This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
Maoist Internationalist Movement

Hamas liberates Gaza Strip

June 16 2007

Hamas, the Palestinian organization that won the last election took control of the Gaza Strip, a chunk of territory bordering Egypt, through a mini-civil-war claiming approximately 116 lives the week ending June 15.(1) No one contests that the routed Fatah supporters were taking aid from the united $tates and I$rael. On the bright side, not only was the U.$. lackey party routed, but also the vast majority of Fatah people wisely chose not to fight for their party to the end. The result could have been much worse in the one week of fighting than it was. Fatah surrender is victory for the Palestinian people.

Choosing sides

When Hamas supporters went through the buildings previously controlled by Fatah, they found riches that they claimed could have fed countless Palestinian families.(2) So it is important to note the underlying class realities facing the Palestinian refugees.

Had the battle been between Amerikan supporters of an imperialist party and a proletarian party of migrants, the Amerikans would have fought much harder than Fatah did, because the Amerikans are more thoroughly bought-off than any sizable faction of Palestinians.

So we would say there is a taint on Fatah, the organization that Yasser Arafat led, but it is not the kind of thorough seal of parasitism that we see on Amerikans.

It is the Trotskyist idealist or neo-conservative method to pick parties ideologically, and in this case to say that since neither Fatah nor Hamas is MIM-like in ideology, we should reject both. Maoism opposes such a formulation, because there are only two sides-- imperialism's and that of the oppressed nation, Palestine.

Generally, within the oppressed nation, there are arguments, but we say all within the oppressed nation are on the same side until some people start going to the oppressor. Hence, in the conflict between John LaVelle and Ward Churchill it is the usual policy to speak no ill of a First Nations persyn. The matter became something different when LaValle supporters went to the white man to get Churchill fired.

Likewise, among the Palestinian people, the struggle between Fatah supporters and Hamas supporters is mostly a non-antagonistic contradiction as Mao would say. The underlying class and nation situation of Palestinians is similar. When the PLO and then Mahmoud Abbas became increasingly U.$. and I$rael-supported, matters changed, and a problem of antagonistic contradiction arose.

We do not focus first on religion or the age of leaders or other details. Mao referred to the principal contradiction, to clarify our thinking.

On the Fatah side, we have seen one argument that said even though it is Fatah taking aid from the enemy, it is Hamas that benefits I$rael more nonetheless. The implicit message is that it is normal to be a U.$. lackey, but some lackeys are better than others. This is not MIM's approach.

Unfortunately at this time it has to be said there is a CIA front using Maoist rhetoric criticizing Hamas in concert with U.$. imperialism. It is the nature of the class struggle that the enemy corrupts the forward advance of the proletariat from within. This CIA front goes so far as to crib openly from counterinsurgency expert opposing Maoism Samuel P. Huntington, with regard to his "clash of civilizations" thesis. This same Huntington was the one who came up with the "forced draft urbanization" strategy for Vietnam, which translated to "bomb the countryside." It is a reflection on the easy- going, quarter-assed nature of the left-wing of parasitism that it can be sucked into such an approach so easily.

Sore loser

The two parties Hamas and Islamic Jihad boycotted the elections that brought Mahmoud Abbas to power as president of Palestine in January 2005.(3) When Hamas won the only head-to-head contest in post-World War II Palestinian election history in 2006, the united $tates started a now 15-month-old embargo. The embargo was so tight, that Russian imperialists found they could not even transmit emergency money aid to the Palestinians, because of U.$. control of the international banking system. Aid packages had to be delivered physically. The united $tates calls Hamas a "terrorist" group and forbids financial contact with it upon penalty of being disconnected from the u.$. banking system.(4)

In the meantime, the I$raelis arrested Hamas's elected officials in Palestine's parliament. It is shame on Abbas to declare an emergency government now when I$rael has selected who should remain in Palestine's rump parliament without a quorum.

The fact that the u.$. imperialists are clamoring for a minority dictatorship over Palestine now is proof that so-called democracy is not U.$. imperialism's first guiding principle to this day. In actual fact, what guides U.$. imperialism is its Washington-created ideology regarding so-called terrorism, a vague catch-all suitable for defending U.$. imperialist interests in oil and other aspects of global domination.

The new U.$. role

With Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah organization ousted from the Gaza Strip, the u.$. imperialists changed their tactics and announced they would suspend the embargo against Palestine in order to back an Abbas dictatorship of emergency rule. Going back decades, it was the united $tates clamoring for elections among Palestinians and more "transparency" and "reform"; yet, the minute the Palestinians held their elections, the u.$. imperialists moved to starve the Palestinians to death with the embargo.

The transition from supporting elections to opposing them happened so quickly that the same u.$. president is in power. In 2002, Bush said,

"The United States, along with the European Union and Arab states, will work with Palestinian leaders to create a new constitutional framework, and a working democracy for the Palestinian people. And the United States, along with others in the international community will help the Palestinians organize and monitor fair, multi-party local elections by the end of the year, with national elections to follow."(5)
Web pages still up from 2002 from the State Department show it supporting "young guard" Palestinians against "old guard" Palestinians on the subject of "reform and democratization." The "young guard" consisted of "elected leaders," the State Department said then.(6) In 2003, before Arafat died, the Zionists' "Jerusalem Post" called for an "open, accountable government" that was "genuinely representative."(7)

Abbas withdrew from a joint government with Hamas and then announced emergency rule, thus pleasing u.$. imperialist masters who want a loyal lackey to clamp down on Hamas. Spanish and general European Union imperialists also chimed in for Abbas on June 15.(8) Although newspapers ineptly assuming that the U.$. goal is peace said that the Gaza Strip takeover by Hamas was a U.$. failure, the fissures in the Saudi-brokered government grew to the point of total division, and enabled U.$. imperialists to unite with EU imperialists behind a Fatah-only government.

Thus far it appears that Fatah will be in control in the West Bank where 2.5 million Palestinians live. 1.5 million live in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinians are great proof of Marx's general approach. Hamas people say they are "fighting for their religion," while Fatah can claim to fight to end the U.$. embargo by giving in, but in reality Hamas supporters fight hard because they have "nothing to lose but their chains." Others in the world also have their religions and do not fight. Combative versions of religion arise where economic conditions give rise to them.

Notes:
1. "In Aftermath of Gaza Battle, Grim Realities," By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY and IAN FISHER, New York Times 16Jun07.
2. http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=155469&version=1&template_id=37&parent_id=17
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_presidential_election%2C_2005
4. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/countries/palestine/palestine050706.html
5. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020624-3.html
6. http://italy.usembassy.gov/viewer/article.asp?article=/file2002_07/alia/A2070204.htm
7. http://info.jpost.com/C002/Supplements/Elections2003/ld_04_2601.html
8. http://english.people.com.cn/200706/16/eng20070616_384912.html