(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Failing the Hamas Test: The Enemy of Our Enemy is Not Always Our Friend [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-14 Reading this article reminded me how I was lucky enough to be invited to take a Political Science class at Brooklyn College while still in high school, decades ago, during the Ford Administration. At one point Ford fired a Cabinet member and we were outraged: we didn't like Ford, so we rose in defense of the Cabinet member. Lewis follows with a half-dozen examples of people and organizations that jumped to support of Hamas, and then walked back their statements when they either realized what actually occurred, or were shamed into doing so. Lewis follows with a half-dozen examples of people and organizations that jumped to support of Hamas, and then walked back their statements when they either realized what actually occurred, or were shamed into doing so. on Israel by Hamas has been a divisive—if clarifying—moment for the left. The test that it presented was simple: Can you condemn the slaughter of civilians, in massacres that now appear to have been calculatedly sadistic and outrageous, without equivocation or whataboutism? Can you lay down, for a moment, your legitimate criticisms of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, West Bank settlements, and the conditions in Gaza, and express horror at the mass murder of civilians? The terror attack on Israel by Hamas has been a divisive—if clarifying—moment for the left. The test that it presented was simple: Can you condemn the slaughter of civilians, in massacres that now appear to have been calculatedly sadistic and outrageous, without equivocation or whataboutism? Can you lay down, for a moment, your legitimate criticisms of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, West Bank settlements, and the conditions in Gaza, and express horror at the mass murder of civilians? Helen Lewis wrote a very thoughtful piece inonIt’s behind a paywall, so I’ll do my best to quote a little and summarize a lot. Our Professor laughed. He reminded us that this Cabinet Member was appointed by Nixon and that we didn't particularly care for him until Ford fired him. "You must always remember this," Professor Sunjo Han told us. It's the most profound and useful statement I ever heard in a poli-sci class, and I remember it still, nearly a half-century later: The enemy of your enemy is not always your friend. I wrote something about this here on, about how many on the left were quick to support the massacre of civilians because "". The enemy of your enemy is not always your friend. My friend Rafa, in the Netherlands, responded to something someone wrote on a leftist list-serv we are both on, in response to calls for a "Palestinian Liberation Movement," and "Palestinian solidarity." "So what actually is this 'Palestinian liberation movement"? Does this also include the many Marxists and marxist-leninists often putting a focus on this issue? Does it also include the Hamas supporters showing up at their demonstrations and possibly shouting 'Hamas, Hamas. Jews to the gas!'? I don't see much liberation of people in that." He added later, in another response: "Rather than stating that I am in solidarity with the Palestinian people - what does that actually mean? - I am not in solidarity with the Palestinians of Hamas, I would say that I am against the oppression of Palestinians. (Like I am against all forms of oppression.) That can be people living in poverty, refugees in the Middle East and Europe etc. I am also beyond thinking of one state or two states solutions. The Kurds handled it quite well when they were advancing the idea of a democratic confederation of communes in Syria and not a new Kurdish State there. And every form of nationalism in this issue should be rejected. Rafa passed the Hamas test. Others? Not so much. In The Atlantic article, Lewis gives an example from the UK where she lives. "Ellie Gomersall, the president of the National Union of Students in Scotland, apologized for reposting content justifying Hamas’s actions. Two days earlier, Gomersall had accused the British Labour Party leader Keir Starmer of being 'complicit in the deaths of … trans people' for saying that 'a woman is a female adult.' Got that? A politician with an essentialist view of womanhood is complicit in the deaths of innocents, but a terrorist indiscriminately murdering people at a music festival must be understood in context." Lewis writes that she "Will go to her grave defending the original conception of intersectionality, a legal doctrine advanced by the American critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw." But that conception has been warped beyond recognition. Crenshaw herself said that "'This is what happens when an idea travels beyond the context and the content,' she told Vox in 2019. In escaping from the academy into the mainstream, intersectionality morphed into both a crude tallying of oppression points and an assumption that social-justice struggles fit neatly together—with all of the marginalized people on one side and the powerful on the other." And that's how, as Lewis writes, "you end up with Queers for Palestine when being queer in Palestine is difficult and dangerous. (In 2016, a Hamas commander was executed after being accused of theft and gay sex.)" I step back for a moment to note that nothing happens in a vacuum. For example, The Ayatollah's revolution in Iran came about in 1979 because the CIA engineered a coup in 1953. Zionism came about because Jews were being stripped of citizenship in late 19th century. One thing often leads to another that was worse than the thing before it. To see Israel itself as an appropriated occupation without acknowledging the appropriated occupation of property and land taken from Jews in the countries around it, and in Europe and Asia, as I wrote earlier, just because they are Jews, is myopic. As Murray Bookchin used to say, to understand a thing you must know its history. Middle East history is not confined to the area defined by either the British Mandate or the UN in 1948. It includes the entire Middle East, where Jews were forced to leave their homes and businesses and could not practice their religion after centuries of (relative co)-existence. It includes Europe and Asia, where Jews had land, businesses and citizenship taken from them -- appropriated -- occupied. There is no rectifying that. There is only what happens as a result of that. There are only consequences, the what happens next. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/14/2199439/-Failing-the-Hamas-Test-The-Enemy-of-Our-Enemy-is-Not-Always-Our-Friend?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/