Ever since the attack on Israel by Hamas, on October 7 last year (2023), this attack has been used as the “justification” for the genocidal slaughter being perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian people, with the full backing of the U.S. But a significant fact in relation to all this is that Israel for years actually built up Hamas, including by giving it financial support.

There are different reasons for this (and some of this has been written about recently in the New York Times), but an essential part of the picture is that Hamas has been built up by Israel in this way because having the main opposition to Israel be religious (Islamic) fundamentalists—whose ideology, program and policies are themselves highly oppressive—provides Israel with a “cover” for its horrific oppression of the Palestinian people, making it easier for Israel to assume the posture of a “civilized enlightened country” having to defend itself against barbaric terrorists.

But the fact that Hamas does not represent any positive, truly emancipating alternative, free from exploitation and domination by imperialism—and in truth the ideology, program and policies of Hamas involve terrible oppression, including “dark ages” oppression of women and LGBT people—this can in no way excuse or “justify” the terrible suffering that Israel has imposed on the Palestinian people for generations, and the genocidal slaughter that Israel is now carrying out, with the full backing of the U.S.

The only choices are not—and must not be reduced to—either the terrible oppression, and outright genocide, perpetrated by Israel, with powerful weapons of mass slaughter, or oppressive religious fundamentalism as the only means of opposition to this.

Here, the importance of what I have emphasized before (in message number Six) stands out all the more sharply:

The fight against the state of Israel must be waged on a revolutionary basis, with the goal of putting an end to all oppressive relations and all inequality among people based on race and nationality, sex and gender, and all relations in which one part of society exploits others. And the urgent need is for a revolutionary force to emerge to lead the struggle on that basis.