Mick Hartley

This has nothing to do with liberating the Palestinians: this is about destroying Israel. Daniel Ben-Ami at Spiked:

One thing should be abundantly clear following this weekend’s massacre of hundreds of Israelis: these actions had nothing to do with ‘freeing’ Palestine. The immediate goal of Hamas, the Gaza-based terrorist group responsible for these atrocities, was to terrorise Jews. Its longer-term objective is the creation of an international Islamic order. The claims that this has anything to do with fighting Israeli oppression are morally repugnant….

One thing that Hamas has no interest in securing is national self-determination for the Palestinian people. That would certainly be a worthy cause. But what Hamas really wants is to destroy Israel. It sees this as an essential step towards creating an international Islamic order.

Even the name that Hamas has given to this weekend’s barbaric attacks – Operation Al-Aqsa Deluge – gives the game away. This is a reference to the mosque in the centre of the Old City of Jerusalem, which is considered to be the third holiest site for Muslims after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. By choosing this name, Hamas is claiming to be acting in the name of all Muslims, rather than Palestinians specifically. This was reinforced by Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas, who on Saturday appealed to the whole Islamic world to join his battle against Israel.

The current conflict in and around Israel is not a contest between the rights of Israelis and Palestinians to national self-determination. It is a battle between Israel and a nihilistic terrorist movement whose stated goal is to slaughter Jews.

Any word from Judith "understanding Hamas and Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the left, that are part of a global left, is extremely important" Butler yet?