Hamas's slaughter of civilians is not an accident

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Hamas's slaughter of civilians is not an accident

Octber 22, 2023

The current increase in fighting began on October 7, when the armed wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, attacked across the fortified border wall into Israel in “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” (also translated as Al-Alqsa Deluge). Hamas surprised the Israeli troops, crossed the heavily fortified border walls, and successfully attacked a number of Israeli military bases, but also made a point of attacking civilian areas, taking hostages, and slaughtering a number of civilians, including 260 people at a music festival. And day after day, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have fired thousands of rockets indiscriminately throughout Israel. Thus the civilian carnage was not an accident, but an integral part of Hamas’s offensive; this atrocity says a lot about the nature of the leadership of Hamas. It does not justify the barbaric Israeli devastation of Gaza, or discredit Palestinian resistance as a whole, and the Israeli revenge kills far more than Hamas ever did. Nevertheless it is both a crime against its victims, and a betrayal of the Palestinian liberation struggle.

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Hamas’s slaughter of civilians in the al-Aqsa Flood is also not an accident. It is because Hamas is part of a fundamentalist trend which fights in this way. For years the Palestinian movement was led by groups with a secular program, but the rise of Hamas meant that Islamic fundamentalism was gaining influence. It takes part in the just resistance to Israeli oppression, but, both in its goals and its methods, it also represents a danger to the liberation movement.

Hamas doesn’t seek a democratic state, but an Islamic state. It has been limited in how far it could implement this in Gaza because the masses wouldn’t accept it. It has ruled Gaza since 2007, but it hasn’t held elections in those 16 years. (4)

As for its military methods, the massacres the Al-Aqsa Flood were not an accident, nor the result of a few undisciplined fighters. It was planned by experienced leaders. They didn’t launch the operation in order to hold more territory; that would have been unrealistic. Instead it aimed to take hostages and show how much damage it could do. This wasn’t something new. Hamas has always fired rockets to hit targets indiscriminately in Israel, as well as sought hostages.

Still, Hamas has not killed anywhere near as many people as the Israeli government has. So, some have asked, why be so concerned about it? For one thing, it is a crime against working people. For another, it is a sign of what the fundamentalist trend would do on a larger scale if it had more power. And as well, it’s because Hamas’s actions damage the Palestinian movement in a way that Israeli raids alone cannot. Hamas’s actions drive a wedge between the Palestinian cause and the mass of working people around the world. They also hold back Palestinians from dealing with the political crisis among them, which has existed ever since the Oslo Agreements of 1993. And Hamas’s rule in Gaza has set forward a model of governing by suppression which is meeting with resistance from many Palestinians. All this doesn’t negate that Israeli apartheid is the vicious oppressor of the Palestinians, and the just struggle of the Palestinian people deserves the utmost support. But Hamas’s actions can’t be ignored without harming the interests of the working people, Palestinian, Jewish, or others.

Excerpted from Stand with the Palestinian people! Oppose the Israeli devastation of Gaza!
by Joseph Green, Detroit Workers' Voice, October 22, 2023
(https://www.communistvoice.org/DSWV-231022.html)