Attempts to dehumanize Hamas resistance movement doomed to fail

By Iqbal Jassat

Eleven years after Gaza-based resistance movement Hamas clinched historic victory in the 2006 Palestinian elections, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a remarkable confession.

In a 2017 interview with Donald Macintyre for The Guardian, Blair unabashedly admitted to thwarting the Palestinians' democratic choice—a transgression of historic proportions at the time.

Blair revealed that he and other global leaders were wrong to bow to the Israeli occupation's pressure, orchestrating an immediate boycott of Hamas after its landslide at the polls.

Though international monitors had declared the elections free and fair, Blair—then at the height of his premiership—was ensnared by Israel’s wicked agenda, fully swallowing its campaign to discredit both the electoral process and its victor, Hamas.

As has been the norm for most American presidents to kowtow to Israel, George W. Bush drove the settler-colonial regime's demands to halt aid to, and cut off relations with, the newly-elected Hamas government.

Blair, often derided as Bush’s loyal “poodle,” a label he earned through his unquestioning support for US policies, also cemented his reputation as a war criminal.

He brazenly demanded that Palestinians abandon their democratic will unless they conformed to conditions set by foreign imperialistic powers.

Typical of Western governments caught up in imperialism and a colonial mindset, Bush and Blair insisted that Hamas recognize Israel, renounce violence, and abide by previous agreements between its Fatah predecessors and the occupying regime.

Austria, then holding the EU’s rotating presidency, echoed this hardline stance on behalf of the 25-nation bloc, declaring, “there is no place in a political process for groups or individuals who advocate violence.”

Vicious efforts to isolate and oust Hamas from political power were spearheaded by Bush and Blair. And as a countermeasure to strengthen the hand of a willing collaborator, they hastily provided diplomatic and financial support to Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah.

A futile strategy that clearly failed, with Abbas limping on, linked to a nonexistent "peace process" that delivered zero victories—until now. In fact, to this day, he continues limping on the same track.

Macintyre wrote that Blair, who became envoy of the Middle East Quartet composed of the US, EU, UN, and Russia, "... after leaving Downing Street, now says the international community should have tried to 'pull Hamas into a dialogue.'"

Within a year following Hamas's stunning victory, the Zionist settler-colonial regime imposed a stifling boycott as well as an economic blockade of Gaza.

An unending 17-year blockade since 2007 that has seen relentless bombings, assassinations, detentions, and denial of basic supplies, which, as my colleague Dr. Firoz Osman correctly described, is a policy of "extermination." This is what the world witnesses in Gaza today, after 43,700 fatalities in over one year.

This exposes the Zionist narrative—shamelessly promoted by Western leaders and mainstream media—that October 7 happened in a "vacuum" as a blatant falsehood.

The hypocrisy and double standards of the West, which shocked much of the world in the aftermath of October 7, are far from new. Their roots lie in the illegal establishment of Israel as a colonial project on Palestinian land in 1948.

But for the generation that witnessed Hamas's outstanding 2006 election victory, it was more shocking to discover Western powers warning that they would not deal with a Palestinian government led by Hamas.

NBC News reported at the time that Hamas had won so overwhelmingly and fairly—former US President Jimmy Carter said the elections in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip were “completely honest.”

That Carter endorsed the election as free and fair compounded the dilemma for pro-apartheid Israel Western governments. After all, the decisive victory saw Hamas take nearly two-thirds of the 132 parliament seats.

The profiling of Hamas as a "terrorist" organization is not only a ruse but deliberately manufactured by the Israeli regime and latched onto by its Western lackeys to demonize and criminalize resistance, including armed struggle, against the occupation.

Not to be outdone by governments linked to the settler-colonial regime are Zionist pressure groups who work in tandem with right-wing allies across a range of so-called "think tanks," NGOs, and Israeli-funded "research bodies."

The Zionist playing field in South Africa has been no exception. Pro-apartheid Israel lobbies ranging from the SA Zionist Federation to the SA Jewish Board have hysterically been profiling Hamas as a "terror" group.

A tactic doomed to fail, both at the national and international levels, if they are wise enough to heed the lessons of South Africa's liberation movements.

Palestine’s freedom movement, notwithstanding Israel’s slaughter of innocent civilians in the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and Lebanon, is recorded as an epic struggle destined to overcome Zionism.

Iqbal Jassat is an executive member of Media Review Network, Johannesburg, South Africa.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV)

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