By VINÍCIO CARRILHO MARTINEZ*
Standing in favor of the survival of the Palestinian people, against the genocide of two million people, does not make anyone a defender of Hamas
There is a classic statement, endowed with so much truth that few compete with it, and it tells us this: “In war, truth is the first to die”. In this specific case, the dead truth says that, in military actions, Israel does not fight against Hamas, because, in the practice of incendiary white phosphorus, it leads to widespread death among the entire civilian population of Gaza: Palestinians or not.
The war between Israel and Palestine (Gaza) has a long history and is not our focus in this text. Our premise is ethical, that is, given the civilizing principle, we must be clear about the human condition: neither Zionism (Zionist State of Israel) nor anti-Semitism: the disappearance of the State of Israel. We do not have Fla x Flu fans here, especially because the death of thousands of people – notably the unarmed civilian population – would generate a geopolitical collapse in the region and this could result in an unprecedented escalation of war: the 3rd World War, with the use of atomic technology.
I repeat, the premise is simple and clear: neither Zionism nor anti-Semitism. With this in mind, we should discredit Hamas' actions by slaughtering hundreds or already thousands of people, at a Rave, in homes, in Bunkers of refuge, and unarmed for hatred at that moment. Likewise, it is urgent to condemn the actions of suffocation that the State of Israel (Zionist) imposed on Gaza in a apartheid Palestinian: anyone can/should see the daily bombings that kill civilians. Not counting the use of white phosphorus bombs,[I] already banned by the United Nations (UN). This fact, in itself, constitutes a war crime. However, like all wars, this one also has a history behind it to reveal itself.
In the history of humanity, in its warlike prominence, the famous struggles between good and evil, as a rule, end in zero-zero or zero-sum. Following classical political science, zero-sum means that both contenders always lose and, when someone wins, the losses are greater than the assets. This binary reading of politics is biblical, but it must also be included in the Torah and Quran.
And it is this binary, messianic reading, constructing occasional narratives – notably trapped in the medieval logic of the Knights Templar liberating Jerusalem – that has been mobilizing the international scene and fueling the extreme right around the world. With this driving force, in Brazil, at least since 2009 – but, certainly, since 2013/14 –, fascist tentacles come out of the sewage holes: there is no expression here that better defines the fascist political slurry.
Obviously, this Manichaean, binary logic, impoverished like the light that is swallowed by the dark cave, took over the Israel x Palestine war. And here is an observation: the war that the State of Israel (and allies, such as the USA) is waging, at this moment, is not against Hamas. It is against the two million people (Palestinian or not) who are trapped in the Gaza Strip.
The Gaza Strip is a ghetto implanted with forceps against a diffuse enemy, and promoted by those who suffered it firsthand in Warsaw: the episodes tell that in 1943 the Jewish uprising against the Nazis was one of the largest in the history of resistance in the world. This paragraph is subliminal and it is up to whoever reads it to also understand between the lines.
Well, being in favor of the survival of the Palestinian people – even though the two-state thesis may be quite shaken –, against the genocide of two million people and which is predicted, above all, if the Israeli Army carries out an invasion of Gaza on land, or being against slow death because there is no drinking water, medicine, food, in this apartheid hostile to any principle of humanity, in Gaza, does not make anyone a defender of Hamas.
Hamas is a terrorist group and its latest actions do not contradict its current criminal nomenclature. It doesn't matter whether the US or Israel created Hamas, that is not the issue. But, yes, we need to escape the binary logic of good and evil, buffeted by the untruth that dominates every Manichaean narrative, to understand that Hamas is not synonymous with Palestine. Just as whether or not you support Flamengo does not define what it means to be Brazilian.
In particular, I understand that Hamas gave an outlet (a pretext, a justification) for the State of Israel to invoke reason of state – including or especially because Hamas' first offensive resulted in the loss of territory and sovereignty. It's as if they were invoking Thomas Hobbes (and not just Jean Bodin, who focused on Natural/Moral Law),[ii] in order to activate the State with all available exceptional forces (extreme force) in the face of external attack. This is the reading promoted by the State, positioning itself as a war machine against real or imaginary insurgents who have been ghettoized by the State itself.
However, in an effort to confuse, divide and criminalize, a version of Bolsonarism (read national fascism) tries to reduce the Palestinian people to Hamas. In this way, he proposes that teachers who defend Palestine (in their heads it says Hamas) be criminalized in Brazil.[iii]
It is true that Manichaeism is so failed that the famous 0 and 1 (zero and one) no longer serve the computing of quantum computers. Because they are no longer binary. However, it still survives in the ethical inconstancy of the Brazilian Legislature
Our reality, unfortunately, still reminds us of the caveman, the one who protects himself from the light with the darkness of darkness prolonged by ignorance. In fact, for these individuals, it is worth remembering that feeling hate is a perfectly human reaction, but what they do is incitement to the crime of social hate. What they enact, other teacher lists, is the crime itself.
For these and many others, in fact, I do not wish any fascist any good – and that does not make me a criminal. On the contrary, staying as far away from fascism is what keeps me away from social criminology.
*Vinicio Carrilho Martinez He is a professor at the Department of Education at UFSCar.
Notes
[I] It is a sophisticated type of Napalm, widely used by the US in Vietnam. White phosphorus does not stop burning until it consumes all human flesh.
[ii] For the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, either power is supreme or it is impotent, simply because there are not, and cannot be, limits to sovereignty itself. Sovereignty is indefatigable because selfish man must be forced to live in society, and social life is entirely due to state sovereignty. Hence, in the name of the reason of State – the justification for the State to exist – all force will be used, without reservations of morality. This is exactly how the State of Israel acts, invoking a threat of a “state of nature”. This is your justification or reason of state.
[iii] https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/colunas/painel/2023/10/deputado-pede-a-pf-medidas-contra-mapeamento-de-professores-acusados-de-serem-pro-hamas.shtml.
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