As pro-Palestinian sentiment rises across the so-called collective West, so too does a patronising pacifist take that condemns Palestinian resistance and ignores the necessity of armed struggle. This perspective is at best rooted in a lack of education on the nature of this conflict and other similar struggles against settler colonialism and apartheid.

The mainstream view accepted across the collective West today glorifies the likes of Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. On the face of things, this alone would infer some kind of general solidarity among Westerns against the horrors of racism, colonialism and segregation. Yet, the ideas circulated about these individuals and their struggles are often completely incorrect representations, ultimately rooting the “good guys” of history into a pacifist and peaceful set of individuals who were willing to forgive and collaborate with their oppressors. 

This idea, that subjugated indigenous and Global South populations, or more generally, people of color, should take a liberal pacifist approach to resisting their oppressors is therefore embedded in Western collective consciousness, predicated on such concepts that are attributed to the above mentioned people. As this philosophical moral context underpins the limits of Western support for liberation struggles and imbeds itself in the minds of those currently appalled at the ongoing genocide in Gaza, it is important to undo this rather pernicious whitewashing of history and understand the damage it can do to grass-roots organising against racist projects.

Pacifying Change

While the three noted historical figures are complex individuals, covering their ideas in their entirety is far too large of a task for a single article. Yet, the misconceptions deliberately spread about Gandhi, MLK, and Mandela must be addressed for the purpose of undoing the relevant propaganda.

Beginning with Mahatma Gandhi, the idea surrounding his actions that present him as the king of peace are wholly inaccurate to say the least. Although he is known for his philosophy on nonviolence, his tactics were actually by their nature designed to invite violence and rely on the violent tendencies of the oppressor. If we are to be accurate, the Gandhi tactic is to endure the violence of the oppressor and to even have peaceful demonstrators die, or be seriously injured in considerable numbers, in order to demonstrate the inequality and injustice that a group is experiencing. In many ways it is a suicidal philosophy on some levels, with the goal being to appeal to the good will of the masses, who will ideally witness the violence of the oppressor and force through change.

MLK was nothing like Gandhi, despite the attempts to portray him as such. Martin Luther King Jr also did not count out the use of force as a means of self-defense. Common portrayals of MLK have him pitted as the “turn the other cheek” figure, opposed to Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary”, yet this is a simplistic and rather inaccurate comparison that doesn’t carry through. Yes, MLK was indeed an advocate for non-violent forms of struggle and is known best for his speeches calling for equality, but he was not against the use of force under all circumstances. People often forget that the US government played a role in his assassination.

Then we have Nelson Mandela, who is depicted as the man of compromise that overlooked the horrors of Apartheid and made peace with his oppressors. To begin with, people often forget that Nelson Mandela was labeled by the US and UK as a terrorist, which was based upon his involvement with the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). He was an early proponent of armed struggle against the Apartheid government in South Africa and the only reason he wasn’t further involved in violent resistance is due to his arrest, which occurred during the first few years that the ANC’s armed wing had been formed. In the course of the battle to end Apartheid, the ANC launched bombing attacks, received training and weapons from nations/groups throughout the Global South, including from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Although there is a lot more to be said about these central historical figures, in addition to the battle for civil rights in the United States, opposing British colonialism and abolishing Apartheid in South Africa, it is important to understand that violent resistance existed in all these struggles and is consistently undermined or entirely ignored. In some cases, more than others, armed struggle is more central, yet it is consistently a contributing factor. As Franz Fanon said Concerning Violence: 

“The native knows all this, and laughs to himself every time he spots an allusion to the animal world in the other's words. For he knows that he is not an animal; and it is precisely at the moment he realizes his humanity that he begins to sharpen the weapons with which he will secure its victory. 

As soon as the native begins to pull on his moorings, and to cause anxiety to the settler, he is handed over to well-meaning souls who in cultural congresses point out to him the specificity and wealth of Western values. But every time Western values are mentioned they produce in the native a sort of stiffening or muscular lockjaw.”

Condemning Hamas In Palestine And Bowing To The Oppressors Double-Standards

Since the beginning of the current war in Gaza, which began with the Hamas-led operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, the pro-Israeli Western corporate media have sought to begin every conversation on the issue with a ritual condemnation of the Palestinian resistance.

For Israeli, or pro-Israeli guests on Western broadcast television, such a question is never posed to them. If they are challenged, it is always done within specifically engineered confines, conceptual borders of what the acceptable conversation should look like. Therefore, they are asked about the Israeli military “going too far”, “committing mistakes” or not holding itself to the relevant “standards”. Why is this the case? Because the point of entry into the discussion dictates how the issue is framed, which is that Palestinian resistance is terrorism and Zionist regime violence is acceptable at some level or another, the real question being the degree to which the Israelis have “the right” to use violence.

The events of October 7, which constituted a well-prepared military raid that managed to paralyze the Israeli Southern Command and in the process inflicted a total of 1139 deaths, around 400 of them against Israeli military and security personnel. The Zionist military also clearly inflicted a considerable amount of deaths on its own settler population that day, while Palestinians killed a large number too. 

The number of non-combatants killed by Palestinians is not settled, nor has any report, published by the UN or any independent human rights group, managed to decipher which armed group or individual Palestinians that crossed the Gaza perimeter that day killed any specific number of the Israeli non-combatants. The Zionist entity will not let any independent investigation into the events that day be carried out and has taken care to ensure that the evidence is within its hands solely also. Why? Because the truth would shatter their narrative.

A narrative concocted to serve the interests of justifying genocide was spread far and wide. The US President, Joe Biden, has spoken about an ancient desire from Hamas fighters to kill Jewish people, while also spreading the Israeli claims about beheaded babies and a range of other ridiculous propaganda hoaxes. This is to present the Palestinians and their resistance fighters as savages, to turn them into monsters who are born different from the rest of humanity and are therefore deserving of a different method of examination.

To understand October 7, you have two ways of approaching it. The first is to assume that Palestinians are “ethnically predisposed to killing and violence, that they are barbarians from birth, or at a cultural level, and that their society is a lesser one to those of the collective West”, which includes the Israelis. The second is to view Operation Al-Aqsa Flood as a reaction to decades of violence, ethnic cleansing and Apartheid, using the historical context to explain a very human reaction to a regime which aims to destroy all aspirations for Palestinian Statehood and basic rights. 

Once you have established your interpretation, the next step is to look at the situation strategically. Why? Because this enables us to analyze the methods with which the Palestinian people can actually attain their freedom. The whole reason that much of the world is even having a debate on the idea of Palestinian rights and Statehood is because of both Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the Israeli genocidal reaction to it. 

Prior to October 7, the Palestine question was not even a consideration in international politics, now it is the primary moral issue of this era. Meaning that the Hamas-led military campaign succeeded in not only inflicted the desired blow on the Israeli military and the seizure captives to exchange with what are now 21,000 Palestinian captives, but also at reviving the cause for Palestinian rights and Statehood. 

The follow up question to this is often “but why don’t Hamas just lay down their weapons?” To begin with, the Israeli regime has expressed its intent to commit genocide and are currently carrying it out in Gaza and even in the event that a prisoner exchange deal is signed, the Israelis express their willingness to continue the war, not just until the “defeat of Hamas”, but until they can secure a situation under which Gaza will not be ruled by Palestinians.

On top of this, we have a historical example of what happens when the Palestinian resistance give up their weapons and flee. This exact scenario happened at the end of the 1982 war in Lebanon - during which around 20,000 Palestinians and Lebanese were murdered - when the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) agreed to evacuate from Lebanon and put down their weapons. When the Palestinian resistance left, the Zionist regime occupied Southern Lebanon, there was nobody there to defend the Palestinian refugee camps, which led to some of the worst civilian massacres in the history of the entire conflict, most notably the Sabra and Shatila massacre which murdered 3,500 innocent people.

Knowing this, there are some Westerners who adhere to principles of the Left, who understand much of the context and still condemn Hamas, attacking them as a “right wing group”. This analysis is born of complete ignorance to Palestinian society, politics, culture and the nature of resistance movements historically. It is also often rooted in an uneducated or subconsciously orientalist approach to Islamic resistance groups. The dominant strand of resistance groups began emerging in the late 1970’s as Secular Arab Nationalist and Marxist groups had failed to achieve liberation, at this time there was also the birth of Islamic Republic of Iran. In the case of Iran, as a side note, much of the revolutionaries were actually Islamic Socialists and figures such as Ali Shariati had a great impact on their ideological approach, which is often written out of the history books.

The natural evolution of the resistance gave way to the Islamic groups which we all know today, while secular Arab nationalists and Marxists still continue to exist as part of the resistance bloc. For instance, the PFLP and DFLP for example are both Left wing Palestinian parties, whose armed wings are currently fighting alongside Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and other Islamic groups. While the range of Palestinian parties that exist may vehemently disagree on social, political and economic issues, they all stand with each other in the Gaza Strip and fight under a unified ‘Joint Room’ of resistance that was formed by Hamas. The weapons in the hands of the Leftist groups in Palestine are supplied by Islamic parties, while the groups coexist in their shared struggle for national liberation. This reality of coexisting parties with diverging views existed throughout various resistance movements historically also.

If the idea that Islamic values are so abhorrent and parties which adhere to them are to be considered right wing undesirables, then apply this to Nat Turner or MLK’s Christian ideologies also, on which modern Western Leftists would vehemently disagree with when it comes to various issues. Not everyone, or every group, in a liberation movement has to be a perfect representation of your own values and there is always room for growth. There is a reason why the majority of Palestinians and the Arab World support the armed resistance of Hamas. This isn’t an election for local candidates in a Western nation, this is a national liberation struggle and the difference between being ethnically cleansed/exterminated or attaining freedom.

To conclude, if you genuinely want Palestinians to attain their rights and a State, violence is not a hypothetical, it is an everyday reality and even under the Fourth Geneva convention they have the right to violently resist. When scores of civilians are being slaughtered every single day, armed resistance is not a choice. Hamas happens to be the strongest group that leads the resistance, so when you are asked to condemn them, you are being asked to condemn Palestinian resistance and the question actually has nothing to do with Hamas and its political stances. 

Most of those asking this question in the first place couldn’t tell you the most basic facts about Hamas. There is never an actual discussion about their ideology, just a caricature of the “stereotypical savage” that they use to portray the Palestinian people.