This Hamas official has said a couple of interesting things:
- He doesn’t want Sir Tony Blair (former UK prime minister) involved in the governance of Gaza, despite Trump’s plan for the region proposing this.
- Hamas doesn’t plan to disarm, unless they are giving their weapons to a future Palestinian army.
Quote about the first point:
“When it comes to Tony Blair, unfortunately, we Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims and maybe others around the world have bad memories of him… We can still remember his role in killing, causing thousands or millions of deaths to innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq… We can still remember him very well after destroying Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Quote about the second point:
Dr Naim said Hamas would not completely disarm and that weapons would only be handed over to the Palestinian state, with fighters integrated into the Palestinian National Army… “No one has the right to deny us the right to resist the occupation of armies,” he said.
Thoughts on this?
How bad a person do you have to be that people would rather meet Trump than you?
Anyone who knows their Middle Eastern history will know Sykes-Picot the agreement between the British and French government from midway through the first world war.
Most of the current mess goes back to that agreement.
Also, the British then ruled Mandatory Palestine for another 25 or so years after the end of WW1.
So yeah, aside from everything else, there’s still lingering resentment for the British.
I mean, let’s also just listen to what Naim is saying here, this isn’t about a bunch of stuff that happened a hundred years ago, it’s about stuff that happened 20-25 years ago. The Afghanistan and Iraq wars were devastating events that killed tens of thousands of people and were administered in the most careless and corrupt ways possible, enriching a bunch of the douchiest westerners and empowering a lot of corrupt and violent as fuck Iraqis and Afghanis as well (like, paying bribe money to shitheads and looking the other way when they murdered their opponents was just how western companies did business there). We don’t talk about those things like we should because the people who carried them out are still alive and connected to powerful people, but they were horrific crimes that affected many many many lives and are going to be remembered for generations.
The Afghanistan and Iraq wars were devastating events that killed tens of thousands of people
*Hundreds of thousands for these two wars alone, millions for the broader war on terror. Iraq alone killed 300 thousand.
I mean as shitty as Trump is, he does get points for withdrawing from Afghanistan. Given your average Middle Easterner doesn’t give a shit about domestic American politics, it makes sense Blair would get more hate.
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Biden finished the withdrawal but Trump’s admin had done the “negotiations” surrounding it. You think Biden wanted to do that so early in his term so quickly? He probably would have aimed it for 2024 near the election.
Biden finished the withdrawal, but according to Wikipedia:
The United States Armed Forces completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan on 30 August 2021, marking the end of the 2001–2021 war. In February 2020, the Trump administration and the Taliban signed the United States–Taliban deal in Doha, Qatar,[7] which stipulated fighting restrictions for both the US and the Taliban, and in return for the Taliban’s counter-terrorism commitments, provided for the withdrawal of all NATO forces from Afghanistan by 1 May 2021.
Next, you’ll tell me Elon Musk didn’t found Tesla or Paypal!
They don’t want a British to mangle in politics in the middle east? How strange… They are thankful to a western dictator for his influence? Wtf?
Frankly, I suspect that there’s probably plenty of back-door wheeling and dealing, but if you take Naim’s rationale at face value, that he’s just after someone friendly to Muslims — which I probably wouldn’t:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/03/27/pete-hegseth-tattoo-kafir/82696572007/
Photos show that Hegseth has the word “kafir” tattooed in Arabic below his right bicep. The phrase is used in the Quran to refer to someone who has “disbelief” or “a rejection of true belief,” according to Islamic Scholar Abdullah Al Andalusi.
The phrase appears alongside a tattoo reading “Deus Vult,” a phrase attributed as a rallying cry of the First Crusade.
That’s not to mention his Jerusalem Cross tattoo.
I wouldn’t especially call the Trump administration a great choice to be dealing with if the metric is regard for Muslims.
Hamas has been willing to hand over governership of Gaza to a Unity Government for over 10 years. When they first made the agreement back in 2014, Israel bombed them. Not in the 2008 Gaza war or the 2012 Gaza war, but actually it was the 2014 Gaza war.
everyone has the right to defend themselves and the right to a well to a well-regulated militia.
if it is a right in the USA, its a right in GAZA.
( it not a right in canada, there you are dogfood waiting to happen)
when Palestine is a country it should take most of the US constitution word for wordI think people do have the right to defend themselves. I don’t think Hamas’s attack in October 2023 was self-defence though.
400 villages forcibly depopulated and burned to the ground…
how long before you would give up getting your land back? how long did France have to take back their country from nazis? how long does Ukraine have to get its land back? at what point is it not self-defence?
I think ethnic cleansing like mentioned in your link is bad. But does that justify Hamas attacking Israeli civilians? You mention liberation from the Nazis - the British and Americans bombed Dresden to try to defeat the Nazis, but they bombed many civilians, which is why some people see that attack as morally bad. The nuking of Japan also killed many civilians, and is also seen as pretty terrible. If attacking civilians in those cases was bad (it probably was) then maybe Hamas attacking Israeli civilians was bad, and Israel attacking Palestinian civilians was bad.
attacking civilians is bad… however. every israeli citizen is a member of the IDF and is required to undergo training and to be ready to be called up for war at any time.
so while attacking civilians is bad, there is a huge difference when you kill women, children, or protesters with rocks vs attacking well trained people off duty.
i am sure there are some PSYCHOs in hamas, there are PSYCHOs in every army. go out and read the history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_return_to_IsraelYitzhak Pundak, commander of the 6th brigade, later testified
One day I was summoned to the central front. In the bureau of Maj. Gen. Zvi Ayalon, and in the presence of intelligence officer Binyamin Jibli, I was ordered to liquidate every infiltrator encountered by our forces, and as deterrence to leave the body in the field, to make an example of it. . When I asked why there was no order in writing, the general and the intelligence officer emphasized that they were speaking in the name of the chief of staff. Gradually the trails filled up with bloated bodies. … The stench that spread through the area reached our outposts and soldiers started to suffer from headaches, dizziness, nausea and breathing difficultiesbtw “infiltrator” is the word used for any man woman or child trying to go home
Women and children were killed by Hamas in 2023 right? Also Israelis might be made to train in the IDF but that doesn’t mean every Israeli supports an aggressive policy towards Palestinians.
I’m not trying to take either side really - I think both Israel and Hamas should not have killed civilians. You said I should read the history, yeah maybe I should. Palestinians who were forcibly expelled from what is now Israel, maybe they should get compensation from Israel.
israel passed a law that no one will ever get anything for what was taken.
so i ask you . at what point should france have just accepted that nazis owed france?
at what point should ukraine stop fighting russia and just let them have the land they have taken?you can look at the history. israel has deliberately targeted civilians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine
even their own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Alon_Shamriz,_Yotam_Haim,_and_Samer_Talalka
The men had emerged from a building and were approaching a group of IDF soldiers when they were shot dead, in spite of the fact that they were shirtless and visibly unarmed while waving a makeshift white flag and calling out for help in Hebrew.( deliberately killing civilians is a war crime)
do i take a side? yes the side that has killed less civilians deliberately.
at what point should france have just accepted that nazis owed france?
at what point should ukraine stop fighting russia and just let them have the land they have taken?
That’s why I mentioned Dresden though. The Allies did bomb German civilians in Dresden as part of their efforts to defeat the Nazis, and that attack has been criticised because they harmed civilians, rather than just military targets.
Anyway, if we’re going to say that Israel should never have been established by force and forced expulsions of Palestinians, perhaps that is true. I suppose the same can be said about the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. Therefore maybe Israel should pay compensation to Palestinian families who were affected by forced expulsion.
do i take a side? yes the side that has killed less civilians deliberately.
I see. Personally though if I came across two serial killers, one of whom had killed 5 people, and the other of whom had killed 20 people, I would say both were wrong. I wouldn’t say that the killer of 5 people was necessarily a better person. If both of these killers had the same firepower, maybe they both would have killed similar numbers of civilians.
When the british and american commited war crimes during the second world war their army didn’t lose the right to self defend. When israel commit war crimes i never hear anybody who want hamas to disarm saying Israel dhould disarm. It’s only when palestinians retaliate ( not always by respecting international law ) to brutal occupation that other countries try to not allow palestinians to have an army to defend itself
I think it would make sense for Palestine to have an army. If they did have an army, and if that army tried to push the Israeli military out of the West Bank (internationally recognised as Palestine), that might make sense. It is strange that Israel has borders but they’ve gone beyond them (into the West Bank and into Syria), which is supposed to be illegal, and the West has just been okay with that.
It was a mix of military actions on military target and unjustifisble actions on civilians
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The trump proposed ceasefire really sucks and I hate that Tony Blair slimed his way in. As shit as it is this is still an off ramp to the war and a path to peace.
Hamas really should not be talking about a Palestinian army at this moment. They should not be even signalling that they still have a force and an intention to keep pursing militarisation.
Anyone who would be “provoked” by such statements was already looking for an excuse and would find one no matter what Hamas did.
