Following Israel’s assassination of Yahya Sinwar, Netanyahu said “The war, my dear ones, is not yet over. We have before us a great opportunity to stop the axis of evil and create a different future.”

(The “axis of evil” was a a reference to Iran and its allies across the region in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.) He clarified his meaning a couple of days later by bombing the Indonesian Hospital in Northern Gaza.

North Gaza’s Indonesia Hospital bombed by Israel

So far the casualty count is 33 people killed and 85 wounded, including at least 21 women and children, according to medics on the scene. It is almost certain that that count will rise as bodies are dug out of the rubble.

The assassination of Sinwar is one part of Israel’s policy of state terrorism – first to terrorize the Palestinian population as a whole, and second to assassinate individual leaders. These two aspects are inextricably linked. That link can be seen in Israel’s terrorist explosions of Hezbollah’s walkie talkies in Lebanon which in two rounds killed 32 and wounded over 3,000.

“Eliminate Hamas” = genocide
Wikipedia estimates that Hamas has 40,000 members. That would include traffic cops, administrators and teacher. As with Israel’s bombing of the Indonesian Hospital in North Gaza, the reality of “eliminating Hamas” is nearly eliminating the people of Gaza. In other words, genocide.

Palestinians in Idlib, northern Syria, hold memorial for Sinwar

It is natural that those facing this genocidal onslaught will tend to support any victim of the onslaught, including Sinwar. Even Palestinians in Idlib in northern Syria, where a similar onslaught is threatened by Assad, held a conference to mourn Sinwar’s assassination.

No illusions
But we should have no illusions. Prior to Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas was far from popular, especially in Gaza. Foreign Affairs  reported on an opinion survey taken by “Arab Barometer” just prior to Oct. 7, 2023. The survey revealed 67% of Gazans had “not a lot of trust” or “no trust at all” in Hamas. The results of a hypothetical election were also significant. If the choice were between Haniyeh (Hamas), Abbas (PLO) and Barghouti (imprisoned Fatah leader), 12% said they would vote for Abbas, 24% said they would vote for Haniyeh, 32% said they would vote for Barghouti and 30% said they would boycott the election entirely.

In 2023, Amnesty International reported on the state of affairs of human rights in Gaza and the West Bank. They reported regular human rights violations by both the PLO in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza. They reported on Palestine Authority and Hamas repression of protesters, denial of equal rights to women, and severe repression of LGBTQ people in the West Bank and Gaza by Hamas and the Palestine Authority.

Biden, Harris and Trump
Biden, Harris and Trump cannot quite bring themselves to congratulate Netanyahu on the “success” of the mass murder at the Indonesian Hospital, but they should. After all, they are complicit. They did, however, celebrate war criminal Netanyahu’s success in assassinating Sinwar.

President Biden congratulated Netanyahu. Vice President Harris followed suit. “Justice has been served, and the United States, Israel and the world are better off as a result,” she said. Trump was typically Trump. Sinwar’s assassination “makes it easier,” he said. He clarified what he meant (as much as that idiot is capable of clarifying anything) in his follow up comment: “Biden is trying to hold [Netanyahu] back. And he probably should be doing the opposite actually.”

The left in the United States
In the United States, there is a tendency among some who oppose Israeli genocide to to make Sinwar into something he was not. Some actually

Che Guevara. Yahya Sinwar was no Che Guevara.

equate him to Che Guevara. That is a slander to Che Guevara. The victimization of Hamas by the racist and oppressive Israeli government does not change the fact that Hamas and its leadership are dependent on repressive imperialist governments like the Islamic Republic of Iran. It does not change the fact that they are pro-capitalist, conservative, anti-women’s rights, and homophobic. Che Guevara made some huge strategic mistakes. He did not see the necessity of organizing within the working class. But he was a lifelong socialist. He never aligned himself with any imperialist state. He fought for human liberation. Yahya Sinwar was no Che Guevara.

Those who make such claims are simply posturing instead of considering how Palestine can actually be free. That includes the question of the so-called “armed struggle”.

Actual armed self defense – for example, self defense against the racist settler riots in the West Bank – is one thing. That would be a matter of tactical consideration. Such considerations have never been a concern for Hamas, so that is not why its members in the West Bank have never engaged in this. But overall, the “armed struggle” has really meant simply individual (or group) terrorist actions such as suicide bombings and actions like Oct. 7. These can never succeed.

Greek dock workers refuse to load ammunition bound for Israel.

This is different from armed self-defense against Israel’s invasion of Gaza and Lebanon. Recently, Greek dock workers refused to load a small shipment of ammunition bound for Israel. That is a small example of what can and should be done to help defeat those invasions.

How about the “armed struggle” carried out from forces outside Israel? Who would carry that out? The Islamic Republic of Iran? Syria? Qatar? Hezbollah? To ask the question is to answer it. Not only can they not succeed, they are no more interested in Palestinian liberation than they are in the liberation of their own people.

In this article and also video/slideshow of Palestine, The Arab Spring and the Iranian Revolution we showed that a renewed Arab Spring, but one that raises the issue of real, working class socialism, is the only way forward. Hamas is opposed to such a development.

• Those of us who are privileged to be living outside the murderous assault of Israel and outside the repression of governments like those in Iran and Syria should be using our position to promote international working class solidarity in whatever way we can, rather than mixing up opposition to Israel’s genocide with support for such forces as Hamas.

Further reading
What is Hamas? How did it originate? Should socialists give it any support?

Why socialists oppose individual terrorism