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LIKE ISRAEL, HAMAS ISN’T OFFERING PALESTINIANS A ‘DAY AFTER’
– JUST MORE WAR AND SUFFERING  
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Amira Hass
June 2, 2024
Haaretz
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_ Armed struggle has failed to stop the ongoing theft of Palestinian
land. The destruction and death wrought by Israel in the Gaza Strip
calls for a different kind of struggle – one that takes into account
its people's right to live _

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In Israel, the slogan "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be
free" is perceived as a call for the eradication of the Jewish state.
As is the way of slogans, it doesn't specify what will happen to Jews
in the newly freed Palestine.

If we asked every protester in the United States and Europe what they
mean when they shout these words, we'd probably get a variety of
answers, ranging from "the Jews should return to their countries of
origin" to "a secular and democratic Palestinian state will be
established (under the leadership of the Islamic Movement?), where
people of all three faiths live in equality."

One thing that is certain is that the shock from seeing the carnage
and destruction wreaked by Israel in Gaza has led many young people
around the world to view Israel as a settler-colonial entity, and thus
an illegitimate one. They see Hamas' attacks on October 7 
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its targeting of the military, for sure, but also the massacre of
civilians – as part of any people's legitimate struggle against a
colonialist entity.

A vast chasm lies between those who see October 7 as the starting
point or as evidence of Palestinians' innate murderous tendencies and
those who are aware and understand that the main explanation for what
happened lies in Israel's occupation and oppression.

There's also no common ground between those who believe that the
atrocities committed by Hamas and its accomplices justify the horrific
mass slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians
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the starvation of two million people, and those who acknowledge the
fact that the only solution is political and diplomatic – a
recognition of the Palestinians' rights as a people. Another
significant gap stretches between those who automatically approve of
any use of arms and any killing in the name of liberation and those
who disagree, while they understand the context.

But it's exactly those protesters calling out "From the river to the
sea" and adopting the historiographic analysis behind the phrase who
must consider the strategy of armed struggle by Hamas 
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other Palestinian groups in relation to its success or failure in
stopping the dispossession of Palestinians and the looting of their
land.

The question answers itself. Armed struggle has been and continues to
be unsuccessful in impeding the Israeli project of dispossession and
colonization. The best starting point for examining Israel's policy is
the early 1990s, a time when the Soviet Bloc – then the main
supporter of the Palestinians' demand for a state – had
disintegrated; when political (but not economic) Apartheid approached
its end in South Africa; and after the first intifada led to the
multilateral Madrid Conference, with the participation of a
Palestinian delegation that was formally not subject to the Palestine
Liberation Organization
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Amid the atmosphere of change brought by the end of the Cold War, the
Palestinians and international community, as well as many Israeli
peace advocates, expected that the settlements 
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be dismantled, that Israel would withdraw from all the territory it
occupied in 1967 and that a Palestinian state would be established in
an area comprising 22 percent of British Mandatory Palestine.

The multilateral talks in Madrid led to bilateral negotiations between
Israel and the PLO in Oslo. The Palestinians' expectations remained
the same: that Israel end its military occupation begun in 1967, that
Israel respect their right to self-determination and that the parties
continue the historic process of reconciliation between the two
peoples.

But Israel had no intention to stop building new settlements, let
alone dismantle them. And, as has been proven by statements and
speeches by its leaders (most of all former prime ministers Yitzhak
Rabin and Shimon Peres) and by the actions of every Israeli
government, it also didn't consent to the establishment of a
Palestinian state.

Moreover, Israel further entrenched and expanded its settlements while
cynically taking advantage of the PLO's willingness to postpone any
discussion about their future to the of negotiations over permanent
status. Using a mixture of bureaucratic/military regulations such as
movement restrictions, bypass roads, zones closed to Palestinian
development, checkpoints and closures, Israel cultivated and
accelerated the fragmentation of the Palestinian territory occupied
since 1967, shredding it into isolated enclaves.

So, quite justifiably, supporters of the Hamas attacks on October 7
and armed struggle in general emphasize that the strategy of
negotiation and diplomacy conducted by the PLO and the Palestinian
Authority
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as well as unarmed popular struggle – have failed and must be
abandoned. But if failure to stop the dispossession and land grab is
the correct criterion for choosing a tactic or strategy, the same must
apply to armed struggle. Why, then, should it receive a sweeping
exemption from the judgment of history?

After Hamas was formed in 1988, its military wing focused on armed
attacks within the Palestinian territories Israel occupied in 1967.
This deviation (shared later or simultaneously by other groups too)
from the initial consciously unarmed character of the first intifada.

To this day, however, the impression that the uprising left on the
world – and on the Palestinian collective memory – is that of a
popular, democratic struggle seeking the concrete goal of Palestinian
independence. This objective seemed within reach, as evidenced by the
preparation of educational, economic and cultural foundations for the
future state.

Hamas started to attack civilians within Israel after Jewish settler
Baruch Goldstein massacred Muslim worshipers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in
Hebron in February 1994. What was initially perceived as revenge
attacks turned into a deliberate policy to sabotage Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat's negotiation tactics and diplomacy.

Hamas boasts that with its suicide attacks in the 1990s, it managed to
stop the Oslo process
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which it considers traitorous. This bragging plays into the hands of
Israel, which had no intention of allowing the negotiations to result
in two states.

The militarization of the second intifada
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caused only by Hamas, but the group continued to upgraded its armed
capabilities. It deployed suicide bombers, killed soldiers and
settlers in the Gaza Strip and launched rockets from there. Hamas
attributes Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005
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the group's armed struggle. From a political perspective, however,
Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza allowed it to further develop
the reality it had designed for 15 years: severing Gaza's population
from the West Bank's.

In the West Bank, the suicide attacks let Israel build the separation
barrier
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stole tens of thousands of dunams from the Palestinians. Those
claiming that Israel anyway intended to grab more and more land are
correct.

But is the purpose of the Palestinians' armed struggle to make it
easier for Israel to loot land and expedite that process? Within the
Palestinian internal discourse, it is said the second intifada (whose
armed nature kept it from becoming a general popular uprising) was a
disaster. But this conclusion is somewhat played down, almost hushed
out of respect for the dead, the many Palestinian prisoners held in
Israel and their families.

"Lone wolf" attacks on Israelis that were committed in settlements and
are deemed justified, even heroic, by Palestinians haven't deterred
settlers, but on the contrary: they encouraged and expedited the land
theft
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To take one example, on July 21, 2017, a resident of the Palestinian
village of Khobar, northwest of Ramallah, stabbed and killed three
members of an Israeli family
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the settlement of Neve Tzuf, established on land seized from the
villages of Nabi Saleh and Deir Nidham.

Since the attack, Neve Tzuf has accelerated its takeover of more
Palestinian land in the area. With the help of the Israeli military
and authorities, it has established new outposts and blocked
Palestinian access to the road that connects the area to neighboring
villages south of it. The result is the same after any attack, whether
committed with a knife or a gun and whether organized by a group or a
lone individual.

People are correct when they say that even before October 7,
organized, state-supported settlers' violence had led to
the expulsion of Palestinian farming and herding communities
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their land and to the seizure by ostensibly illicit outposts of
hundreds of thousands of dunams in the West Bank.

Reports by Israeli rights organizations and independently researched
articles detailing the process have consistently been published by ths
paper over the past 30 years.

The land seizure has only accelerated since October 7 and the
beginning of the war in Gaza. The only ones trying to stop it are
groups of volunteers who accompany the Palestinian farmers and
shepherds to their lands.

[Destruction In Palestinian village, Wadi as-Seeq, whose residents
were expelled during the war in Gaza]

Destruction In Palestinian village, Wadi as-Seeq, whose residents were
expelled during the war in GazaCredit: Tomer Applebaum

Most of them are Israeli, but some volunteers come from abroad
(including many Jews) and there are the occasional Palestinian
participants. The Palestinian organizations that advocate armed
struggle, led by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, rarely join public
resistance actions against settlers' and state's takeover of the land
and make it clear it is not their preferred strategy.

The organizations' armed members in the refugee camps in Jenin,
Tulkarm and Nablus are willing to sacrifice their lives when they
choose to take arms against Israeli tanks and drones. There's no
question that these youths feel they have no future anyway. Each of
these refugee camps has become a mini-Gaza in terms of the devastation
Israel leaves behind after each of its invasions.

Unarmed civilians are killed in each of them. How is it that all the
courage and strength demonstrated by armed young Palestinians against
a sophisticated military, all the money invested in their weapons and
the endurance of residents of neighborhoods that are destroyed time
and again aren't channeled to a popular initiative to protect
Palestinian land and the dozens of communities that are subject to
constant terrorism by settlers? If the problem is indeed colonial
dispossession and settlement, why don't Palestinians' efforts focus on
its most prominent manifestations?

Those who favor armed struggle say its success shouldn't be measured
by points, as in a boxing ring. 
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also say that ever since October 7, Hamas has shattered Israelis'
sense of normality, dealt it defeat after defeat, exposed
its government's indifference toward the fate of the hostages
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in Gaza, further proved how pathetic Israel's politicians are and
widened the country's internal social rift
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Hamas, which has proven itself to be an army that has a political wing
and not the other way around, obviously didn't plan to have those
achievements. But it did plan everything else very meticulously. It
concentrated its efforts on augmenting its military strength, digging
the sophisticated labyrinth of tunnels that continues to surprise and
confuse the Israeli military and its intelligence, obtaining and
producing arms and ammunition and training thousands of young men who
are ready to die in combat.

All this is true. But as they say in Arabic, _wa_ _ba'adein_? 
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next?

First, what's next is what's happening now: The death and grief in
Gaza
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whose residents have had nowhere to hide from Israeli bombardments,
which do not distinguish between an armed man and his son, between a
Hamas-run Gaza Health ministry official and a Hamas military
commander.

The community we knew in the Gaza Strip has been wiped out. The dead
have already been relieved of it all. The tens of thousands of
wounded, disabled and children who are the most affected by starvation
and malnutrition face many years of physical and mental
rehabilitation, and it's hard to say how successful that will be.

The rich, those with connections and desirable professions, have
already left Gaza, leaving behind their elderly parents and other less
fortunate family members. Many more are expected to emigrate when the
Rafah border terminal reopens. Gangs that take advantage of the
calamity that has befallen Gazans have emerged. Alongside expressions
of communal solidarity, the social fabric is showing signs that it is
starting to disintegrate. It will take decades to rebuild the Gaza
Strip. Do the achievements that Hamas supporters outside of Gaza
admire outweigh this terrible suffering?

Open gallery view

[פותחת]

The fire that broke out in the tent encampment in Rafah after the
Israeli airstrike on Sunday.Credit: Reuters

This destruction and carnage are indeed a decision that Israel made.
Israel could have reacted differently to October 7. It could
have prevented the attack
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only from a military and intelligence perspective, but from a
political one. Israel could have chosen to respect international
resolutions concerning the Palestinians' right to self-determination.
Now we see, however, that Hamas has prepared itself for a prolonged
military campaign, ignoring Israel's proven drive and ability to
destroy, without considering the fate and wishes of the Palestinians.

It's not possible to debate the distant future . Will this Hamas
strategy lead to the desired result expressed in the slogan "From the
river to the sea" in 20, 50 or 200 years? We don't know. But we arent
talking about clinical labratory procedures. The two million tortured,
bombed and starved Gazans aren't mere extras in a forward-looking
historiographical analysis. The right to armed struggle isn't more
sacred than their lives.

Many Palestinians have indeed said, and continue to say, that death is
better than life under oppression and occupation. But the fact is that
every day, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank prove that
actually, they want to live very much.

When the means of the liberation struggle may lead to mass slaughter
and the erasure of the oppressed people – as is happening now – it
is accurate to blame the oppressor, but its not enough. It is a must
– and it is possible – to come up with and develop means of
struggle that take into consideration one's own people's right to
live.

_Amira Hass is an Israeli journalist and author, mostly known for her
columns in the daily newspaper Haaretz covering Palestinian affairs in
Gaza and the West Bank, where she has lived for almost thirty years
(Wikipedia [[link removed]]). Follow._

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* Hamas
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* Palestine
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* Palestinians
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* Israel
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* Oslo Accords
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* Two-state Solution
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* Benjamin Netanyahu
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