Solidarity with the Palestinian people and their political organizations.

[Brigg57]

Jwas,
I don't like violence, if only because I don't like getting hurt. If there's a fight brewing, I automatically walk away from it. I think that is how nations ought to behave.

But when the fight is being pushed at you, you fight back. I'm not a pacifist - in fact, I think pacificism is fundamentally immoral. That doean't mean I want war everywhere.

When war takes place, then we have to be variable. In the war against Hitler, atrocities were very common on both sides, but justice did not demand equilibrium between the two. It was more or less a war to the death. not wanted..just was. I cndemn allied war atrocities, but if I were a Polish jew in the  Warsaw Ghetto, then I would be aware that the rules of war really don't apply.

Sometimes, as in India or the Southern US in the 1950s, non-violence is definitely the best tactic, though it worked so well because behind Martin Luther King stood Malcolm X. It worked as a tactic.

The Israeli-Palestine conflict is a war - Hamas fight it in the way that Hamas chooses. I am not expected to approve every single thing they do. but I don't equate the violence of the two sides. . The ceasefire is rejected by both sides because they want a victory - but a ceasefire is needed. However, no ceasefire can last as long as such an intolerable situation as Gaza lasts. If the Palestinians choose non-violent action as a tactic, I am in solidarity with them. If they choose to resist, I am in solidarity with them. not because theeir tactics wold be the ones which would be my favoured ones, but because they are the oppressed.

I never equate the violence of the oppressed wiht that of the oppresor.

[Free Radical]

Brigg, and Johnnywas

Hamas: Clearly it was a huge (deliberate) mistake to exclude them from the political process. It shows how much Israel (and the US) does not want peace. The word 'terrorist' is stretched to breaking point all the time. Hamas showed signs of moderating its position as soon as it had power in Gaza. But in the absence of politics violence is almost inevitable.

I can understand of course why Hamas has fired rockets in the past, though I don't approve of firing home-made rockets in the general direction of a city. One can always understand violence, sadly. Hamas' rockets are clearly completely insignificant militarily - 'pinpricks' as I think Shlaim described them - though enough to kill the odd unfortunate person who happens to be wherever they land. But they are significant psychologically - to both sides, and just about the only practical form of resistance open to Hamas from their ghetto. But I cannot support such indiscriminate weapons. However under attack as at present any 'country' has a right to defend itself. My position is that it is simply unacceptable to target or be reckless with the lives of civilians.

Nobody in this extraordinarily one-sided war has been more reckless with the lives of civilians than the Israeli government. In fact they have committed atrocities that I would have thought unimaginable. I have also been shocked at the level of utterly uncritical support for Israel shown by some (a minority) on sites like www.Labourhome.org. It is a sad reflection of how polarised things have become.

On the 'two-state' solution - I don't think there is anything else on the table (except that is doesn't seem to be on the table). It's the only realistic prospect for peace at the moment.

Brigg, you say that it should be up to Arab and Jew to solve their problems, which is of course true in an ideal world, but I think we are very far from that situation. The US holds just about all the cards as far as Israel is concerned. If the US wants a permanent peace, there will be a permanent peace, but if it is not concerned with a permanent peace there will not be one. The Guardian article today on the front page, which suggested that Obama may seek some kind of (at least secret) contacts with Hamas, is the first positive thing I've heard from the soon-to-be president.

The odd thing is, if you take a really long historical perspective, it is hard to deny Sheikh Bin Laden's assertion that this is another crusade (though sadly he is no Salah Al Din - a model of chivalry...). We have Jerusalem still at the centre of things and Western powers wanting their client state to control it - for Christendom ultimately - driven on by the US Christian fundamentalists. Perhaps we ought to recognise that this is part of the underlying problem and seek to adddress it more imaginatively, with Jerusalem (as proposed in the past) as an international city - belonging to everyone, though of course with its present populations. Why, you could even move the UN headquarters there... or build a world peace centre there for the 21st century... with some kind of international university for peace studies... Both Israel and Palestine could have it as their capital city and share it with the world...

[Johnnywas]

I made a mistake in my post. I meant that if Hamas was committed to peace (albiet through a strategy which used force) there would be "no" ideological break between Hamas and Fatah 

It is important to note that Hamas isn't the only organisation seeking to represent Palestinian opinion

Fatah (and many other Palestinians) are more clearly committed to social democracy/socialism, more 'secular' in outlook, more progressive in  attitiudes to women and more likely to favour a peaceful negotiated settlement   

[Free Radical]

Indeed Johnnywas. There are certainly other organisations whose policies appear more appealing to me.

Religious politics has been on the rise in a number of countries (including in recent years in the US), but in other countries, like Iran, where religious politics triumphed there has been a more secularist reaction I think.

In Palestine, as we know, Israel, backed by the US, managed to severely weaken the secularist Fatah movement (which I think was also marred by corruption) and so only gave an opening to Hamas - quite stupidly in my view. But it clearly suits Israel (in the short term anyhow) to have the Palestinians divided, so they can endlessly defer peace and maintain their domination. It's the kind of policy Britain knows a lot about as we played similar games all over the globe.