The idea that the Palestinian people have only been able to persist because of their religion is ridiculous to me. They are resisting because colonialism, apartheid and genocide are very bad things to which nobody would want to be subjected, not because of Islam. If Palestinians were atheists, is he suggesting that they wouldn’t have the strength or the will to resist? Would their lack of a belief in the supernatural turn them into doormats for Isn’treal?
I like Hakim’s content, but his position on religion is quite frustrating. He is a Muslim first and a Marxist second. Also, Joram van Klaveren is still a right-winger.
you have to understand that the average age of palestine is 18, so not many people get to compel in theory. religion plays a huge role in muslim populations, hakim is right here. it brings people together. of course the resistance is not just al qassam brigades, there’s pflp, dflp etc. but that is a luxury at this point.
on the other hand if you look at the demographic of the palestinian prisoners inside israeli prisons, the situation is complete reverse. there are people there for like 40 years. they did have the privelage to study theory.
I’m not criticising Palestinians for their religiosity. I’m criticising Hakim for his idealist assertions in the community post.
ok, that is valid. but still, in times like these, if you don’t have a guiding body, a stronghold, then people will eventually resort to means that they already have. i know you get this, but hakim lived through something similar, so it’s understandable that what got him through all this is very important to him while constructing his lens looking through this situation.
i live in a muslim country and anti-imperialism here -mainly- arises from infidelity of the us. if the us was a muslim country slaughtering non-muslims, the reaction would be different.
I feel like I’m either deluded or turning into a plain old Western atheist chauvinist scrolling through these comments.
But everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that Hamas was specifically propped up by the Israelis (multiple quotes from Israeli leadership attesting this) in their struggle against the secular PLO because the PLO was a bigger threat to Israeli plans for domination. Except in the past decade they’ve gone off the chain so to speak. Kind of like the mujahideen sponsored by the United States in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet friendly government, which also went off the chain and started attacking the US.
Israel wants palestine divided with a militant Hamas in the west that they can crush/conquer with impunity, and a weakened/coopted PLO in the east that cannot resist creeping colonization. But as far as I can tell the high point of hopes for a palestinian state were back in the 90s when there was a broad secular coalition under Arafat and a strong PLO.
