Class War Yes! Terrorism No!

Hamas wages terrorism, which only helps Israel's rulers

Listen to a great song here about fighting the class war, not the ones the oppressors want us to fight, and read its lyrics here.

Class war against Zionism is the way to defeat Zionism. Failure to wage the class war against Zionism means allowing Zionism to prevail. Let’s look at what class war means.

The Vietnamese who fought the French and then American occupying military forces in the 1950s, 60s and 70s were waging class war. By this I mean that they targeted violence against those who were using violence to oppress them—French or U.S. soldiers in Vietnam; they did not attack non-combatant civilians in France or the United States. Because they waged the class war, they actually won over to their side so many American GIs that the U.S. was forced to withdraw from Vietnam primarily because it could not rely on U.S. soldiers to actually fight the Viet Cong. Read about this in detail here.

American GIs stopped obeying orders to fight the Viet Cong because they figured out the answer to the question forced upon them by Viet Cong class war violence: “How come these Vietnamese peasants are shooting at us when we’re only trying to bring them freedom from Communist totalitarianism?” The GIs came to understand that the propaganda they received in boot camp was a lie, that they were in truth being used to install a government of the rich (hence pro-U.S.) over the have-nots of Vietnam. The GIs knew this purpose for which they were being used was immoral, because they were have-nots just like the Vietnamese have-nots. And so the GIs started refusing to obey orders to fight the Viet Cong. They got stoned. They just pretended to fight the Viet Cong when ordered to do so. And increasingly they fragged (killed with fragmentation grenades) gung-ho officers who ordered them to fight the Viet Cong.

If Hamas truly wanted to defeat Zionist oppression of Palestinians, then it too would wage class war. It would make a point of ONLY attacking people who were using violence to oppress Palestinians. It would make a point of declaring that it’s aim was to end oppression, not to harm Jews just because they were Jews. Furthermore, Hamas would expose the fact that the Israeli billionaire ruling class oppressed ordinary Israeli Jewish working class people severely, and that it treated Palestinians even worse— like dirt!—for the purpose of making them be a bogeyman enemy to frighten Israeli Jewish working class people into viewing their billionaire oppressors as their protector against their “real enemy”—Palestinians.

If Hamas waged the class war this way, then it would start to gain the support of ordinary Israeli working class Jews. The Israeli have-nots, instead of fearing Hamas, would look upon it as their friend—the CLASS friend—in a struggle against their CLASS enemy—the Israeli billionaire ruling class. This would be a REAL threat to Zionist power, one that could eventually topple it.

But Hamas has no intention of fighting the class war; it has no intention of defeating Zionism. Hamas is controlled by Palestinian billionaires, as you can read about here. Hamas is also funded and kept in power by the Israeli billionaire ruling class, as you can read about here. Hamas wants to be the rulers over Palestinians in Gaza, to enjoy wealth and privilege there. Hamas knows that by committing terrorism against Israeli civilians it will get what it needs to remain the privileged upper ruling class over Palestinians. Hamas knows that its terrorism (from its early suicide bombing of civilians at Israeli bus stops and restaurants, to its rockets aimed at civilians in towns in the south of Israel, to its attack on civilians as well as military personnel on October 7, 2023) gives Israel’s rulers a pretext for massacring Palestinians in Gaza, which in fact only makes Hamas stronger. (All knowledgable observers (who are quoted here) regardless of whether they sympathize with Palestine or Israel say that Israeli bombing of Gaza makes Hamas stronger, not weaker.)

If some members of Hamas don’t know all of this, then they’re the ones who are motivated by irrational religious fanaticism. In either case, Hamas is USEFUL to Israel’s leaders, and not in any way a threat to them. This is why Israel has for many decades up to Netanyahu’s most recent term of office been funding Hamas and working to keep it in power, as shown in detail in the same previously linked article, here.

The Issue is NOT “Violence versus Non-violence”

All of the oppressive ruling classes of the world (and they all ARE oppressive of their own have-nots) want us to think the issue is violence versus non-violence. They want to make us fail to distinguish between morally unjust terrorism violence versus morally just violence in self-defense against those using violence to oppress people. These ruling elites want the have-nots to think that the only morally acceptable violence is violence conducted by one of the world’s governments that the haves (never the have-nots) control. They want us to believe that whenever the have-nots use class war violence then that’s just morally wrong terrorism. No! We need to distinguish morally just class war violence from morally unjust terrorism violence.

Resistance Is Not Terrorism, and Terrorism Is Not Resistance

The oppressive ruling classes want us to equate resistance to oppression (this resistance is class war violence) with terrorism, so that we will condemn resistance to oppression. The ruling classes thus LOVED it when good but very confused people responded to the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack by demonstrating with signs (see one in the photo below) that read, “Resistance is justified when people are occupied.”

These words in the sign are true. But in the present context (of the Hamas terrorist attack) these words convey something false, namely that the recent Hamas killing of noncombatant civilians is resistance. It is not. It is terrorism. It’s not terrorism because it is violent; it is terrorism because it includes violence specifically targeted against non-combatant civilians (meaning people who are not on-duty members of Israel’s military IDF nor armed and using violence to oppress Palestinians) rather than exclusively against those using or ordering violence to oppress people. Resistance is not terrorism; it is class war. And terrorism is not resistance; it is immoral and benefits ONLY the oppressor.