Tatchell on Hamas... interesting read...

[Colston]

[luke]

jamie from the heathlander posted about this article the other day making some good points;

Peter Tatchell complains that the anti-war movement doesn't criticise Hamas as much it does Israel:

"But while progressive opinion is justifiably quick to condemn Israel, it is oddly silent when Palestinians are being persecuted by fellow Palestinians. Why the double standards?"

Marching to condemn Hamas would be about as useful as marching to condemn Roman expansionism, for all the good it would do. Britain doesn't provide any material or diplomatic support to Hamas, whereas along with the US it provides extensive and decisive support to Israel.

Interestingly Tatchell avoids the fact that Fatah has engaged in just as much repression and brutality as Hamas, perhaps because he can't blame it on "totalitarian" Islamism. Britain has helped train and finance the Fatah security forces responsible for human rights abuses, so that would seem a far more pertinent topic for Tatchell to discuss.

He also writes that "significant sections" of the left are "flirting with Hamas" on the grounds that some protestors said things like "We are Hamas!" While I wouldn't choose that slogan myself, the people who did were likely motivated by a sense of solidarity with those suffering under Israeli bombardment rather than sympathy for Hamas's ideology.

Tatchell continues:

"Another favourite left and liberal justification of Hamas is that it is less corrupt than its Palestinian rivals in Fatah and that it organises social programmes for the poor."

This is another confusion. What does "justification of Hamas" mean? Certainly, many people have pointed out that one reason why Hamas won the elections and retains significant popular support is that it is perceived by Palestinians to be less corrupt and more efficient at delivering social services than Fatah. That's accurate and I don't see Tatchell disputing it. I have never seen, on the other hand, anyone on the left pointing to Hamas's reputation for honesty as a justification for its ideological positions.

Basically, Tatchell seems to have confused a defence of the Palestinians' (and thus Hamas's) right to exist and to resist with a defence of Hamas's particular program or its actions in Gaza, and in doing so he has smeared the entire anti-war movement.

[major.tom]

Good points, Luke.

I was somewhat torn about the article. In some instances, he makes valid criticism of Hamas. On the other, it seemed very much like a justification of the west's immediate and total rejection of the Palestinian elections, a move which isolated Hamas and arguably pushed them further to the fringes.

What would have happened had the west taken a "wait-and-see" approach, conditioning acceptance and negotiation on concrete and verifiable democratization of the Palestinian territories? I'd be willing to wager the situation today would be considerably better for both Palestinians and Israelis.

That said, it's not too late to take this step. Almost anything is bound to be better than the status quo.