The 21st Century's First Pogrom
At the heart of Hamas' murderous attack was the killing of innocent Jewish people, in cold blood, under the guise of fighting for Palestinian rights.
What occurred Saturday and throughout the weekend in Israel was nothing short of a pogrom, a systematic mass slaughter of Jewish people. It was an antisemitic attack whose only outcome and objective was to kidnap, rape and murder women, children and the elderly, including a holocaust survivor, simply because they were Jewish. Like the pogroms in Germany during the 1930s and 40s, done under the threat and fog of war, this hate crime en masse was done supposedly in defense of Palestinian national rights, as just another episode in a broader war with Israel.
This cynical justification, however, is false and must be disallowed.
The surprise attack by Hamas came at a time when Israel was winning more and more recognition by Arab and Muslim majority countries around the world, a process begun with the Trump Administration’s negotiating and implementation of The Abraham Accords, treaties establishing the normalization of diplomatic ties between Israel and countries which until then hadn’t recognized Israel’s independence. The vast majority of these countries had hitherto withheld recognizing Israel, citing the Palestinian question as their primary motive. For decades, since its founding in 1948 (after the second world war), Israel suffered pariah-state status in the region, spanning from north Africa to west Asia. This status quo, however, was coming to an end.
Country after country, from the United Arab Emirates to Morocco and India, signed on to the accords which would establish trade and commerce between largely Muslim or Arab societies, with the only Jewish state in world history. These agreements with Israel could only be hailed by all reasonable people worldwide. While they did not resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict in one broad swoop, they nevertheless laid the groundwork and paved a path towards a lasting peace.
Recognizing and establishing regular relations with Israel, whose workforce is increasingly comprised of immigrants from Africa and Asia, would give the signatories of the accords good-faith leverage to demand a democratic Palestinian state in the near future and would pressure the Israelis, diplomatically and politically rather than militarily, to make concessions.
Most importantly, as championed primarily by the American Socialist Workers Party and its affiliated Communist Leagues in Canada and the UK, the Abraham Accords will open the way for workers from across the Middle East and Africa and elsewhere to work alongside Israelis — Jewish, Arab, Kurdish, Armenian. This will forge new solidarity between working people across the region, the only force that can overcome the bloody history between the various peoples and religions. The forging of solidarity in the Middle East is unstoppable, as the governments of the signatory countries will not be intimidated from continuing their relations with Israel by Hamas’ actions. The latest country slated to recognize Israel, in a historic move, is Saudi Arabia.
Along with the bloodlust, the attacks carried out by Hamas (backed by Tehran and Damascus) were aimed at undermining and halting this process of normalization. These forces, and their propagandists in the anglosphere, bitterly complained that the world’s recognition of the “Zionist” state was “throwing the Palestinians under the bus.” These same forces, echoing the statements of Hamas leadership, hailed and praised the attacks. Meanwhile, the leftist/Stalinist wing of this grouping claims that Hamas was only “standing up against settler colonialism.” Some liberal Democratic Party politicians in the U.S. have even made sympathetic statements towards Hamas. Their goal is to preserve anti-Jewish sentiment and destroy the Israeli state.
How does gunning down concert goers at a music festival, brutalizing women on the street, kidnapping children, and publicly executing innocent captives undermine colonialism? Yes, we all remember how the Algerians, Bolsheviks and Cubans publicly executed innocent civilians at random during their anticolonial struggles.
For more than 30 years, Hamas has been at the vanguard of international Jew hatred. Hamas has longstanding ties with antisemitic forces in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, and has enjoyed political support from former Stalinists and ultra-leftists in the Americas, Asia and Europe. Ultra-right-wing forces like the Ku Klux Klan and other neo-Nazi and neo-Confederate groups have also expressed solidarity with Islamist groups like Hamas over the years. Since their inception, Hamas has Israel’s destruction as one of its primary objectives, while promoting texts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
On the political front, Hamas has been behind the international campaign to scapegoat the Israeli state for the world’s problems — the so-called Boycott Divestment and Sanctions “movement” (BDS). Borrowing from the language of the proud and mighty anti-apartheid movement, also as cover for its hateful motives, Hamas’ proxies worldwide called for governments and institutions to cut off any and all relations with Israel and those who support its right to exist as a nation. Using “Palestinian rights” as cover, BDS’ single aim is to delegitimize Israel internationally.
For those who have genuinely and sincerely fought for a Palestinian homeland over the decades, Hamas’ hijacking of the legitimate Palestinian national struggle is a tragedy and failure by truly progressive forces in the region to secure peace. Beginning in the 1920s, and through the second world war and beyond, the Palestinian and Jewish labor movements were strong. Jewish and Arab workers stood side by side even prior to Israel’s founding, stating that they refused to be pitted against one another. But as the world labor and communist movement was hijacked by Stalin, the revolutionary movements in the region were impeded and corrupted, leading to the defeat of labor in every country of the Middle East.
While the old secular forces in the region steadily lost credibility, particularly on the Palestinian side, reactionary and clerical terrorist forces filled the political vacuum. Today, the Palestinian Authority and its institutions in the West Bank differ to whatever Hamas says and does. They follow Hamas’ reactionary line of delegitimatizing Israel and have even made excuses for the attacks.
Although all reasonable and working people in the world should condemn these attacks by Hamas and resolve to defeat antisemitism wherever it rears its head, the legitimate and just right of the Palestinians to a democratic state must neither be lost nor conflated with the actions of the murderers. Hamas does not call for a fair and equal Palestinian state. It calls for the destruction of the Israeli state and the establishment of a fundamentalist Muslim state, defying the fact that around twenty percent of Palestinians are Christian as well as other religions including atheists. They also seek to expel all Jews from the Middle East, “from the river to the sea.”
Far from representing the interests and national rights of the Palestinians, who are hardworking, innovative and peaceful people, the murderous and genocidal attacks by Hamas were designed to undermine a two-state solution. Both Israelis and Palestinians have legitimate claims, and thus mutual recognition is the only path towards lasting peace. The destruction and defeat of Hamas, as well as its organizational networks and patrons in Tehran, will clear the last major roadblock to peace in the Middle East.
jonathansalinas@substack.com