2. Bill Templer’s article on the Hamas electoral victory
19th February 2006
Posting 2. to General (no specific category), by Bill Templer
Beyond Apartheid to Convivencia:
“Walking We Ask Questions”
Bill Templer is a member of the new Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). A Chicago-born Israeli, he worked many years with the Negev Bedouin in southern Israel in their struggle for rights and dignity, and with Romanies in eastern Bulgaria. The original of this essay is in Next Left Notes, “A News Magazine Devoted To Direct Action”, at antiauthoritarian.net/NLN/current/templer_hamas.html.
This time, for the first time in my life, I do feel a change in the air. The rebellion spirit of the Palestinian resistance is a spirit people can empathise with. You know why? Because the Palestinians are in the forefront of the war against evil. –Gilad Atzmon. [1]
A new era in the Palestinian liberation struggle is upon us. Rather than just an electoral repudiation of Fatah’s long years of corruption, mismanagement and collaboration with the Israeli plutocracy, the extraordinary success of Hamas at the polls comes from the gut, the depths of despair of an entire population. It is a powerful protest against the Occupation, a loud NO to persistent efforts by the Israeli military and political class to force Palestinian surrender and crush their national rights.
This vote by the Palestinian working masses was a resounding NO to political Zionism and its century-old agenda of Zionist segregation and land expropriation. NO to a pseudo–‘settlement’ imposed by Washington. NO to abandonment of the demand for a right of return for the millions of Palestinian refugees. NO to shredding Palestine into Bantustans. NO to the Great Wall of Palestine. A massive electoral expression of muqawama, resistance. As embodied in the name Hamas itself, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (Islamic Resistance Movement).
Even as the victory was celebrated on Jan. 26, the Israeli army shot dead a nine-year-old girl in Gaza, Aya Al Astal, walking near the security fence. . . .
Templer’s highly inspiring full article (with 2 photos) is at site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/2006-02-18.htm#2