Condemning the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas for its October 7 attacks means condemning the right of the oppressed people of Palestine to resist, an activist says.
In an interview with MUSLIMPRESS, Phil Wilayto, the editor of The Virginia Defender, argued that people who are oppressed have the right to resist oppression.
“How they choose to do that is their own decision. We may agree or disagree with their methods, but there is no question that they have the right to resist,” he said.
He also said Israel is openly taking responsibility for genocide against the people of the Gaza Strip.
The following is the full transcript of the interview:
You have argued that “to condemn Hamas for its October 7 attacks would mean we would also have to condemn the slave rebellions” and all other rebellions by oppressed peoples against their oppressors. Could you further elaborate on why you think that is the case?
In any conflict, the first thing to ask is, who is the oppressor and who is the oppressed? Obviously, people who are oppressed have the right to resist. How they choose to do that is their own decision. We may agree or disagree with their methods, but there is no question that they have the right to resist. In North America, this was true for indigenous people fighting white settlers, it was true for enslaved Black people rebelling against those who presumed to be their owners and it is true today for the Palestinian people rebelling against the Israeli government. In each of these cases, there may be methods used that we do not support, but to condemn the resistance itself means condemning the right of the oppressed to resist, which we are never going to do.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that the US and Europe will be the targets of terror attacks if Israel loses its current war with Hamas, which has also been compared with ISIS. What’s your response to that? Do you think the remarks count as what is called “hasbara”?
Before the current Israeli siege of Gaza, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) did not consider Hamas to be a threat to the people of this country. That assessment has now changed. The incredibly barbaric massacre being carried out by the Israeli military against the largely defenseless people of the Gaza Strip is an atrocity that is funded and politically justified by the US government. And it inevitably has led to a sharp rise in hatred and hostility, by people all over the world, against both Jews and Americans. The ongoing onslaught has put both groups in jeopardy, and the longer the massacre continues, the greater the hatred will become, the result of the world’s revulsion against the genocide now being perpetrated against the Palestinian people.
My understanding of the Hebrew word “hasbara” is that it means an effort to explain and justify something, whether or not the thing being explained is justifiable. In the US, we call this “spin,” or “propaganda.” Based on the Israeli government’s own record, it is impossible to believe anything it says, certainly not about its oppression of the Palestinians. I leave it to the linguists to decide if this qualifies as “hasbara.”
Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid. Also, since the beginning of the Tel Aviv regime’s war on Gaza, the US has sent aircraft carriers to the Mediterranean to support Israel. To what extent is the US responsible for the Gaza carnage?
The US government now sends $3.8 billion to Israel every year, making Israel the largest recipient of US foreign “aid.” Now President and the majority of Congress want to send billions more to support Israel in its current aggression against the Palestinian people. Without this material support, along with the diplomatic cover the US provides in the United Nations and other international bodies, Israel would not be able to conduct this genocide. Some people argue that Jews control the US government and that is why the US supports Israel. I believe this is a fundamental misreading of the political reality. The US supports Israel because Israel is its only reliable ally in the Middle East, which holds the world’s largest concentrations of oil and gas, and whoever controls those resources controls the world. Israel is in effect a US military base, ready to protect US interests whenever Washington deems that necessary. The present siege of Gaza is presenting real problems for the US in terms of alienating much of the world’s people, but it will not abandon Israel so long as Israel is a useful military client-state.
Since the beginning of the war, top Israeli leaders have openly cheered the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. How should those comments be interpreted?
On Oct. 9, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stated, “We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.” While he was referring specifically to Hamas fighters, he went on to say, “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything will be closed.” That is a policy of genocide.
At an Oct. 13 press conference, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said, referring to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible.”
In a televised address on Oct. 30, Netanyahu called Israel’s invasion of Gaza a “holy mission” and invoked a mythical foe whom the ancient Israelites, supposedly on divine orders, massacred. The order is stated in the Bible (1 Samuel 15:3): “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” Many people have interpreted Netanyahu’s referring to Amalek as a call for genocide against the people of Gaza.
How much interpretation do these comments need? These leaders are calling for collective punishment against an entire people. And they have carried out that collective punishment, resulting in the deaths, as of Nov. 17, of more than 11,000 men, women, children and babies. All of Gaza is their target. This means the Israeli government is openly taking responsibility for genocide, a massive war crime for which there can be no justification.
All people, right now, are faced with a fundamental moral challenge: to oppose with every fiber of their being this continuing massacre of the Palestinian people, and to work toward the day when all of Palestine will be free, “from the River, to the Sea.” This is not a call for genocide against the Jewish people. It is a hope against hope that one day there will be one, united Palestine in which Muslims, Jews and Christians – all people – can live in peace, harmony and equality. The longer this genocide goes on, the further away the fulfillment of that vision will be.
https://twitter.com/PhilWilayto1
