In 2010, a manifesto which caused quite a stir in the Gaza Strip said,among other things: ---- "Damn Hamas. Damn Israel. Damn Fatah. Damn theUN. Damn America! We, the young people of Gaza, are fed up with Israel,Hamas, the occupation, the permanent violations of human rights and theindifference of the international community.» ---- Let us be clear fromthe outset: the current massacres are due to the occupation ofPalestinian territories and apartheid organized by the Israeli state.And we do not have here a war between Hamas and the current Israeligovernment, but a new episode in the war that a colonial state supportedby an ideology, Zionism, has been waging for decades against colonizedpeople who are resisting the invader. . There is therefore no reason tosend two belligerents back to back in the name of a pseudo-pacifismwhich would make them co-responsible. For our part, and as always, weare on the side of the colonized who resist.The Jewish state and its allies are trying to support the idea that themilitary operation led by Israel is only a counter-offensive intended toeradicate Hamas, guilty of a terrorist attack. The reality is that it isnot Hamas that Israel wants to liquidate, but the Palestinian resistanceas a whole. And it is obviously much easier for him to achieve this goalif his opponent is "represented" by a force widely considered"detestable" and terrorist. What the Israeli state fears most arePalestinian adversaries who, even if they practice armed struggle,advocate the creation of a secular democratic Palestinian state and leantowards a moderate, even socialist left, firmly rejecting anti-Semitism.Israel has always preferred to face an enemy who is so similar to itselfthat it has nothing to negotiate with.The context From the first hours of the Hamas attack on Israeli villages on October7, radios and televisions broadcast images throughout the worldsupporting the barbarity of this organization. But, as the minutes andhours passed, it became impossible, when seeing these images, not toremember others, certainly much less disseminated but very real,concerning Israeli military operations in the West Bank which, theserecent months, installed new settlements and evacuated Palestinianpopulations. We also remembered the liquidation, in recent months, ofBedouin villages in Sinai which had the misfortune of not having anyofficial existence! All these operations were accelerated and carriedout with undisguised savagery.Furthermore, for months, Israeli society had been shaken by anunprecedented challenge from the ruling party , because it intended toimpose a justice reform deemed undemocratic by the demonstrators, whilethe fascist far right was dubbed by the Prime Minister BenjaminNetanyahu. The well-orchestrated savagery of Hamas comes at the righttime to try to unite a broken national union around the Israeligovernment and to endorse its recent abuses.HamasIn recent years, Israeli policy has favored a centripetal movementtowards Hamas in this region of the world, and in Palestine inparticular, by weakening other resistance trends.The hegemony of Hamas is thus the consequence of a weakening (of adefeat?) of the "left", secular forces, which had marked Palestinianpolitical life for years, as well as of the Palestinian government andFatah which had , by the Oslo Accords in 1993, transformed the demandfor independence into a ghostly Palestinian Authority .This Hamas hegemony was built with the help of the Hebrew State, sinceit chose this radical and bellicose enemy. Let us recall that Israelliquidated Ahmed Yassine, the spiritual leader of Hamas, in 2004, at atime when this party was proposing a truce. And then the war that Hamaswaged in Gaza against Fatah was considered by Israel as a welcomedivision of the Palestinian movement. But at the same time the fact thatHamas "legitimized" itself through the ballot boxes in 2005 and 2006 ,and that it no longer officially leads a fight against the Jews, butagainst "the occupying Zionists", is not likely to please the Israelistate. Currently, if he considers that the time has come to put an endto the occupied territories in their current form, Gaza must remain anenclave which has the immense merit of keeping more than 2 millionpeople there, while its disappearance would disseminate them elsewhere.Gaza must remain a threat to Israel in the eyes of the world, whileremaining a secure prison to constitute a decoy allowing the Israelipolicy of conquest to continue.What repels us about Hamas, namely its desire to establish an Islamicstate based on Sharia law and its desire to install a real dictatorshipin the Gaza Strip, is unfortunately not what motivates the anti-Hamashysteria of Hamas. most of the media and the political class in Westernstates. Hamas' goal of installing a theocratic dictatorship is only aproblem for Western powers if that dictatorship is directed againstthem; otherwise, they can very well put up with it, as they do withother States... including Israel which is also indeed a theocracypracticing terrorism at all levels!The focus on Hamas allows us to ignore the fact that current Palestinianresistance is supported by many other components. It builds a foil thatmakes it possible to promote the Zionist cause without the need for anyserious reflection. And, in France, it serves to justify the growingrepressive policy of the government and the restriction of freedoms thatthe bourgeoisie demands to curb any desire for revolt among the"dangerous classes".To the Gaza gangsSince 2006, more than 2 million Palestinians have been besieged in theimmense prison ("open air", it is said to show off) that constitutes theGaza Strip. No wonder some of these prisoners want to break everythingand destroy their guards? When, in 2018, 106 inmates escaped, in thestate of Goias in Brazil, from a prison whose horror we knew, massacringa number of guards in the process, would it have occurred to the "goodsouls» current to denounce their action?It is hardly surprising that a process of dehumanization such as thatimplemented in Gaza leads to acts of barbarism such as are found in anywar. What is more surprising, however, is that this did not happensooner, given the potential for sacrificial acts of desperation that thesituation engenders.Even more astonishing is the incredible obstinacy of the Gazan people tomaintain in such a context a pluralist society, divided politically butunited "in the cry for their right to exist" . Let us remember, however,that if Hamas won the 2006 elections (on the basis of the rejection ofthe Oslo Accords and corruption), it was only with 40% of the votes,including in the Gaza Strip where it is clearly rejected by part of thepopulation. This is evidenced by the major demonstrations which broughttogether, in 2019, thousands of young Palestinians to challenge theHamas regime of corruption, nepotism and religious and politicaldictatorship, as well as the heavy burden that has weighed on the Gazanpopulation since 2006.In 2010, a manifesto that caused quite a stir in the Gaza Strip said,among other things:"Fuck Hamas. Damn Israel. Damn Fatah. Damn the UN and UNRWA[UN refugeeagency]. Damn America! We, the young people of Gaza, are fed up withIsrael, Hamas, the occupation, the permanent violations of human rightsand the indifference of the international community.»However, on October 7, 2023, the vast majority of Gazans had the feelingof being no longer just victims of permanent aggression. And it would bea serious mistake to think that this collective feeling will prevent, inthe years to come, the rejection of the Hamas dictatorship fromcontinuing to be expressed.The camp of the colonized that we chooseis also crossed by class contradictionsHaving clearly placed ourselves in the camp of those resistingcolonization and imperialism, it is imperative for us not to abandonthis class point of view which generally guides our political analyses.As always, the struggles against the colonizer are crossed bydiscordant, sometimes contradictory points of view. This discordance is,of course, explained by different ideas and ideological positions, butit is above all due, most often, to divergent (let's even dare..."class") interests.Criticizing some of them (or all, for the "purest" among us!) meansfirst of all making it obvious what they correspond to, including whenthey are furthest from our projects and of our vision of things. Pathosand invective are no substitute for analysis. To silence thesedifferences and these analyzes as some leftists/frontists do, byclaiming that "this is not the time" to talk about them, is to abandonall class analysis. But to make it the blind spot of the overallstruggle amounts to not understanding the overall situation, and to onlywitnessing the disaster. The whole question is how to fight now againstthe trends which obviously represent an unacceptable politicalproject... without weakening the entire struggle which we are not onlywitnessing. A vast question that no magic formula will solve, but weknow that asking it is already a good step.On the use of the word "terrorist"Propaganda twists words in every sense. Thus, we are being fed over ourears with these famous war crimes which the belligerents would makedisproportionate use of. There would be a "clean war", one which wouldonly cause... military victims. We all know that this does not exist,and that the use of expressions such as "war crimes" has the solefunction of legitimizing the side which denounces them in the other.But it is with the use of the word terrorism that we reach the depths ofabjection. There is no shortage of examples which prove that this wordis just an anathema covering a political balance of power at a specificmoment in History.The Zionist organization Irgun, a supporter of Greater Israel, waslabeled "terrorist" - both by the Israeli left and by the British andmore broadly Western governments - for its numerous attacks which left250 Palestinian civilians dead at the end of the 1930s. Then, after1944, for its attacks carried out in the name of national liberation, inwhich hundreds of Arabs and Jews died. Ben-Gurion, future Prime Ministerof the Israeli state created in 1948 and then president of the JewishAgency, embarked on the "hunt for terrorists" of the Irgun, incollaboration with the British authorities. Prominent leaders of theIrgun include Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, who would becomehonorable prime ministers of the hard right in 1977 for the first, andin 1983 for the second.Elsewhere too, there is no shortage of examples: the Algerian FLNnegotiated with France, which treated it as a "terrorist" a few monthsearlier. Nelson Mandela and the ANC were labeled "terrorists" beforebecoming the darling and good conscience of Westerners. Jean Moulin wasfor the fascists only a "terrorist" leader...Anti-Semitism blackmailWe are targeted by two absolutely symmetrical blackmails: one whichwants to make us anti-Semites, if we say what we think about Zionism andthe racist policies of Israel; the other which considers usIslamophobic, if we say what we think of Hamas and its political andreligious orientation . We must not make the slightest concession inrelation to one or the other.It is an absolute necessity to stick to a determined criticism ofZionism and to ridicule the equation anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism by notgiving an inch. Macron had affirmed in the presence of Netanyahu, duringthe anniversary of the Vel'd'Hiv roundup in 2017: "We will not give into anti-Zionism, because it is the reinvented form of anti-Semitism."However, in 2002, it was the representative of the CRIF (RepresentativeCouncil of Jewish Institutions of France), Roger Cukierman, who welcomedin Haaretz the breakthrough of Le Pen (the father, the one for whom theNazi gas chambers are a detail "). Close the ban!It is also an absolute necessity not to silence or qualify our criticismof Hamas under the pretext that it represents the Palestinian resistance(which is false, as we have said), and that these criticisms would beunderstood as an attack on the Muslims, therefore Arabs - which isreasoning of the same order as "anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism".Fighting anti-Semitismby unambiguously supporting the Palestinian struggleThe question is not what precisely we would do if we lived in Palestine:we are not there. On the other hand, we are here and we must considerthe question of effectiveness at the same time as the ethical question.Here, combating anti-Semitism means refusing to place the two real termsof the conflict back to back: colonialism and Zionism on the one hand,Palestinian resistance on the other. How can we not see that thepro-Israeli ideological surge aimed at making a terrorist Hamas bear theweight of horrors - which we are complacently shown - is breeding groundfor anti-Semitism, but also for actions like that against DominiqueBernard, the Arras high school teacher killed on October 13? How can wenot understand that this pro-Israeli surge pushes, in France, a part ofthe population, touched in its flesh and in its body by the Palestinianquestion, into the arms of Hamas (which is also what Israel wants).Rather than calling this part of the population fascist or racist, itwould be more useful to show them that there is opposition to Israelhere, and to support those who, for example, shout: "Not in our name ";and, above all, participating in the fight against anti-Arab racism,which is omnipresent in France, is a necessary condition for the fightagainst anti-Semitism.A word, to conclude, on the international context. The State of Israelis supported by the West not because it was a refuge for Jews persecutedby and in various States (that's a fable for the naive! Many of themwere skeptical from the start about the "return to Palestine"). Thisstate is supported because it has become an example of colonialreconquest, as well as a laboratory for modern technologies ofrepression and surveillance of populations deemed "dangerous".Furthermore, the West, to hold the Middle East, has installed at thehead of the Arab world leaders of feudal and dictatorial states whobelong to the same camp as Israel and who "normalize" their relationswith it by accepting the eradication of Palestine.Poitou newspaper commission, October 28, 2023P.-S.Manifesto: FREE THE YOUTH OF GAZA!Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck the UN. Fuck the Unwra. Fuckthe USA![1]We, the youth of Gaza, have had enough of Israel, Hamas, theoccupation, human rights violations and the indifference of theinternational community!We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice andindifference, just as the Israeli F16s break the sound barrier; screamwith all the strength of our souls in order to release the immensefrustration that consumes us due to the fucking situation we areexperiencing; we are like the louse crushed between two nails, living anightmare within another nightmare, no room for hope, no space for freedom.We are tired of being caught up in this political struggle; enough ofthe coal-black nights with planes circling above our houses; enough ofthe shooting that affects innocent farmers in the buffer zone becausethey are cultivating their land; enough of the bearded men who walkaround with their guns and abuse their power, beating up orincarcerating young people who demonstrate for what they believe in;enough of the wall of shame that cuts us off from the rest of ourcountry and keeps us prisoner on a piece of land the size of a postagestamp; enough of being described as terrorists, homemade fanatics withpockets lined with explosives and demonic eyes; enough of theindifference we face from the international community, from theso-called experts expressing their compassion and preparing resolutions,but being cowardly when it comes to enforcing the smallest thing theyare concerned about. are agreed; enough, tired of living a shitty life,kept in prison by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and totally ignored by therest of the world.A revolution is growing within us, a huge discontent and impatience thatwill destroy us if we don't find a way to channel this energy intosomething that can challenge the status quo and give us some hope. Thelast straw that made our hearts overflow with frustration and despairoccurred on November 30[2010], when Hamas officers arrived at the SharekYouth Forum, a leading youth movement[2], with their weapons, their liesand their aggression, throwing everyone out, arresting some andprohibiting the organization from functioning. A few days later,demonstrators in front of Sharek[headquarters]were beaten and someimprisoned. We are truly living a nightmare within a nightmare. It'shard to find the words to describe the pressure we are under.We barely survived Operation Cast Lead, during which Israel veryeffectively bombed us, destroying thousands of homes and even more livesand dreams. They didn't get rid of Hamas, as they intended, but theysurely terrified us forever, leaving everyone with post-traumatic stressdisorder because there was nowhere to run.We are young people with heavy hearts. We carry such a weight within usthat it makes it impossible for us to enjoy the sunrise. How can weenjoy it when black clouds cover the horizon and sinister memories flashbefore our eyes every time we close them? We smile to hide our pain. Welaugh to forget the war. We remain hopeful so as not to commit suicideon the spot. During the war, we had the clear feeling that Israel wantedto erase us from the face of the earth. In recent years, Hamas has doneeverything it can to control our thoughts, our conduct and ouraspirations. We are a generation of young people accustomed to facingmissiles, carrying what seems the impossible mission to live a normal,healthy life, and barely tolerated by a massive organization that hasspread through our society like a malignant tumor , sowing chaos anderadicating every living cell, thought and dream in its path, paralyzingthe people under a regime of terror. Not to mention the prison we livein, a prison maintained by a supposedly democratic country.History repeats itself in the cruelest of ways and no one seems to care.We are scared. Here in Gaza we are afraid of being arrested,interrogated, beaten, tortured, bombed, killed. We are afraid to live,because each of our steps must be weighed and carefully considered,barriers are everywhere, we cannot move as we want, say what we want, dowhat we want, sometimes we cannot even think what we want - because theoccupation has taken over our brains and hearts in such a terrible waythat it hurts and makes us want to shed endless tears of frustration andrage!We don't want to hate, we don't want to have all these feelings, wedon't want to be victims anymore. ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough tears,enough suffering, enough control, limitations, unjust justifications,terror, torture, excuses, bombings, sleepless nights, civilian deaths,dark memories, a sinister future, a heartbreaking present, troubledpolitics, fanatical politicians, religious nonsense[3], enoughincarcerations! WE SAY STOP! This future is not the one we want!We want three things. We want to be free. We want to be able to live anormal life. We want peace. Is this too much to ask? We are a peacemovement made up of young people in Gaza, and elsewhere, of supporters,who will not rest until the whole truth about Gaza is known to everyone,throughout the world, to the point that no silent consent or any screedof indifference are no longer accepted.This is the manifesto of the youth of Gaza for change.We will begin by destroying the occupation that surrounds us, we willemerge free from this mental prison and regain our dignity and ourself-respect. We will stand tall even if we are resisted. We will workday and night to change the miserable situation in which we live. Wewill build dreams where we hit walls.We only hope that you - yes, you who are reading this statement now! -will be able to give us your support.[4]We want to be free, we want to live, we want peace.FREE THE YOUTH OF GAZANOTES[1]You can freely choose between "Fuck you", "Fuck you", and a few othertranslations. The English term seemed well enough known (and expressiveenough) to us to give it as it is.[2]Subsidized by international institutions, Sharek sets up projects(including professional or development) integrating youth from the WestBank and Gaza. To know more[3]"Religious bulshitt" in the English version translated here.[4]The manifesto suggests here displaying your support for GYBO on thewall of its Facebook page, or by email to this address:http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article3974_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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