Over at CiF, Peter Tatchell asks: “Why are the left and the anti-war movement ignoring Hamas’s repression of the Palestinian people?”
He doffs his hat towards my article from a week or so back that points out that, unlike the ANC, Hamas have no political programme or vision that a progressive could get behind.
Tatchell argues:
Far from advancing the Palestinian cause, Hamas’s strategy is constantly weakening and undermining it. The people of Gaza are worse off in every way since Hamas took control.
The Gazan people are lions led by Hamas donkeys. These donkeys keep giving Israel an excuse to attack the Palestinian people and to frustrate the urgent task of creating a viable, independent Palestinian state.
I have some sympathy for a one-state solution – a unified democratic, secular state of Palestine-Israel, based on a confederation of autonomous, self-governing Jewish, Arab and mixed towns and cities, where all Israelis and Palestinians can live together in peace, security, harmony and equality.
As well as the intransigence of short-sighted Israelis, one of the major obstacles to this dream is Hamas. It demands an Islamist state governed by sharia law. It won’t accept equal co-existence or secularism, democracy and human rights.
Of course, it being CiF, despite not softening his well-known stance against Israeli excesses and reiterating his position supporting justice for Palestine, the usual suspects are quick to denounce him as an Zionist stooge and apologist for imperialism. Well, at least he tried. But increasingly few want to hear about the fascist side of Hamas. Even an Amnesty International post on the issue on Indymedia attracted a blizzard of bile.
It’s all very depressing.
