Israeli blows against Hamas and the rest of the Tehran-led “axis of resistance” are helping to change the face of the Middle East.
The Israel Defense Forces have launched a new offensive, another step aimed at dismantling Hamas and ending its dictatorial rule in Gaza. This is aimed at advancing the fight against Jew-hatred, preventing the Nazi-like group from fulfilling its threat to carry out more pogroms “over and over again” like its death squads did in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Decisively eliminating Hamas would also remove the biggest obstacle Palestinians face in defending their national rights and open the door to working people whatever their religious beliefs or national origins — Jews, Muslims, Druze, immigrants — organizing together. This can advance the development of consciousness of their common class interests.
Since March 25 there have been a dozen protests in Gaza demanding an end to the Hamas dictatorship. Thousands of Palestinians in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza mobilized April 27, chanting “the people want Hamas to leave.”
Hundreds of women and children held their own rally. The Beit Lahiya Movement encouraged their participation under the slogan of “No to war, no to gambling with the lives of our children and women.”
The Beit Lahiya Movement includes supporters of Hamas rival Fatah as well as local clans based around capitalist families. While denouncing Israeli “genocide,” the main fire of the protesters was clearly aimed at Hamas. They refuse to remain silent as Hamas uses the people of Gaza as human shields, “martyrs” in its war to try to destroy Israel and to kill Jews.
Several of the girls and young women gave speeches. “Peace is not a weakness; it is a choice,” one said in Arabic. “Let us live in love and peace.”
“We are without schools, without shelters, without healthy food and health care,” another told the press in English. “We need life without killing, without suffering, without war. Help us to end this war.”
Palestinians reject Hamas death cult
One of the most striking features of the April 27 action was the women’s rejection of Hamas’ cult of martyrdom.
Since imposing its dictatorial rule in 2007, Hamas used United Nations-funded schools to bolster its power. Hamas-imposed teachers indoctrinated children to hate Jews, glorify suicide bombings and other terrorist acts, and tried to win them to aspire to die as a “martyr” against Israel.
“We condemn terrorism in all of its forms, and want to live like everyone else in the world, in dignity and to be protected from war, death and annihilation,” one woman at the rally said, adding that “we all say” to Hamas “step down.”
“Why should I raise my son just for him to die in the end,” said another woman. “We are a people who want to raise our children and see them grow.”
Palestinians ‘not a begging people’
She also rejected Palestinians being kept as permanent refugees living on handouts from the U.N. and European Union.
“We are not a begging people and aid has never been our ambition,” she said. “We are a people who want to live a dignified life.”
The April 27 protest in Gaza received almost no mention in the news media in the U.S. and little in Israel. That’s because it exposes the lie behind the myth promoted both by the international pro-Hamas propaganda machine and by some in Israel that the majority of Palestinians support Hamas’ goal of destroying Israel.
That line is also pushed by forces in the U.S. ruling class, who claim Hamas cannot be defeated militarily because of this deep Palestinian support. That’s their pretext for calling for an immediate end to the war and a deal with Hamas that would bring “stability” — for U.S. economic and political interests — to the region and leave the Jew-hating group intact.
Hamas’ assassinations of some protest leaders has only fueled the ongoing demonstrations, showing that Palestinians in Gaza are losing their fear and refuse to be victims.
Changing relations with Syria
Israeli advances against Hamas and Hezbollah, and against Tehran’s military capacity, since Oct. 7, 2023, as well as Moscow’s need to focus on prosecuting its war on Ukraine in the face of its spreading unpopularity, helped pave the way for the overthrow of the hated Bashar al-Assad dictatorship in Syria. It had been the only other government that was part of the Iranian rulers’ “axis of resistance.”
The leader of the victorious anti-Assad coalition and now Syrian president is Ahmed al-Sharaa. Israeli leaders are skeptical about Sharaa’s professed evolution away from his origins in al-Qaeda and Islamic State.
Sharaa is trying to put together a centralized government, which he promises would respect all religions and nationalities. The Israeli government wants a decentralized regime with autonomous regions for the Druze and for Kurds, a sizable oppressed nationality in Syria, as a protection against the rise of a regime that could be a threat to Israel’s existence.
In a meeting with U.S. congressmen visiting Damascus, Sharaa said that he would like Syria to be part of the Abraham Accords, which normalized Israeli relations with four Muslim-majority countries.
Syrian Druze visit Golan Heights
Nearly 700 Druze leaders from Syria visited the shrine of Shuaib, the most important prophet of the Druze religion, in Israeli-ruled Golan Heights April 25 and 26, only the second such time since Israel took control of the Golan from Syria during the 1967 Six Day War. Under Assad, such exchanges were banned.
The bus convoy of Syrian Druze starting near Damascus was protected most of the way by Syrian government forces. Once they entered the buffer zone, Israel Defense Forces soldiers accompanied them to Majdal Shams in Golan.
Hundreds of Druze from the town greeted the convoy when it arrived at the border, singing songs of welcome and waving the Druze flag. A Hezbollah missile had killed 12 Druze children there in July last year.
“It’s impossible not to be moved by a meeting of brothers who haven’t seen each other in over 50 years, or grandparents who never saw their grandkids until tonight,” Sheikh Muafak Tarif, the spiritual leader of Israel’s Druze community, told Ynet News.
Hundreds of Israelis from across Israel, including Druze, Muslims, Christians and some Jews, participated in a celebratory meal for the Syrian Druze visitors the next day. Mansour Abbas, a member of the Israeli parliament from the United Arab List, briefly addressed the crowd calling the gathering a step toward peace.
Some 140,000 Druze live in Israel, including 29,000 in the Golan Heights; 700,000 live in Syria; and 300,000 in Lebanon.
“We hope the ties continue and won’t be cut off, this is important to us,” Sheik Ruslan al-Babur, one of the Syrian Druze, told Ynet, calling the Assad-regime enforced separation “cruel and inhumane.”
Actions like these break down barriers, help advance common struggles by working people and create better conditions for forging revolutionary working-class parties throughout the Middle East.