Hamas

The Left-Wing’s MAGA Folks

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Hamas is bad. Hezbollah is bad. Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic Regime in Iran are bad. Maduro is bad. North Korea is bad. Cuba is bad. There’s a lot of bad with China. Russia’s government is outright rotten bad. Osama Bin Laden was bad. January 6th was bad. Nazi Germany and the Holocaust were bad, and real. Ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavian Republics is and was bad. African militants, both national armies and terroristic groups, seeking to commit atrocities and ethnic cleansing, are bad. Pinochet and Pol Pot were bad. I could go on all day. Bad people and groups are bad people and groups. There is no “but” after any of them.

Of course who is good is a lot more complicated and requires caveats often. The Western World is largely a free and safe place today because the United States sacrificed literally millions of our sons and daughters to the cause of freedom. We also had slavery for our first eight decades, committed the Trail of Tears, and built Japanese Internment Camps. The British and French fought side by side with us in keeping the world from fascism, but their colonial pasts aren’t great. Germany is probably one of the best two or three countries in the world today, and for that matter so is Japan, but we’re eighty years removed from the worst war in the history of man being fought to stop them from raping and killing huge percentages of the Earth’s population. Hell, Stalin’s Soviet Union and even Mao’s forces in Russia fought on the right side of that conflict, before killing tens of millions of their own people. Lincoln and Johnson both held deeply racist views on a number of matters, and did more for the cause of Civil Rights than any President in American history. Good can be a very, very relative term, in a way that bad just can’t be.

There is no world though where whitewashing away the Holocaust and declaring Hamas and Bin Laden as freedom fighters is in any way, however minor, good. October 7th was pure evil, period. So was Pearl Harbor. So was Mao’s Cultural Revolution. The Iranian Revolution was not justified by the removal of Mossadegh, it was just outright evil too. Down is not up. There are red lines. Even if previous Presidents and Administrations didn’t enforce them, Assad was a very bad guy for crossing the red line and killing his people with chemical weapons. Yes, ISIS fighting against him was also bad. Some things are really just unequivocal.

Many of us have criticized MAGA and Republicans for accepting trash people and moral relativism in the era of Trump simply because it’s from people “on their side.” We would be remiss to accept these people on our side while criticizing them. AOC criticized protestors in a Jewish neighborhood of Queens for voicing support for Hamas. So did Mamdani. She was criticized by those on the far left. So was Mamdani. Now look, there’s plenty of reason to say she’s full of shit, and so is he, but I think any morally responsible person at least has to defend them here. Part of why I hate the far left is their inability to say up is up and down is down, so it’s nice to see they’ll do the absolute bitter minimum when forced. Bad is bad.

We all need to realize though that we are housing some folks in our “camp” who will literally side with any crazy terroristic organization or government if they are against the United States. These people are completely unacceptable. Making a joke about the Holocaust and Iranian protestors being killed isn’t a “moderate” or “reasonable” position, it’s absolute cosmic levels of freak politics. Taking the side of a murderous, hard line lunatic regime that is killing it’s own people by the thousand, while denying the Holocaust used to get you relegated to the fringes of American and Western politics, right along side of the moon howling crowd. It still should. These people are rotten to their core.

Bad is still bad. You can question plenty of things about America and our allies while still acknowledging that some people are outright bad who stand against us. Putin’s war in Ukraine is wrong. Hamas needs to be eliminated. The Iranian regime is bad. It is a minimum to understand this, even if you are criticizing Netanyahu and the Israeli government, the conduct of the war in Ukraine, or the ability of the Shah’s son to lead. If you can’t tell the difference between the troubled but civilized and the murderers and zealots, you should be cast out of acceptable democratic politics. The Democratic Party should stop equivocating on whether we want these people around. Any decent party should not.

Some Truth on Gaza

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Let’s have a little truth for a second- the kids are not alright. The war in Gaza may be a lot of things- maybe there are some war crimes, it is inhumane, it is awful, it is not good- but it is not a genocide. If it were a genocide, Gaza would be gone. Population before the war began was 2.2 million. A simple Google tells you that it is basically unchanged. What is happening in Gaza is awful, and it should end. It is a war though, not a genocide.

Hamas caused this war when it attacked Israeli civilians on October 7th, 2023. There is no equivocation on that, no room for debate. Netanyahu has lied though throughout this war. He stated his goal was the removal of Hamas, a complete regime change. He has had several chances to do that, and he doesn’t follow through. For that reason, this war should end. He has no interest in actually following through to any objective, so this is just a waste of human life now. The reality is that most Palestinians in Gaza are not Hamas. They are not terrorists. They are being killed in the war though, and through starvation and disease caused by the war. This is inhumane and should end. There is actually no point to this war continuing.

Netanyahu and Hamas have used each other to justify their continuing existence. Hamas uses the human suffering caused by Netanyahu to not only justify their continuing governance over Gaza, but even to justify killing Gazans they deem as traitors. Netanyahu uses the threat of Hamas to justify voting for his right-wing coalition in Israel. Staying in power at this point keeps Netanyahu out of legal trouble, so he is even more obnoxious with his rhetoric. Netanyahu has also made a future “two state solution” more difficult to impossible with his policies allowing settlers into the West Bank. He is not a friend to the United States, unless you think American policy should be the subjugation or displacement of Palestinians.

Hamas is worse than Netanyahu though. They are a terrorist organization. They do not in anyway make difference between targets of war and civilians in their attacks. They openly say they will not recognize Israel as a nation, even in a two state solution, and that Jews should be hunted and killed. They do not support a democratic Palestine, and they have not held elections in Gaza since they won in 2006. They openly oppose the United States of America. They violate the human rights of their own citizens. They kill and torture people for being LGBTQ. They have no belief in a separation of church and state, or free speech, or even the right to eat for their own citizens. They are redeemable and must be wiped from the face of the Earth. They are not good for Israelis or Palestinians.

Here’s the big things though to remember about Israel. It is a democracy, they elect their government like we do. It is not a “colonizer state” of white Europeans, in fact the majority are not white or European. Israelis could vote out Netanyahu in a future election (they have before), unlike the Palestinians in Gaza with Hamas. In short, these two things are not quite the same.

Neither the Israelis or Palestinians have some absolute right over the other to that land, which is why any call for a single state solution is wrong. Even European Jews trace their ancestry to Israel in most cases, and their families left because of violence and unrest against them centuries ago. Both groups have non-white, indigenous ancestry to the area, and a claim to living there. There was no Palestine before 1948, they had never had self rule. There had not been a kingdom of Israel in centuries either. The UN proposal in 1948 was to create two countries there. One side accepted it, the other did not. The nation that accepted the plan was then attacked by it’s neighboring nations, fought a bunch of wars, and won. The neighbors did not accept Palestinians who wanted to flee. Hence, we have arrived where we are today.

What needs to happen is the removal of Hamas. It is the priority, and it must be the first thing that happens. Then Israel needs to remove Netanyahu at the ballot box. A new Israeli government must cease settlements in the West Bank and work with neighboring nations and allies to bring aid to the Palestinian people. Once they have rebuilt, they need elections, once they have elections, they need to be recognized. If we get that far, Oslo I should be restored as much as possible, and Oslo II should begin to be negotiated again. Arafat’s decision to walk away from Oslo II remains the single biggest blunder in that region to date. Will this happen? Not likely. We’re well beyond this point right now. For now the goal should be the removal of Hamas and a return of democracy in Gaza. Those are the only first steps that can move us towards any stability.

Why Trump Was Able to Get His Ceasefire in Gaza

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Jimmy Carter made history with a deal between Egypt and Israel, but still couldn’t forge a lasting peace in the region. Bill Clinton got peace accords signed between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, and then very nearly got a permanent agreement creating two states, but he came up narrowly short thanks to Arafat. Barack Obama got a nuclear deal with Iran and removed many of the standing issues between the United States and the Middle Eastern nations, but still couldn’t build a lasting peace. Joe Biden ended our long occupation of Afghanistan and tried very hard to hammer down a lasting agreement in Gaza, but he couldn’t get it done. Of course the Bush Presidencies were bogged down in the region and did not leave popular in the region, and Reagan was illegally playing both sides of a brutal war in the region, so he’s not loved either.

To hear Donald Trump tell it, he has been more successful in the region. He negotiated the Abraham Accords, and has convinced multiple Arab states to recognize Israel. Now he has negotiated a new ceasefire in Gaza. This is driving some people nuts, as Trump and his followers are saying he should win the Nobel Peace Prize now. While that is ridiculously silly, Trump has had some real successes in the region. You have to be a total partisan hack to say otherwise. But why is this man succeeding there?

The long and short of why Arab states are willing to deal with Trump in ways they did not with previous U.S. Presidents is simple- they agree with him and share common goals. Past Republican Administrations had neoconservative leanings and wanted to spread democracy across the region, a goal Trump could not give two shits about, and a goal that most Middle Eastern leaders reject. Past Democratic Administrations very much wanted a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian question, and from 1948 to today, no Middle Eastern country has really wanted that to happen, especially not the countries closest to the West Bank and Gaza, while Trump has shown no real inkling of wanting a Palestinian nation to exist on any sort of terms that Palestinians would want. Past Democratic nations have also wanted to take up issues of human rights abuses in the region, which Trump is completely disinterested in. Trump is interested in making money with some of the rulers in the Middle East though, something they are very interested in with him as well. In short, his interests basically align with most of their’s, so they’re happy to deal with him.

There is of course the Israeli side of this, and again, I think this comes down to simple interests. Past U.S. Administrations have wanted a two state solution, and governments in Israel after Oslo I have either opposed that outright or been wary of it. While I think Netanyahu has tested Trump’s patience a bit by not just giving him the headlines he wants, in the end neither has any burning interest in a two-state solution. Netanyahu may prefer a “Hot War” to a “Cold War” with Hamas, but even in a ceasefire state he can continue to make the case for his right-wing positions on the Palestinians as long as Hamas is there. Trump is fine with Hamas being there, as long as they sign his ceasefire to make him look good. Neither Hamas or Bibi Netanyahu have any real interest in ending this state of war. Trump has no interest in making them do so. They’re all pretty happy with it.

Now, I don’t think you really need to worry about Trump winning a Nobel Peace Prize, if you really care all that much about it (I don’t). The prize is based in Oslo, Norway, and the politics behind who wins it are largely driven by Western European politics. On the issue of Gaza, Western Europe is basically moving the goalposts so far left on Trump now that they will not have to really consider giving it to him. Governments across Western Europe are going for full-blown Palestinian statehood, which is fairly popular with their publics, which is frankly a position that Carter, Clinton, Obama, and Biden all could not have met realistically in a real political sense. So Trump’s position on a ceasefire will still look fairly reactionary to most of Western Europe, and his reluctance to full embrace Ukraine in their war with Russia will disqualify him across the continent. In short, they’re not going to give him the prize, no matter what.

With that all said, we shouldn’t all dismiss this ceasefire agreement, or at least the desire for one, out of hand. Israel had every right to respond after October 7th, but both their government and Hamas have drug this conflict out well beyond what was necessary or useful. The return of any remaining Israeli hostages and a halt to the violence that is killing thousands of Palestinians each month is a good thing for both groups of people. While I think anything short of the eradication of Hamas is a recipe for future disaster, that doesn’t make this deal a bad short-term thing.

Some things are bigger than our feelings about Trump, and even a broken clock is right twice a day.