'm just stating my belief that if we support organization X, it's because organization X is directly controlled by us or indirectly its incentives align well with our own. > Well to some extent Hamas was the closest they got to that for decades. Agreed fully, and that's one of the problems. > I'm almost certain that stupidity and incompetence (and one might guess a good dose of corruption) rather than outright malice or imperialism were to blame for that entire disaster. Why not both? Imperialism is a pretty stupid ideology, at least if one's goal is to keep one's country safe and powerful. If one's goal is to extract resources from one's own country at the cost of lots of bloodshed of your citizens and others', then it achieves the goal fine.

starik36 3y ago

[flagged]