Palestine situation; hamas/fatah fighting

That's the kind of thing.

you know if you weren't such a boring twat with such clunky rheotric there could almost be a half decent point in the middle of that.

btw is an irony bypass a central tenant of left communist thought or what?

This shit is all down to Mohammed Dahlan of Fatah, gangster no. 1 and Israel's proxy. This stuff was bound to come when the Tunisians (what has also been called the Oslo class) and their private armies got outed in the elections, combined with the fact that the Israel planned for this to happen by withdrawing from Gaza. Still Hamas are again showing political stupidity (a trademark of theirs since they won the elections) and are playing right into the hands of Fatah and Israel. A civil war in Gaza has been an Israeli wet dream for ages.

For pretty good updates on what's happening in Gaza I would recommend Tabula Gaza and Conflict Blotter.

yes because clearly one could never be making a serious point with a joke.

fuck youse are such anti social weirdo's.

I think I'm going to support Fatah, they seem nicer.

This is a major incident and should be a major discussion. It's important not only for the Palestinian masses but for the position of the working class in the main industrial centres. It also demands to be situated in the overall framework of the implosion of the eastern bloc, the subsequent collapse of the western and the growing centrifugal tendencies of each for themselves.
Joseph, I've looked for your position on leftism and Palestine and can't find it. Possibly I'm looking in the wrong place...
I know what sarcasm is - it's biting wit. It is not toothless drivel.
I've nothing against jokes Revol - let me know when you make one (Terry Wogan impressions don't count).

yep pretty much, however it does mean Hamas can no longer play the permanent opposition card and we may hope that once in power the support they had as the defacto opposition will wither away. [clutching at straws]

Is it true that Mohammed is the UK's most popular name for baby boys? A friend of mine said so, I don't know whether to believe him.

Knightrose: I think it's more accurate to say that this conflict is a result of the weakness of the working class in the region. We have to make it clear that a victory for Fatah (which is backed by Israel at the moment) would have been equally disastrous. The 'defeat' is the mobilisation on the nationalist terrain, on all sides of this conflict.
I am also doubtful whether the way out of this nightmare is a "mass popular struggle against the wall". I would agree that the struggle against daily repression and the restriction of access to work can be part of the class struggle, but "struggles against the wall" in themselves are more likely to be interclassist or nationalist and don't serve to bring out distinctive working class interests. The best hope seems to be the development of some of the strike movements we have seen in the region recently, in Israel, Palestine and in particular Egypt, and the growing realisation that they are part of an international class movement.

Ah right. I did read that story in The Times, but clearly anything that features the phrase "Jack was the most popular" deserves to be taken with a pinch of salt.

I find this conversation interesting, and find it funny that it has started with a general attack on any kind of liberation movement as being "nationalist" in character. This term has almost lost its meaning on libcom -- it has become a hollow term used to associate what we dislike about nationalist and patriotism in first world countries, with any movement that identifies with a cultural, religious, or geographical boundary as being sovereign from another.

The real thing happening here is the US is dividing its opposition to its massive, aparteid state military base [Israel]. It's very clear divide and conquer - they have clearly orchestrated this shift in the power balance -- Fatah caved because they were starved for arms in the Gaza strip, and denied all semblance of logistical aid, and their leadership was inexplicably absent immediately prior to the main onslaught.

I find these emotional appeals as one-sided and attempting to spin the issue. Of course we all oppose suicide bombing on here -- but something that has to enter the conversation is "what conditions would possibly compel a pregnant mother to attempt to do this?!"

When we ask that question, we can't merely rely upon the sordid excuse of "religious fanaticism". Islam, as a religion, even in its fanatical elements, generally forbids these kinds of acts. And fundamentalist religion can't be seen as a prime or motivating factor - at best it can be seen as a method to organize and aggrivate existing contradictions.

When we start examining the nightmarish conditions in the refugee camps, we start to understand why people this downtrodden and humiliated resort to tactics we individually and collectively abhor.

Of course there is a very real difference, and they represent two different competing political and ideological lines.

The real ideological line that presented a threat to US domination of the region was the PFLP - because their vision of pan-arab nationalism and solidarity with the anti-imperialist movements of southeast-asia and Europe was a genuine threat. They were accordingly made the number one target of the european and israeli intelligence services, and were wiped out despite their numerically and strategically inferior position to other palestinian liberation groups.

I don't think the line of the PFLP was by any means perfect, or ideal, but it was the only thing that was a real threat. Both Fatah and Hamas have lines that, when managed properly, can serve US interests in the region.

You have to understand that "anti-semitism" in the middle east is a lot different than it is anywhere else in the world. In the middle east, most of the people there are semites -- and the vast majority of Israeli's are not seen as "Jews", primarily, but as European colonists. Most the Israeli population are not semitic - they are German, Eastern European, and Russian.

anti-Judaic movements and sentiments are vile and should be opposed wherever they crop up, and I certainly don't support any of the nuts that preach holocaust denial and so on in the Palestinian camp [and they are few and isolated], or even the extreme reactions of anti-Judaism that manifest themselves.

It's not so much which regions I think should maintain that kind of autonomy, rather it's what groups of people are actively seeking claim to do so, and what the very real implications of doing that are. For example, I think the various regions of the Caucus mountains - Abkhazia, Dagestan, Chechnya, Ossetia, etc., should all be independent from Georgia and Russia respectively. Fully indepedent.

I could give some more examples but that would belabour the issue -- the drive to have autonomy based on geographical borders is a reality that we have to live with and understand, especially considering that there are no places on earth right now where anarchism holds any kind of spacial or temporal power. Maybe the discussion would be different if the balance of power was shifted, but right now it's not in the cards.

I was of course talking about Israel, as Saudi Arabia doesn't serve nearly the same purposes. The US has a substantial air force presence and about 30,000 troops in SA at any one time -- they are mostly there to keep a lid on the country itself, and to prop up the unpopular autocratic rule of the House of Saud. The US is scared that if a populist regime came to power, it would further the advance of pan-arab nationalism.

You have to remember, all these reactionary regimes were set up to combat the threat of secular, quasi-nationalist regimes that would have charted their own course in the region -- so the argument that Israel is a bastion of civilization in a land of savage barbarism is a false one. The Iranian regime prior to the CIA-orchestrated coup by the Shah was more progressive than any regime Israel has ever experienced.

Well, how is my logic "interesting" ?

Fatah was screaming for arms -- and almost everyone can purchase arms, except for some reason Fatah. They were clearly being fucked over and set up for what happened there. Hamas attacked because Fatah had become so weak, and so isolated, that they saw their opportunity was now or never. Fatah saw they were being isolated and if Hamas hadn't attacked, Fatah would have been forced to play their hand and assassinate the Hamas leadership.

Yeah, funny that. Funny how it all works out nicely like that.

Organizations like that can't really motivate people to do those things - they can only provide the organizational framework to give them the outlet to act on their acutated motivations. Clearly, what is motivating them is the aparteid conditions they live in. They are oppressed and desperate, and are routinely subjecte to the worst humiliations and depravations by the european colonists occupying their land.

Sure, they fund a resistance. In fact those powers are expected by their own populations to fund that resistance - if they didn't those regimes would be turfed and replaced with ones that did.

Hamas was primarily beefed up in the 70's as a wedge between the Palestinian population and the ideological line being put forward by the PFLP, and to a lesser extent by the PLO. They were essentially developed by the US intelligence services at the same time as the Afghani Mujahideen and the other religious muslim groups were being armed, funded, and trained by the US to destabilze the USSR's borders. Hamas in the occupied territories were part of that plan, as the USSR was nominally backing the PFLP.

Fatah are a heavily split organization - between the old guard of Arafat's camp, a younger guard of intefadah vets who are starting to side with the old guard but are generally more progressive, and a third group who currently control the organization - led by Abu Mazen, and including a group of right-wing warlords who are being used to keep the population in line.

Iran, Syria, and Turkey are NOT "major imperialist powers". And please, if you think they are, point out what imperial possessions they have, or what countries they are exploiting to take their capital from. Turkey can barely hold on to its Kurdish areas -- Iran only recently became a regional power after rebuilding from the devastation of the Iran-Iraq war [a deliberate US move to achieve just that aim of crushing Iran's economy], and Syria -- fuck I'm not even going to go off on Syria, it's a three ring circus.

None of them can offer "alternatives" to US control, and none of them can even challenge US control in the region -- Iran may bein the position to make a challenbge in the long term if they align themselves with the up and coming superpowers correctly.

If we accept "semite" as a religious or cultural term, they are definately semites. But by ancestry they are overwhelmingly European. That's pretty obvious. Up until recently even Sephardic jews were second class citizens.

bullshit. To identify them as colonists is to call them for what they are. I'm not even making value judgments on that - colonizations is a natural process taht has happened and will continue to happen for the forseeable future. But lets be honest about what's happening here.

The working class of Europe was sacrified to fascism out of fear of the alternative [social revolution]. Israel was not established to protect Jews from further atrocities - if anything it puts them in a riskier situation - surrounded on all sides by hostile forces, and depednent on the US imperial might for survival. And don't forget, it was the Israeli intelligence services hunting down RAF militants, while those same RAF militants were busy executing nazi war criminals like Schleyer.