I don't believe most Jewish people identify as Zionists, although that's often repeated as fact. Maybe in Israeli, yes, but not globally, unless one defines Zionism as broadly as possible; support for the existence of an Israeli state.
But that's the problem -- Hamas do define Zionism
as broadly as possible:
XIV. The Zionist project is a racist, aggressive, colonial and expansionist project based on seizing the properties of others; it is hostile to the Palestinian people and to their aspiration for freedom, liberation, return and self-determination. The Israeli entity is the plaything of the Zionist project and its base of aggression.
XV. The Zionist project does not target the Palestinian people alone; it is the enemy of the Arab and Islamic Ummah posing a grave threat to its security and interests. It is also hostile to the Ummah’s aspirations for unity, renaissance and liberation and has been the major source of its troubles. The Zionist project also poses a danger to international security and peace and to mankind and its interests and stability.
XVI. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.
XVII. Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage. The Zionist movement, which was able with the help of Western powers to occupy Palestine, is the most dangerous form of settlement occupation which has already disappeared from much of the world and must disappear from Palestine.
XVIII. The following are considered null and void: the Balfour Declaration, the British Mandate Document, the UN Palestine Partition Resolution, and whatever resolutions and measures that derive from them or are similar to them. The establishment of “Israel” is entirely illegal and contravenes the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and goes against their will and the will of the Ummah; it is also in violation of human rights that are guaranteed by international conventions, foremost among them is the right to self-determination.
XIX. There shall be no recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist entity. Whatever has befallen the land of Palestine in terms of occupation, settlement building, Judaization or changes to its features or falsification of facts is illegitimate. Rights never lapse.
XX. Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.
XXI. Hamas affirms that the Oslo Accords and their addenda contravene the governing rules of international law in that they generate commitments that violate the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. Therefore, the Movement rejects these agreements and all that flows from them, such as the obligations that are detrimental to the interests of our people, especially security coordination (collaboration).
XXII. Hamas rejects all the agreements, initiatives and settlement projects that are aimed at undermining the Palestinian cause and the rights of our Palestinian people. In this regard, any stance, initiative or political programme must not in any way violate these rights and should not contravene them or contradict them.
The demand for Israel's immediate withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank, which are indubitably occupied unlawfully, is fair enough.
The status of the old city of East Jerusalem (population ~65% Palestinian, includes holy sites like the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Western Wall) is tricky -- it's left unresolved under the Oslo Accords, but prior to 1967 it was under Jordanian control (Jordan actually annexed it in 1950, but few countries recognised that). West Jerusalem (population ~63% Jewish) was previously part of Israel.
Hamas want both back immediately under their proposed interim arrangement. But even if Israel were to agree to hand over the whole of Jerusalem, which seems to me completely improbable, Hamas say they still wouldn't recognise "the Zionist entity" and this would be but a stepping stone on the road to the establishment of a Palestinian state "from the river to the sea," so there's absolutely nothing in it for Israel. Meanwhile, what's likely become of the Jewish residents of West and East Jerusalem?
Para XVII is worth further consideration:
Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage. The Zionist movement, which was able with the help of Western powers to occupy Palestine, is the most dangerous form of settlement occupation which has already disappeared from much of the world and must disappear from Palestine.
Where does this leave the
Sephardi, Mizrahi and Yemeni Jews in Israel, who between them comprise some 60% of the Jewish population of Israel and are mostly there because their families were either expelled from or (mostly) fled from persecution in Muslim-majority countries in North Africa and the Middle East post-1947? They might have something to say on the topic.
Northern Ireland isn't a precise parallel, but it's the best point of reference that I have.
Back in the 1980s, during internment and the hunger strikes, my sympathies were wholly with the Nationalists' desire for a united Ireland (though I had my reservations about the Republic's then constitution, which outlawed divorce and abortion, and heavily restricted access to contraception), I accepted that, while I thought it was a mistake, Partition was an historical fact, the Unionist majority in NI didn't want to become part of the Republic and didn't want to have to leave NI for the British mainland (which didn't want them anyway, and certainly not on the mainland, any more than did the Republic really want suddenly to become responsible for a large, aggrieved and armed Protestant community in the six counties in the north-east of a united Ireland into which the Protestants had been dragooned against their will). I also knew, from my university days, several NI Unionists, all of whom seemed perfectly reasonable people who disliked the Orange Orders and Ian Paisley as much as did I, but didn't want to be part of the Republic which was, at the time, dominated by very conservative (and corrupt) Catholic political parties.
Furthermore, I was very aware that, besides their political agendas, the paramilitaries on both sides were heavily involved in organised crime (drugs, protection rackets, smuggling and bank robberies) which is how they funded themselves, and that many of PIRA's supporters and activists were Catholic fascists who'd have been perfectly at home in Franco's Spain.
At the time I was living in CA, where many American friends and colleagues wanted to know my take on Northern Ireland. I found it impossible to discuss with them, though, because of our wholly different perspectives -- they saw it as a straightforward conflict between Irish freedom fighters and British imperialists, while I saw it as a horrible mess that no one other than the people directly involved really understood and of which even Brits and Irish citizens had only the vaguest understanding.
I suspect many Jews, both in the diaspora and Israel, find themselves in a similar situation.
Certainly, though, at least to my mind, whatever the justice of the Palestinian cause, Hamas are far, far worse than MAGA.
ETA: I learned today, from Ha'aretz, that
The Arab States Finally Broke With Hamas – but Their Message Needs to Reach Israelis Directly. It was news to me, too, despite the fact it has been comparatively widely reported
The joint declaration from the Arab League, for the first time explicitly condemning Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack and demanding the group disarm and end its rule in Gaza, is far more than a diplomatic footnote. It represents a tectonic shift in the Arab world’s relationship with the...
allarab.news
