Firstly, stop recycling the tired old claim of Hamas antisemitism to deny Palestinians their voice. Secondly, the charge of antisemitism is serious, and it is also used as an emotionally manipulative weapon to slander Palestinian solidarity as undergirded by irrational hatred.

Let’s examine some important and related developments in the wake of the October uprising by Palestinian guerrillas. The accusation of antisemitism, flung with repetitive regularity at supporters of Palestinian rights, is aimed at silencing all opposition and condemnation of Israel’s genocidal military campaign against Gaza. The breakout of the besieged territory of Gaza – under Israeli land, sea, and air blockade since 2007 – not only exposed Tel Aviv’s military vulnerability, but also upended the apple cart that is the Abraham Accords.

Tel Aviv’s leaders are nursing their shattered collective ego, now that the carefully cultivated myth of Israel’s military invincibility has been shattered. Zionism’s supporters have spent decades deliberating manufacturing a media image of Israel’s allegedly sophisticated intelligence apparatus, backed up by a network of informants and highly advanced military technology. Gaza airspace is constantly buzzing with drones.

It is impossible to overestimate the propaganda impact, particularly in the Anglophone nations, of the Zionist-friendly image of Israel as a military power, backed by courageous and dedicated warrior citizens, for whom violence is the last resort. Making the ‘desert bloom’, these hardy and intelligent partisans of Zionism have made a home in Palestine, all the while confronting a barbarous, savage-minded, medieval Arab/Muslim ocean of hostility.

Binoy Kampmark writes that Palestinian casualties of Israeli military violence die by the thousands, condemned to anonymity and depersonalisation. Tower blocks are destroyed by Israeli Defence Force (IDF) missile strikes, and the Palestinian fatalities are barely reported. Israeli victims of Hamas attacks on the other hand, are named, their families interviewed, their lives remembered and humanised.

Our sympathy is perverted to serve the propagandistic aims of Zionism. The Palestinians and their supporters are marginalised. Julian Sayarer, writing in Jacobin magazine, makes a point with which this article was started – stop deployed the Hamas bogeyman to deny Palestinians’ independent agency.

The stereotype of the young, bearded, AK-47 waving angry Muslim has become so ubiquitous in our corporatised culture, it is difficult to challenge it. Underlying this stereotype is the perverse insinuation that Palestinian and Arab communities are motivated by an irrational antisemitism in their opposition to Zionism. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Let’s make it clear – Hamas, an Islamist organisation, included antisemitic elements and tropes in its 1988 foundational document. It recycled hateful stereotypes from fraudulent sources, such as the disgraceful Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a Tsarist Russian forgery. The Hamas charter, written by a people dispossessed by military violence and facing a marginalised existence, reflected the thinking of the organisation at that time.

In 2017, Hamas issued a new document, archiving the old charter. Replacing the antisemitic elements with a political perspective, Hamas agreed to a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders, and repudiated its connection with the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas specified that its conflict is not with Judaism, but with the colonialist project of Zionism. These distinctions are subtle, and important. Casting the opposition to Zionism as an anti colonial fight, not an age-old Crusading battle between Muslims and Jews, is an important step.

It is relevant to note here that Israeli politicians, whose differences are nuanced and afforded an explanation in the corporate media, routinely threaten to wipe out Palestinian and Arab populations. Benny Gantz, former IDF chief of staff and political ‘centrist’, has openly boasted of killing Palestinians. Such sentiments have not affected his political career.

Abraham Accords

Hebh Jamal, writing about the Palestinian military operation of early October, states that Palestinians are not celebrating death and destruction. No, they are not rejoicing at the killing of civilians, or the deaths of children – though the viral story about Hamas decapitating babies remains unverified. They are celebrating a chance at life. Having reduced Gaza to basic subsistence level, Israel has contributed to creating a new generation of aggrieved Palestinians.

The siege of Gaza is actually a case of collective punishment. Colonial powers, as Chris Hedges writes, normally impose collective punishment on rebellious populations – the Germans against the Herero in Namibia, the British against the Kikuyu in Kenya. For that matter, Gaza today resembles the conditions of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War 2.

The major political consequence of the October prison break is the upending of the Abraham Accords. A series of bilateral treaties between Tel Aviv and Arab states, the Abraham Accords were portrayed as ushering in a new era of Israeli-Arab normalisation. A propaganda triumph for the former Trump administration, relations between Tel Aviv and its Arab regional neighbours was always predicated on abandoning the aspirations of the Palestinians.

Normalisation, in the context of Middle Eastern politics, is promoted as a pathway of peace; a reconciliation between traditional enemies and the triumph of pragmatic thinking over ancient hatreds. There is one major problem with that image; the Palestinians remained excluded, and their legitimate demands for an independent state forgotten. For instance, Morocco, having signed a treaty with Tel Aviv in 2020, abandoned even the pretence of speaking up for Palestinian sovereignty.

During the 2022 FIFA World Cup soccer competition, after Morocco defeated Spain, Moroccan fans waved both the Moroccan and Palestinian flags, in a spontaneous and yet politically conscious display of solidarity. Defeating the former colonial power in Morocco, touched a deep chord of sympathy in the Arab psyche. Opposition to normalisation is a deep seated issue in the Arab world.

The outpouring of Palestine solidarity protests around the world demonstrate that Palestinian lives do matter. It is reasonable to oppose ‘condemning both sides’; rejecting the false equivalency between the violence of the slave owner with the enslaved. The colonial power deploys mechanised and systematic violence, while the oppressed fights back with whatever weapons are at their disposal. New York State Senator Julia Salazar wrote that the Palestinians deserve liberation because they are human beings.