7 ms·

The palestinians have a right to violent resistance to the occupation. On the Gaza strip they're denied international relations and trade so they can only make

by cess11 3y ago

The palestinians have a right to violent resistance to the occupation. On the Gaza strip they're denied international relations and trade so they can only make very primitive military equipment, which means that to reach an effect at all they pretty much have to fire unguided rockets into Israel. When they tried non-violent protest against the occupation, the "March of Return", by demonstrating at the border they were systematically mutilated by the IDF. There is an alternative, sure, prepare for a year and then invade Israel. Which they did, after decades of "mowing the lawn" as the israelis call it. The terror organisation classification of Hamas isn't as much about the political party or its affiliated militia as manufactured consent to relations with Israel and traditions among colonial states. The modern 'West' usually calls its enemies terrorist, like it did during the Mau Mau uprising. This is why so few states agree with this classification. You don't have to like Hamas but compared to the PA they're not very corrupt, and since they stopped doing suicide bombings they've been quite successful as a resistance movement. Since several years back they've also been quite good at unifying and coordinating the political parties and militias on the Gaza strip in preparation for and during periods of israeli military aggression, including with their main competitor in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, socialists from PFLP/DFLP/Fatah movement, Iran's Mujahideen movement and so on. Hamas isn't just a political party with a militia, it's also a charity movement. To most people it seems weird to call people terrorists because they take care of their vulnerable neighbours and run soup kitchens and the like.

fakedang 3y ago
> You don't have to like Hamas but compared to the PA they're not very corrupt, If your society's two choices are a.) lots of corruption, and b.) less corruption but with terrorism, then you've pretty much shown that you're incapable of self-governance as a people. > and since they stopped doing suicide bombings they've been quite successful as a resistance movement. Since several years back they've also been quite good at unifying and coordinating the political parties and militias on the Gaza strip in preparation for and during periods of israeli military aggression, including with their main competitor in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, socialists from PFLP/DFLP/Fatah movement, Iran's Mujahideen movement and so on. Sounds like if Israel didn't exist, these guys would just be fighting against Fatah instead. Or fighting between themselves.
- cess11 3y ago
  What do you mean by "terrorism", exactly? Yeah, possibly. In the West Bank militia groups have been fighting PA forces recently due to them harassing and killing militia men and generally assisting the IDF in the occupation. After the 2006 election the PA tried to oust Hamas from the Gaza strip and got violently expelled. On the other hand, over the decades since 2006 Hamas has co-existed with lots of political movements in the Gaza strip and helped make sure their militias continued recruiting and exercising. It has been a politically repressive environment for sure, in large part because you can't survive as a political movement under occupation without developing a serious paranoia.
  - fakedang 3y ago
    Has HN descended to such lows as to idealize Hamas now? Hamas terrorizes Palestinians, threatening those who dissent with cutoffs from basic amenities and even certain death. All of the aforementioned militia have good reason to distrust PA, because PA is the recognized representative of the Palestinian people by every single country in the world. No country gives a shit about Hamas. When aid is delivered to WB or Gaza, it's delivered in the name of the PA, even if they have lost control over Gaza for so many years. And why does Hamas oppose PA? Because their ideal government is one with roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a designated terrorist organization in the West as well as every surrounding country in the Middle East. One could argue that Hamas is the rightful representative of the Palestinian people. But is it really? Elections held in Palestine are often a sham affair, with threats and coercion abound. But even if they won with a resounding majority, the fact that Palestinians en masse chose to elect an organization that cuts their water supply to make rockets from pipes says a lot more about the kind of people Palestinians are, and why they shouldn't be supported too much (something which every Arab neighbour of theirs has figured out pretty much).
    - cess11 3y ago
      I disagree that I've idealised them. It's unclear what you mean by dissent. Before October 7th dissent was likely the majority political position in the Gaza strip, they weren't very popular. Suspected collaboration with the occupier or its affiliates has been dealt with harshly for sure, and to some extent this has hurt LGBTQ persons specifically since Israel likes to identify them and pressure them to become collaborators. Hamas opposes the PA because they are collaborating with the occupier. The ikhwan movement is feared by regional dictatorships because it is relatively egalitarian, hence they designate them as a terrorist organisation. It's been decades since they stopped using political violence, IIRC they did before Hamas began using it. Elections aren't often held in Palestine, so they can't often be anything at all. Abbas knows he'd be ousted if he called elections, so he won't. His buddies in Israel and the US also prefer that he stays in power, so they won't pressure him to call for elections either. As for aid, it goes through Israel rather than the PA. Same goes for money, the palestinians aren't allowed to have their own currency or financial system. Israel enjoys having the ability to refuse to pay out taxes they collect, for example. Israel routinely cuts water supply to the Gaza strip, and in the West Bank it forbids palestinians to collect rain water through a rather nasty bureaucratic regulation while at the same time destroying or stealing wells. Under such conditions it's somewhat reasonable to use infrastructure to try to get rid of the occupier, don't you think? What would you do?
WJW 3y ago
Nobody calls them terrorists because they run soup kitchens. People call them terrorists because they take children hostage and kill civilians. Destroying the Israel and killing its inhabitants is literally in their founding charter, and they act upon it whenever they get the chance. That is why they are terrorists.
- cess11 3y ago
  No, they got the designation because they used suicide bombings in the nineties. But OK, so you'd call Israel a terrorist state then? And consider Israel the bigger problem due to the scale of their actions? The Hamas charter is from 2017. Do you have any specific complaints about its contents?
  - WJW 3y ago
    > they got the designation because they used suicide bombings in the nineties Did you completely miss their actions on October 7th? They didn't stop that kind of thing after the nineties.
    - cess11 3y ago
      Were suicide bombings used on October 7th? Please answer my questions.
      - WJW 3y ago
        Don't be obtuse, there are many more forms of terrorism than suicide bombing. Israel should be more careful with the Palestinian population as a whole, but Hamas specifically have always been shitbags, are still shitbags and deserve every single shell coming their way.
        cess11 3y ago
        Maybe there are, but the reason they got designated as a terrorist organisation by a rather small number of states were the suicide bombings in the nineties. Sure, they might be shitbags, they're led by politicians after all. Have you considered sending the IDF a message and ask them to change their priorities and start aiming their shells mainly at al-Qassam brigade militants?
gryzzly 3y ago
[flagged]
- cess11 3y ago
  Well, the ukrainians would be an obvious example. No, I don't. Who are you quoting? Sinwar is popular because he successfully organises resistance towards the occupation and apparently doesn't do it to enrich himself. Russia had reasons, but I don't think they were particularly good reasons or enough to warrant the invasion.
  - gryzzly 3y ago
    What means do you think would be justified for Ukranian resistance? Would launching rockets at civilian quarters in Russia be OK? Or stabbing ordinary Russians in public transport? Is shooting at cars indiscriminately OK? At what point you think the western countries would consider withdrawing their support? You have an interesting opinion of "successful resistance". What happens in the West Bank and Gaza is really difficult to call "success" for Palestinians. Can you elaborate what you meant with "successful"? Happy to hear you don’t think rape and hostage taking are legitimate resistance. To follow up on this point – you believe Hamas didn’t do that? Or how do you simultaneously call them "charity resistance org" and disapprove of the extreme violence?
    - cess11 3y ago
      Not sure what you're getting at. Contemporary stabbings in Jerusalem and the West Bank are mainly aimed at soldiers, same goes for shootings. There are exceptions, but doesn't seem very common. I'm not following the conflict in Ukraine as closely but aren't there militia factions there attacking into Russia? Hamas has been relatively successful, more successful than their competitors. What success in some universal sense would look like, I don't know. Currently Israel has pretty big problems though so it seems kinda successful in some general sense? What do you mean by "extreme violence"? Reading this I get flashbacks to photos of people run over by israeli tanks and the kid who in november last year filmed himself when experiencing a lack of drones for the first time, so I think that's the kind of violence that has made the strongest impression on me from the last six months or so. Impulsively throwing handgrenades at people in a shelter is gruesome, but it lacks the calculation and sadism of running someone over with a tank and turning them into mush, or forcing kids to grow up under the constant hum of weaponised drones. As far as hostage taking and 'legitimacy', it's hard to come up with alternatives. Israel routinely takes palestinian kids off the street in occupied territories and put them in military detention centers, commonly abuses or tortures them, and keeps prisoners indefinitely on weak or non-existent grounds. To force Israel to release prisoners through other means than hostage exchange would likely require quite a bit more violence, and I'm not so sure that is preferable. I didn't call Hamas a charity organisation, I mentioned that they also do social and charity work. Which they do, and that's how they started.
Tainnor 3y ago
People can have different opinions on the way Israel is conducting this war. I know I am conflicted. But Hamas is not a legitimate resistance movement. It is a fundamentalist, oppressive, terrorist regime. You do not stand to gain anything by associating with them.
- cess11 3y ago
  I don't care whether they're considered legitimate or not, to me that's up to the palestinians to decide. Currently they're the most successful faction. They've also shown a lot of ideological pragmatism compared to e.g. Hezbollah, and their main competitor on the Gaza strip is a splinter called Palestinian Islamic Jihad which considers Hamas too pragmatic, too invested in 'soft' projects like social or charity work. I'm not as sure that the alternatives are better.
  - skinkestek 3y ago
    > I don't care whether they're considered legitimate or not, to me that's up to the palestinians to decide. Currently they're the most successful faction. Except they killed all opposition. Someone will have to root them out like the German nazis, put the area under military occupation until they are ready to elect a new government - just like postwar Germany - and sadly that someone is Israel since no one else steps up. I'd personally love if some other country told Israel to get lost, rooted out Hamas and administered Gaza until they were ready for elections. I'm sure most Israelis would love it too.
    - cess11 3y ago
      [flagged]
YZF 3y ago
People keep saying "right to a violent resistance" but it's not a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_resist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_resist Nobody has the "right" to kill other people. That's not a right. Gaza was not occupied, so they specifically didn't have the right you claim they had that doesn't even exist. > On the Gaza strip they're denied international relations and trade. This is also not true. When Israel left in 2005 they pretty much had control of their destiny. They chose to elect Hamas, that said its goal is to kill all Jews in the world. They chose to keep attacking Israel after Israel left. The full blockade on Gaza from the Israeli side was only imposed after Hamas came to power in 2007. Gaza still has a border with Egypt where they were free to negotiate any trade or relationships they felt like. Except the Egyptians didn't like them any better than Israel because they supported ISIS in Sinai.
- cess11 3y ago
  Yes it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_to_resist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_to_resist Yes it is. It definitely is. It's definitely very much a right to start killing soldiers if another country invades yours and starts occupying it. Yes it is. Israel controls the borders, airspace, finances, communications, water, and so on. This amounts to occupation. Your views are so very weird. IS in Sinai has executed people suspected of helping to supply weapons to the Gaza strip, they're at war with Hamas.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > People keep saying “right to a violent resistance” but it’s not a thing Your link says it is a thing: “In international law, the right to resist is closely related to the principle of self-determination. It is widely recognized that a right to self-determination arises in situations of colonial domination, foreign occupation, and racist regimes that deny a segment of the population political participation. According to international law, states may not use force against the lawful exercise of self-determination, while those seeking self-determination may use military force if there is no other way to achieve their goals.” > Gaza was not occupied, Gaza was openly occupied until 2005, and after that Israel “disengaged” but still actively patrolled Gaza’s waters, maintained what was in effect a free fire zone on the Gaza side of the border (with declared entry rules and prohibitions within certain distances, but the shootings occurred both well beyond the declared distances and when civilians were complying with the declared conditions), and otherwise used military force to effectively dictate conditions inside Gaza. Moreover, Palestine remains occupied whether or not the Gaza piece of it is.

by cess11 3y ago

fakedang 3y ago

> You don't have to like Hamas but compared to the PA they're not very corrupt, If your society's two choices are a.) lots of corruption, and b.) less corruption but with terrorism, then you've pretty much shown that you're incapable of self-governance as a people. > and since they stopped doing suicide bombings they've been quite successful as a resistance movement. Since several years back they've also been quite good at unifying and coordinating the political parties and militias on the Gaza strip in preparation for and during periods of israeli military aggression, including with their main competitor in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, socialists from PFLP/DFLP/Fatah movement, Iran's Mujahideen movement and so on. Sounds like if Israel didn't exist, these guys would just be fighting against Fatah instead. Or fighting between themselves.

cess11 3y ago
What do you mean by "terrorism", exactly? Yeah, possibly. In the West Bank militia groups have been fighting PA forces recently due to them harassing and killing militia men and generally assisting the IDF in the occupation. After the 2006 election the PA tried to oust Hamas from the Gaza strip and got violently expelled. On the other hand, over the decades since 2006 Hamas has co-existed with lots of political movements in the Gaza strip and helped make sure their militias continued recruiting and exercising. It has been a politically repressive environment for sure, in large part because you can't survive as a political movement under occupation without developing a serious paranoia.
- fakedang 3y ago
  Has HN descended to such lows as to idealize Hamas now? Hamas terrorizes Palestinians, threatening those who dissent with cutoffs from basic amenities and even certain death. All of the aforementioned militia have good reason to distrust PA, because PA is the recognized representative of the Palestinian people by every single country in the world. No country gives a shit about Hamas. When aid is delivered to WB or Gaza, it's delivered in the name of the PA, even if they have lost control over Gaza for so many years. And why does Hamas oppose PA? Because their ideal government is one with roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a designated terrorist organization in the West as well as every surrounding country in the Middle East. One could argue that Hamas is the rightful representative of the Palestinian people. But is it really? Elections held in Palestine are often a sham affair, with threats and coercion abound. But even if they won with a resounding majority, the fact that Palestinians en masse chose to elect an organization that cuts their water supply to make rockets from pipes says a lot more about the kind of people Palestinians are, and why they shouldn't be supported too much (something which every Arab neighbour of theirs has figured out pretty much).
  - cess11 3y ago
    I disagree that I've idealised them. It's unclear what you mean by dissent. Before October 7th dissent was likely the majority political position in the Gaza strip, they weren't very popular. Suspected collaboration with the occupier or its affiliates has been dealt with harshly for sure, and to some extent this has hurt LGBTQ persons specifically since Israel likes to identify them and pressure them to become collaborators. Hamas opposes the PA because they are collaborating with the occupier. The ikhwan movement is feared by regional dictatorships because it is relatively egalitarian, hence they designate them as a terrorist organisation. It's been decades since they stopped using political violence, IIRC they did before Hamas began using it. Elections aren't often held in Palestine, so they can't often be anything at all. Abbas knows he'd be ousted if he called elections, so he won't. His buddies in Israel and the US also prefer that he stays in power, so they won't pressure him to call for elections either. As for aid, it goes through Israel rather than the PA. Same goes for money, the palestinians aren't allowed to have their own currency or financial system. Israel enjoys having the ability to refuse to pay out taxes they collect, for example. Israel routinely cuts water supply to the Gaza strip, and in the West Bank it forbids palestinians to collect rain water through a rather nasty bureaucratic regulation while at the same time destroying or stealing wells. Under such conditions it's somewhat reasonable to use infrastructure to try to get rid of the occupier, don't you think? What would you do?

WJW 3y ago

Nobody calls them terrorists because they run soup kitchens. People call them terrorists because they take children hostage and kill civilians. Destroying the Israel and killing its inhabitants is literally in their founding charter, and they act upon it whenever they get the chance. That is why they are terrorists.

cess11 3y ago
No, they got the designation because they used suicide bombings in the nineties. But OK, so you'd call Israel a terrorist state then? And consider Israel the bigger problem due to the scale of their actions? The Hamas charter is from 2017. Do you have any specific complaints about its contents?
- WJW 3y ago
  > they got the designation because they used suicide bombings in the nineties Did you completely miss their actions on October 7th? They didn't stop that kind of thing after the nineties.
  - cess11 3y ago
    Were suicide bombings used on October 7th? Please answer my questions.
    - WJW 3y ago
      Don't be obtuse, there are many more forms of terrorism than suicide bombing. Israel should be more careful with the Palestinian population as a whole, but Hamas specifically have always been shitbags, are still shitbags and deserve every single shell coming their way.
      - cess11 3y ago
        Maybe there are, but the reason they got designated as a terrorist organisation by a rather small number of states were the suicide bombings in the nineties. Sure, they might be shitbags, they're led by politicians after all. Have you considered sending the IDF a message and ask them to change their priorities and start aiming their shells mainly at al-Qassam brigade militants?

gryzzly 3y ago

[flagged]

cess11 3y ago
Well, the ukrainians would be an obvious example. No, I don't. Who are you quoting? Sinwar is popular because he successfully organises resistance towards the occupation and apparently doesn't do it to enrich himself. Russia had reasons, but I don't think they were particularly good reasons or enough to warrant the invasion.
- gryzzly 3y ago
  What means do you think would be justified for Ukranian resistance? Would launching rockets at civilian quarters in Russia be OK? Or stabbing ordinary Russians in public transport? Is shooting at cars indiscriminately OK? At what point you think the western countries would consider withdrawing their support? You have an interesting opinion of "successful resistance". What happens in the West Bank and Gaza is really difficult to call "success" for Palestinians. Can you elaborate what you meant with "successful"? Happy to hear you don’t think rape and hostage taking are legitimate resistance. To follow up on this point – you believe Hamas didn’t do that? Or how do you simultaneously call them "charity resistance org" and disapprove of the extreme violence?
  - cess11 3y ago
    Not sure what you're getting at. Contemporary stabbings in Jerusalem and the West Bank are mainly aimed at soldiers, same goes for shootings. There are exceptions, but doesn't seem very common. I'm not following the conflict in Ukraine as closely but aren't there militia factions there attacking into Russia? Hamas has been relatively successful, more successful than their competitors. What success in some universal sense would look like, I don't know. Currently Israel has pretty big problems though so it seems kinda successful in some general sense? What do you mean by "extreme violence"? Reading this I get flashbacks to photos of people run over by israeli tanks and the kid who in november last year filmed himself when experiencing a lack of drones for the first time, so I think that's the kind of violence that has made the strongest impression on me from the last six months or so. Impulsively throwing handgrenades at people in a shelter is gruesome, but it lacks the calculation and sadism of running someone over with a tank and turning them into mush, or forcing kids to grow up under the constant hum of weaponised drones. As far as hostage taking and 'legitimacy', it's hard to come up with alternatives. Israel routinely takes palestinian kids off the street in occupied territories and put them in military detention centers, commonly abuses or tortures them, and keeps prisoners indefinitely on weak or non-existent grounds. To force Israel to release prisoners through other means than hostage exchange would likely require quite a bit more violence, and I'm not so sure that is preferable. I didn't call Hamas a charity organisation, I mentioned that they also do social and charity work. Which they do, and that's how they started.

Tainnor 3y ago

People can have different opinions on the way Israel is conducting this war. I know I am conflicted. But Hamas is not a legitimate resistance movement. It is a fundamentalist, oppressive, terrorist regime. You do not stand to gain anything by associating with them.

cess11 3y ago
I don't care whether they're considered legitimate or not, to me that's up to the palestinians to decide. Currently they're the most successful faction. They've also shown a lot of ideological pragmatism compared to e.g. Hezbollah, and their main competitor on the Gaza strip is a splinter called Palestinian Islamic Jihad which considers Hamas too pragmatic, too invested in 'soft' projects like social or charity work. I'm not as sure that the alternatives are better.
- skinkestek 3y ago
  > I don't care whether they're considered legitimate or not, to me that's up to the palestinians to decide. Currently they're the most successful faction. Except they killed all opposition. Someone will have to root them out like the German nazis, put the area under military occupation until they are ready to elect a new government - just like postwar Germany - and sadly that someone is Israel since no one else steps up. I'd personally love if some other country told Israel to get lost, rooted out Hamas and administered Gaza until they were ready for elections. I'm sure most Israelis would love it too.
  - cess11 3y ago
    [flagged]

YZF 3y ago

People keep saying "right to a violent resistance" but it's not a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_resist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_resist Nobody has the "right" to kill other people. That's not a right. Gaza was not occupied, so they specifically didn't have the right you claim they had that doesn't even exist. > On the Gaza strip they're denied international relations and trade. This is also not true. When Israel left in 2005 they pretty much had control of their destiny. They chose to elect Hamas, that said its goal is to kill all Jews in the world. They chose to keep attacking Israel after Israel left. The full blockade on Gaza from the Israeli side was only imposed after Hamas came to power in 2007. Gaza still has a border with Egypt where they were free to negotiate any trade or relationships they felt like. Except the Egyptians didn't like them any better than Israel because they supported ISIS in Sinai.

cess11 3y ago
Yes it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_to_resist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_to_resist Yes it is. It definitely is. It's definitely very much a right to start killing soldiers if another country invades yours and starts occupying it. Yes it is. Israel controls the borders, airspace, finances, communications, water, and so on. This amounts to occupation. Your views are so very weird. IS in Sinai has executed people suspected of helping to supply weapons to the Gaza strip, they're at war with Hamas.
dragonwriter 3y ago
> People keep saying “right to a violent resistance” but it’s not a thing Your link says it is a thing: “In international law, the right to resist is closely related to the principle of self-determination. It is widely recognized that a right to self-determination arises in situations of colonial domination, foreign occupation, and racist regimes that deny a segment of the population political participation. According to international law, states may not use force against the lawful exercise of self-determination, while those seeking self-determination may use military force if there is no other way to achieve their goals.” > Gaza was not occupied, Gaza was openly occupied until 2005, and after that Israel “disengaged” but still actively patrolled Gaza’s waters, maintained what was in effect a free fire zone on the Gaza side of the border (with declared entry rules and prohibitions within certain distances, but the shootings occurred both well beyond the declared distances and when civilians were complying with the declared conditions), and otherwise used military force to effectively dictate conditions inside Gaza. Moreover, Palestine remains occupied whether or not the Gaza piece of it is.