Palestinian people refuse collaboration with Zionist occupation
The great electoral victory of Hamas is first of all a clear message by
the Palestinian people to the world: we will never give up our
resistance against the occupation! The anti-imperialists of the world
salute this steadfastness in a struggle David against Goliath. It will
without doubt strengthen the global struggle against the threat of the
US empire and its permanent war.
The beaten Fatah represents first of all the Oslo agreements which legitimated Israel in return for the void promise of a separate Palestinian state – which Zionism never had the slightest intention to concede. What eventually came out is the ugly monster of the Palestinian Authority openly collaborating with Israel and thereby enriching itself to the detriment of the popular masses. That these collaborators have been punished is a good sign.
It should, however, been said that the elections themselves where a caricature of democracy and were intended to legitimate the PA and indirectly also the Israeli occupation. Election under occupation never can be democratic. One has only to remember that half of the Palestinian population is expelled and forces to live outside. All the more the electoral results are a smashing defeat for imperialism, Israel and its local collaborators.
It is also true that within Hamas there is a conservative tendency ready for softening its stance which will be strengthened by the co-option to the administration which, however, is nearly unavoidable when being interned in a big prison and deprived of your livelihood while resistance is virtually extinguished by brute military force.
But speaking in historic terms as long as the popular masses continue to resist the Zionist aggression their leadership cannot go for a full scale sell-out. The overwhelming success of Hamas over the colloborationist Fatah is the proof. And on the other hand there is the continuous pressure not only by Zionism but also its imperialist backers. In their first reactions Israel, the US and well as the EU have stated – with different nuances – but substantially the same, namely that Hamas has to renounce armed resistance (what they call “terrorism” or “violence”) in order to be accepted as an interlocutor. But armed resistance is a pre-condition of survival against the declared Zionist attempt to root out Palestinians which cannot be renounced neither by Fatah and let alone by Hamas.
With their “demand” the West not only trample international law which unmistakable states the right of armed self-defence against foreign occupation – a destruction of democratic rights they heralded already by setting the Palestinian resistance organisations including Hamas on their notorious list of terrorist organisations. The show that with “democracy” their mean the subordination to them and not the will of the people. And they demonstrate again that the so-called two state solution is nothing more than cheating. What kind of state is it which is denied armed self-defence?
So we confirm what made Hamas acquire its popular support: the clear understanding that the Apartheid state Israel does not want peace and will not stop until is has extinguished Palestinians as a nation. So Israel must not be recognised. A just peace for all people living in Palestine (including the Jews who want live on equal footing with the Palestinians) can only be achieved by ending the exclusive and separate Jewish state. Zionism must be smashed and one single democratic Palestinian state established severing all its tied with imperialism.
Long live the Palestinian Intifada!
Down with Israel!
US out of the Middle East – down with the American Empire!
Anti-imperialist Camp
January 26, 2006
