Hamas has been designated a terrorist organisation by the United States, European Union, and United Kingdom. It’s certainly no friend of the political Left. But that hasn’t stopped groups claiming to be Marxist or socialist lending implicit support to Hamas. Why? This isn’t a progressive movement and its ultimate aims don’t match those of most left-wingers.

So what is going on?

Turning a blind eye…

The attitude towards Hamas from some on the Marxist and non-Marxist Left could best be summed up by that questionable adage: one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Normally uttered by somebody supporting a blood-soaked terror gang. And turning a blind eye to their atrocities by engaging in endless ‘whataboutery’.

You know the kind of thing: “Ah well, what Hamas did there was terrible…but what about…” And accuse those who question your dubious moral stance of “hypocrisy”. Then continue citing a litany of bad deeds by the enemies of the organisation you have decided to support. Sadly there is a long list of dodgy terrorist groups backed by misguided Lefts from the IRA to FARC. When will they ever learn?

Leon Trotsky condemned the “individual terrorism” of anarchists in the early 20th century describing the methods of terror as “the feeling of revenge in search of an outlet”. And as one orthodox Marxist group put it very recently, Palestinian terror tactics have “been counterproductive, both in terms of the increased killings and suffering of the Palestinian masses”.

How the Left used to view Islamism – the ideology of Hamas

From the early 20^th century, through the 1917 revolution, and onwards, Bolsheviks took a hostile position to any political force that, in their view, threatened to split the working class. So, you had anti-Zionist Jewish communists disputing with Zionist co-religionists. Though they both opposed pogroms, discrimination, and murder motivated by xenophobia.

From the 1920s, the USSR took a dim view of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists as they placed religion above class and, the Kremlin feared, could provoke unrest in Soviet republics with large Muslim populations.

But Islamism didn’t go away. It played to a deep sense of humiliation among many Muslims that their lands had been overrun by western infidels (the British and French empires and later American economic and military interests) and that their leaders had betrayed them. They also despised the Soviet Union and the atheism that underlined communism.

Islamism intertwined a desire for retribution with an intensely conservative religious viewpoint that the only answer to the degraded global status of Muslims was to establish some kind of caliphate – an Islamic polity. A return to the founding principles of Islam. And in that vision, there would be one faith, no democracy, and no equality.

Not that all conservative Muslims agreed with the Islamists. Many ‘pietist’ Salafis, for example, believed Muslims should not get involved with politics or any earthly matters. But Islamism offered a radical alternative to those who became increasingly disillusioned with both Arab nationalism and Marxist organisations which were often in thrall to the Kremlin.

In the dying years of the Soviet Union, Islamist organisations and militias were funded by the West and Arab states as an alternative to Marxist-influenced movements in the Middle East, north Africa, and central Asia. Especially during the USSR’s disastrous war in Afghanistan. Moscow warned the west that they were nurturing a form of politics that would eventually come back to bite them. 9/11 and the rise of ISIS certainly seemed to vindicate that analysis.

As Islamism grew, Marxism was in retreat. The optimism of the past where workers were going to be won over to the banner of Marxism-Leninism, dialectical materialism, and science gave way to a realisation that tomorrow might be way more reactionary than today. The collapse of the Soviet Union made Communist parties around the world look utterly irrelevant and for a growing number of radical Muslims, socialism and secularism were shunted aside in favour of Islamism.

How some on the Left accommodated to Islamism

From the 1990s, the Left divided dramatically on how to react to Islamism. In Algeria, for example, liberals and socialists ended up cheering on the ruling party and armed forces as they set out to crush Islamist insurgents. Islamism was viewed as a form of reactionary fascism and a broad coalition was required to snuff it out.

Conversely, there was the tragedy of the Iranian revolution in 1979. The pro-Moscow Tudeh Party and many Leftists and intellectuals initially saw Ayatollah Khomeini as a sincere anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist leader. Khomeini’s people allowed the deluded Lefts to entertain these delusions until they took power. Then the Tudeh Party and thousands of other socialists and trade unionists paid dearly for their naivete. Many were executed.

Ultra-Lefts imagined they could infiltrate Islamist organisations

The 1990s saw some on the ultra-Left argue that Islamism should be reappraised. By then, after the first Gulf War, the United States was dubbing Islamism as “Islamofascism”. It certainly bore some similarities to both old-style anarchism and fascism. A love of violence and the “propaganda of the deed”, as anarchists used to dub their bomb throwing. The vision of a society with no opposition and one uniform creed much beloved of fascists.

Yet some on the Left thought they could make friends…

A weakened Marxist Left resolved to initiate a dialogue of sorts with Islamist organisations in the belief that they contained both a reactionary leadership but also misguided radical elements among the foot soldiers that could be peeled off. These Lefts took a vow of silence with regards to the dismal record of Islamists on women’s rights, LGBT rights, and workers’ rights – and indeed democracy.

Nothing should endanger the new friendship…

From now on, Islamism was to be viewed as a form of populism – like Peronism in Argentina. A petit-bourgeois movement that nevertheless influenced many workers and youth across the Muslim world, and could not be ignored or publicly disparaged.

Certain ultra-Left groups advocated mingling among Islamists and identifying those who could be transformed into Marxist cadres. But as the poet Robert Burns once noted, the plans of “mice an’ men” can go in an unintended direction.

They’re not fascists. They’re not progressives. So said these ultra-Lefts. They would stand shoulder to shoulder with the Islamists but whisper in their ear that women should be treated equally, class relations trumped other considerations, and capitalism had to be overthrown. What happened in practice was that ultra-Lefts stood alongside Islamists and forgot about the whispering. The critical support originally proposed became uncritical, even slavish support.

Islamists, not being as dumb as some on the ultra-Left might think they are, knew exactly what was going on. For them, these misguided pseudo-Marxists offered them a progressive and radical veneer, useful on university campuses. They even adopted some of the language of the Marxists to make out they were on the same page.

And so it came to pass that some on the Left were played by the Islamists…

In the current Gaza/Israel conflict, you can read reports in newspapers and online sites that purport to be Marxist that quote Hamas as if they were the sole legitimate voice of Palestinians and without a word of criticism.

So, what exactly is Hamas?

Hamas is an acronym standing for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya which translates as the Islamic Resistance Movement. It took control of the Gaza strip by force in 2007 after expelling the rival Palestinian political movement, Fatah – which controls the West Bank.

The founder of Hamas was Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Hassan Yassin – usually just known as Ahmed Yassin. He emerged in the 1970s as the founder of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. A charismatic figure plagued by ill health all his life after being rendered a quadriplegic at the age of 12 in a wrestling match.

He established Hamas during the first so-called “Intifada” – or uprising – against Israel that kicked off in 1987. Hamas was essentially a split off from the long-established Muslim Brotherhood (MB), an Islamist organisation established in Egypt in the 1920s that transformed into a political party. Its aim has forever been to turn Middle Eastern states into Muslim theocracies strictly adhering to Sharia Law.

The MB rejected all talk of the class struggle and was avowedly anti-Communist from the outset. It was also religiously sectarian, especially regarding other Muslims, and anti-Semitic. Throughout the post-war period in the Middle East, it competed against the secular Left for the support of radical youth and workers.

One leading MB luminary was Sa’id Ramadan, son-in-law of the MB’s founder Hassan al-Banna. In the early 1950s, Ramadan made it crystal clear that communism had to be crushed. This, he said, could most effectively be achieved through a competing body of ideas: Islamism. Across the Middle East, MB branches were set up to combat communism which, Ramadan stated, was rooted in “an exclusive faith in materialism”.

In the Cold War period, the MB supported governments in Syria and Jordan in their fight against communism. The United States was equivocal in its attitude towards the MB, viewing them as an extreme-Right body, but appreciating their opposition to communism. In Egypt, however, in the 1950s under General Nasser, the MB’s opposition to political nationalism led to it being suppressed.

Nasser had one of the MB’s leading ideologues, Sayyid Qutb, hanged in 1966 over an alleged assassination plot. Qutb is rightly seen as the “father of salafi-jihadism”, the murderous ideology that inspired Al Qaeda and ISIS. He wrote ferociously anti-Jewish tracts that remain highly influential to the present day. And his supporters blamed Nasser’s relationship with the Soviet Union for his execution.

Despite all this, in recent decades, some socialists in the west have come to regard the MB as allies in the struggle against global imperialism. And in turn, the MB has presented a polite and moderate face to its new friends. Both sides have swept potential areas of disagreement like the MB’s loathing of LGBT people under the ideological carpet.

The irony of this situation is that while one would expect guilt-ridden white western liberals to be easily seduced by Islamism – it doesn’t say much for some supposed Marxist-Leninists that they have been suckered so comprehensively.

Categories: Politics

Tags: anti-Semitism, Communist, Fatah, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Jewish history, Marxist, middle east, Muslim Brotherhood, Nasser, nationalist, Palestine, Palestinian, Philosophy, Qutb, revolution, West Bank