Gaza = Hamas

As I watch the news I sometimes wonder why Israel has focused so much on Gaza. Israel has over the years ’strangled’ the life out of the people in Gaza and its infrastructure.

Even before the recent bombing and resulting massacre, Gaza ran out of food and fuel; sewage pipes burst open in the streets; people resorted to eating grass from the road, children and the vulnerable dying as there was no access to medical care and then came the fighter jets to slaughter whatever was left of them.

On the other hand, the West Bank has been relatively ‘looked after’. I mean Israel released 227 prisoners (out of 11,000 and all were Fatah supporters), received the millions of pounds in taxes due from Israel and aid America – and in their own words were ‘progressing’, whatever that means.

So why does Israel have a problem with Gaza?

a) The world (that means mainly USA) wanted a free and fair election-so the people went to the polls and voted Hamas, including the Christian community in Palestinian territories.

b) The world (that’s right USA and Israel) were unhappy so branded the democratically elected leaders as terrorists.

c) The Israelis bolstered their support of Fatah in a classical colonial tactic of ‘divide and rule’ against Hamas

It seems to me quite simply, that anyone who agrees to abide by the treacherous Israeli conditions to relinquish their lands, dignity and freedom is rewarded with money. The primary reason the people voted for Hamas over Fatah, was because they were not corrupt.

I know this is not the best time to talk about internal Palestinian differences, but if we shy away from this we will never understand what is going on.  We need to openly talk about those who are complicit in the massacre of the people of Gaza – including Fatah and Egyptian officials for example. But that’s for another day.

My point is simple, the Israeli media and the so called world leaders want to separate Hamas from the people of Gaza. Let us be clear, like the majority people in Gaza, Hamas = Gaza and Gaza = Hamas. This is not about semantics but simply understanding that if Israel succeeds in making people accept that Hamas is separate from the people in Gaza they will succeed in their mission of obliterating and completely taking control of the Palestinian lands.

* People of Gaza are being punished because they voted for Hamas

* Hamas was elected democratically by Muslims and Christians because they felt it reperesented the fundamental ideology of securing what was rightfully and legally theirs under International law

* Hamas represents the only remaining resistance

Let us not talk of ‘Gaza’ in isolation, to do so would mean succumbing to the ideological battle by Israel to defeat legitimate resistance.

To simply label Hamas as just ‘terrorists’ is oversimplification. The ‘fight’ is not between two equals, if the Palestinians had fighter jets, tanks and latest US missiles – do we think there would be ’suicide bombings’? Such attacks and the firing of crude ‘rockets’ aimlessly are the actions of people who are desperate and have no other means of fighting back.

Just as Prime Minister Thatcher and others wanted us to believe the anti-apartheid activists in South Africa (ANC and others) were ‘terrorists’, the same is happening today with Hamas. Hamas is the legitimate ‘elected’ government of the Palestinian people. Calling them terrorists and refusing to deal with them is not going to solve the problem.