Regarding condemnation of the events of 7th October wrt the Barnaby Raine interview. (Was originally posted in response to
Wilf but not really aimed at Wilf):
I see it the other way round. Understanding the dark place they were coming from, the desperation of the circumstances, the sheer rage is exactly what moral maturity is about. The various left knee jerks about Hamas being an oppressor in their own right, are simultaneously true and irrelevant and shamefully excuse moral thinking. I don't believe the young men who broke through the fence carried out these atrocities
simply because they were following orders of an evil scheming leadership (I'm sure there were instructions of course). How many of us in that situation would do the exact same thing? I'm certain that those who are most quick to condemn would also be the first to go slitting throats. I see morality and moralism as diametric opposites in such a scenario.
There are SWP like anti-imperialist formulae about not condemning eg. the 9/11 attacks. And I would certainly question these formulae (to say the least!). But in contrast to the 911 bombers, the young men in Gaza faced a life time of food insecurity, water insecurity, dependence on aid, literal dependence on the Israeli enemy for necessities and the chance to work, a life without a future. And their children would face the same as would their children and so on. Permanent occupation/blockade. No hope, no future and with Hamas/Qassam Brigades as one of the very few opportunities to make something of themselves. And that's without going into the fact that many of them would have had to bury loved ones due to past Israeli incursions, had their homes destroyed, everything they had built destroyed or seen their hero friends in wheel chairs after the march of return in an even more hopeless, dependant state than they are.
I know most of you will roll your eyes at that second paragraph. The context doesn't matter (you knew about it already anyway). Right is right and wrong is wrong regardless. A basic sense of humanity is a basic sense of humanity. And two wrongs don't make a right. But what is this sense of right and wrong that is abstracted from the human being making the moral decisions?
I think in Gaza as everywhere there
should be an aspiration for a sense of morality that is internationalist. An aspiration that understands that the solution whatever it looks like will see Arab and Jew living peacefully together. That's my one moral judgement. But that sense of morality will come with a sense of mission, an actually existing project that provides hope. But they were a long way from an ultimate solution and even a long way from a project of hope. There are those in Gaza who refuse to give up on this aspirational morality, who don't give into to humbled despair or vengeful rage, but that there are praiseworthy individuals does not mean that we can dismiss those who fall short of that standard. I know I'm not in a position to not least because I don't have any ideas that provide hope for them nevermind the ability to point to an actually existing project to provide them hope.
We should understand that Hamas have tried entering into the electoral/democratic process, they have tried negotiation with Israel, they have tried reconciliation with the PA, they have tried peaceful protest. Each of these attempts have been met with violence and at the end of this stint of 15 years of blockade and 75 years of dispossession they have nothing to show and nor do any other faction, the Palestinian cause was getting sidelined and forgotten about while the material situation especially in Gaza was set to gradually deteriorate and its state of dependency sealed permanently. They had no options including doing nothing.
It's probably worth noting that the lefty critics of Hamas were nowhere to be seen during the Great March of Return protests which were absolutely organised by Hamas (because of course they were). Hamas regardless of their role in domestic oppression can and have organised popular resistance of both peaceful and terrorist types. The question is not why Hamas is the organising force, but rather why popular resistance takes these different forms at different times.
And all in all that is why I switch off when people talk about the necessity of condemnation. And that is why Barnaby Raine has just short up in my estimation. (fwiw I thought he did pretty badly otherwise - letting himself get distracted - in that interview.)
And I will also say that it's particularly disappointing to see tactical convenience being counterpoised to questions of morality and especially strange to see such explicitly opportunist counter position framed as maturity.
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