The following is an exchange between Karen Lee Wald and Pete Seidman. Wald is a long-time Cuba solidarity activist in the United States; she publishes the “Cuba Inside Out” newsletter. Seidman is a member of the Miami Coalition to End the U.S. Blockade of Cuba.

The discussion touches on important questions related to the Palestinian national liberation struggle. These issues are being debated by many today, as Israel is carrying out an increasingly genocidal war on Gaza in response to the October 7 atrocious attack by Hamas. We believe it will be of interest to our readers.

The exchange is published by permission of both participants. The introduction, headline, and subheadings are by World-Outlook.

For Those Critical of Hamas, Some Thoughts

By Karen Lee Wald

What happened to non-violence? Non-violent civil resistance was attempted by both Hamas and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The first intifada. Brutalizing suppression happened. It was called the “Force, might and beatings” policy in public and was carried out under Israel’s defense minister Yitzhak Rabin. Palestinians engaged in non-violent civil resistance to Israel’s illegal occupation were: •brutally beaten; •detained; •tortured on a mass scale. According to Human Rights Watch occupier Israel tortured TENS OF THOUSANDS of Palestinians. Torture chambers and all.

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The Palestinian Struggle and the Record of the Cuban Revolution

By Pete Seidman

Dear Karen,

I gather from this note in the “Cuba Inside Out Mail list,” that this is your opinion, a rebuttal to those “critical” of Hamas. I am someone who believes that Hamas’ actions on October 7, as well as its policies for many years before that, are a reactionary dead end for the Palestinian people, not to speak of the Jews. As a fellow fighter in defense of the Cuban and Palestinian struggles, I would like to share my thoughts with you in the hope of a civil dialogue.

You pose this discussion as a matter of “violence” vs. “non-violence.” In that framework there is no debate. The Palestinians have an absolute right to defend themselves by any means necessary.

But that hardly answers the question of “What Is to Be Done?” There are various tactics of armed struggle, for example the Moncada Raid staged by the July 26 movement, that are very different from the line of Hamas in purpose, organization, and behavior (an attack on a military installation for the purpose of taking arms [not hostages] to be used by a wider popular uprising).

Hamas descends from the reactionary views of the bourgeois nationalist Muslim Brotherhood. It has no program or outlook that charts a democratic course towards a peace based on equal rights regardless of religious outlook for Palestinians and Jews alike.

To the contrary, it is violently anti-Semitic and proudly, though falsely, justifies its murderous raids and the taking of civilian hostages as an important military and diplomatic defeat for Israel.

In view of the hell fire that is raining down over Gaza as a result, it is impossible for serious people not to see the October 7 action as one that, far from empowering the Palestinian people, left them as a disorganized force without effective leadership who had to flee in panic from IDF terror. The murders carried out by Hamas, however much they were exaggerated in the bourgeois media, were not revolutionary acts, nor was taking of hostages.

A revolutionary strategy seeks to base itself on the political empowerment and conscious participation of the masses in action. That is not in any way happening right now post-October 7.

I know you learned from Cuba and the experiences of the July 26 movement in the Sierra Maestra that Hamas’ actions are outside the pale of revolutionary warfare. Fidel and his comrades forbade the torture and murder of prisoners, who were treated equally by Che and other doctors despite shortages of medical supplies. Many enemy soldiers were set free once they surrendered their weapons. The fraternal behavior of the July 26 guerillas became well-known to Batista’s troops and began to impact their willingness to fight.

That is the revolutionary line: split the enemy’s army. Split the “enemy” population from supporting its government’s reactionary policies. Mostly, the enemy troops are workers and farmers drafted into uniforms by a common class enemy.

The fact that the Zionist regime used these immoral and brutal measures itself repeatedly throughout its history should not be an argument for making them OK now for Palestinians.

That is the non-politics of revenge! The opposite of offering a program of unity through equality in a secular homeland for all that has the possibility of actually splitting Israeli society, which, at least until Hamas handed Netanyahu its gift of October 7 was suffering from profound internal divisions within the Israeli population, including the military reserves.

These divisions reflected popular opposition to the hateful logic of internal Zionist politics, where concentration of the state power in the executive is impelled by the very nature of an apartheid state at war with a majority of its own population!

I don’t think it’s necessary to make criticism (or hagiography) of Hamas any major focal point of the protests now sweeping the world against Zionist genocide. The masses going into motion in these protests make it pretty clear that Hamas is not the main issue for them.

The main issue is making the demand for a permanent cease fire and an end to Zionist terror in the Gaza and West Bank. These demands already have won support from more than 60% of the U.S. public opinion, according to polls.

This is a remarkable shift in U.S. politics that should be celebrated. There is more political space for us to deepen these protests even more.

We here in the U.S. obviously don’t want to and can’t control the tactics and line of various organizations in Palestine. Our job is to focus on opposing the support the Biden administration is providing the Zionist war machine and demanding an immediate and permanent cease fire. And the dispatch of material aid to the people of Gaza.

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Methods and Tactics

By Karen Lee Wald

I think it is very important to distinguish between the absolute right to rebel against illegal occupation, and the question of specific methods and tactics, as well as Israel’s probable role in creating Hamas as a divisive maneuver. I’m not satisfied that I expressed any of that very well in my assorted posts and letters. I’ve written before that it is my personal opinion that the US and Israel created and funded Hamas to divide and undermine the Palestinian movement. I have not changed this belief.

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Israel Did Prop Up Hamas

By Pete Seidman

Hi Karen.

Yes, I think it is well-documented that Israel intervened to prop up Hamas in the 2006 elections in Gaza. The following year, Hamas launched a military offensive against Fateh which was the leading secular party in the Palestine Authority (PA). Of course, the Zionists have also used their relations with the PA as part of controlling the political space in the West Bank as well. The crisis of Palestinian leadership is a profound part of the political terrain. That is why I thought it was so important to answer the post you put up.

There is an unfortunate tendency on the part of many leftists, frustrated with the setbacks suffered for so long by Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere, to prettify even actions with anti-Semitic outlooks that run counter to the absolute need for a democratic secular Palestine as the ultimate format through which this conflict can be resolved with justice, which has to mean equality. “At least someone is doing something” is not a formula for success in revolutionary politics!

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