Many leftists are extremely idealist and get swayed by Western opinion a lot. They dont support Hamas because Hamas are not the perfect MLs freedom fighters. This is childish and just gives ammunition to the liberals to discredit Hamas’ stance. This criticism of Hamas goes against the global decolonization cause. Every time a decolonial group fights against their oppressor, they are criticized even by leftists. Is this what Lenin referred to as left-com?
It sucks that people who one thought were comrades end up doing this. Like are we even on the same team or are you just a closeted liberal? It is crazy, unscientific and unmaterialistic to not consider Palestinian material conditions, and to not consider who they made their champions for this cause, but instead to apply your idealism to the situation.
Why do people who materially benefit from the military occupation of Palestine not support the decolonization of Palestine?
Hamas is not ML and isn’t ISIS, hamas is hamas
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Because most western “leftists” are socdem coloured liberals.
They misunderstand or ignore key concepts like critical support, primary and secondary contradictions, materialism, and dialectics. Therefore it’s no wonder that, even after a run of potentially good takes, they ultimately end up on the side of reaction.
For the actual MLs, some are outspoken but others are careful. I can only speak for myself in saying that I am genuinely concerned for my immigration status if I were to publicly speak out in favour of even the Palestinian cause in general, let alone Hamas and other decolonial forces.
In a lot of the free-speech-west, opposite-of-totalitarian-west, supporting Hamas is illegal. So sometimes people are lying to protect themselves. Just to be charitable to a group that does exist, don’t know how large.
But the main reason is just that they don’t genuinely understand the condition in Palestine. They don’t understand that Gaza is a concentration camp, that the houses Israel is bombing belongs to people and isn’t just capital.
Find me an Auschwitz survivor who wept for Hitler when he committed suicide, and I’ll find you a Gaza resident who wept for the soldiers killed on Oct 7. But the talking heads would not dare ask that of the Auschwitz survivors, because they have understood the conditions at Auschwitz.
I can’t speak for the Westerners as I am a Vietnamese living in Vietnam.
As a Vietnamese, I don’t worry about the establishment punishing me for opinions regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict, so my opinion is only a matter of principal.
If it is true that Hamas harmed Israeli civilians, then it reveals the lack of discipline amongst their troops. To be fair, it could be projection on my part: During the struggle against the United States, we still recognize that the American people and journalists as potential friends and allies and it is the US government and its puppet regime that are our enemy.
In any case, if Hamas wants to improve its international image (as it is necessary to gather international support both when fighting a war and rebuilding the nation after the war), they should work to strengthen discipline. We cannot expect the Western governments to change their positions, of course, but the world is bigger than the West.
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I suspect we’ll never know the truth about how many were killed by Israel in the cross-fire and perhaps even intentional fire to maximize loss to create a narrative of victimization to steel their people and others around the world for slaughter.
I suspect the amount of un-armed, non-resisting civilians killed in cold blood by Hamas bullets (not aimed at IOF forces nearby) to be exceptionally low but we’ll likely never know. What has come out so far is plenty damning of the zionist narrative that it was just a frenzied bloodthirsty slaughter and shows the IOF forces themselves slaughtered many of their people, perhaps hoping to prevent captives which could be used to free prisoners.
How dare you not begin and end your question with “I condemn Hamas but…!”
Honestly though, that’s the kind of framing that leads people to that. Very intentionally by the media there is an immense amount of pressure on anyone speaking against Israel to first preface their statements with “I condemn Hamas but…”. Like somehow there is any equivalency there at all.
You definitely get certain voices that are very outspoken and refuse to fall into that trap, but it seems like a minority. What is more interesting to me is how much that media narrative is at odds with the general popular opinion we see worldwide.
As a few others have said, there’s something to be said about repercussions for openly supporting an organization that is a designated terrorist entity in the country you reside in.
In some organizations I’m a member of, the question has come up as to why our official line is supporting a 2 state solution but we chant, “from the river to the sea” when we attend demonstrations.
Generally when this has been brought up, there is wide support for a 1 state solution but this goes back to legal repercussions espousing this publically.
Because ‘leftist’ is just a word that liberals use to try to conflate themselves with anti capitalism to appropriate popularity, actual leftists will simply call themselves socialist.
Media pressure is insane around Hamas. When you know that everyone was spoon fed narratives about them being sadistic barbarians who just want to kill all Jews it becomes very difficult to publicly support them. In some countries you could even risk have trouble with the police for “terrorism apologia” (at least that’s a thing in France). So basically you only hear the people who agree with the media while the rest is shutting up because they know how much trouble they are getting into
well it’s not certain how many leftists TRULY support them. what people say cannot be taken as accurate because anything remotely close to supporting “terrorism” can ruin your life or even land you in prison. so there’s no telling how many leftists are just putting up that facade because of the potential for government repression.
Western opinion is lead by US opinion and the US was and is a settler-colonial project. So, their opinions basically align with Israel’s labor party.
In my country I will probably be arrested if i spoke anything , coming from working class I cant afford that 😶
In Greece they arrested a guy and his daughter for driving outside the Israeli embassy and raising a Palestinian flag
Do you have the source on this?
Heard it on the radio, but sure, here you go: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/27/tech/elon-musk-isaac-herzog-israel-meeting-intl-hnk/index.html
in britain we could be arrested for it so… i don’t support hamas at all 😉
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When you tell people to “consider the material conditions” you have to include their material conditions.
Openly supporting Hamas is illegal in many countries.
There are consequences to every action, and while some people lean into the “actions vs words” trope, saying something publicly is an action, and it has consequences.
