I usually agree with Francesca Albanese, but I feel like dissociating from her statements about Hamas. She's right when she says that Hamas, as the de facto authority in Gaza, has built and maintained schools, hospitals and infrastructure.

@freediverx@mastodon.social @palestine@a.gup.pe sure, but after 20 years in power all people should be allowed to get a say.

@OrionBelt@mastodon.uno https://manganiello.social/@fabio/posts/AxrW8gktMp8RyfxHaC

@fabio @palestine
Democratic elections may be a bit of a challenge while the people in question are being slaughtered in a US-backed genocide.

@freediverx@mastodon.social @palestine@a.gup.pe not all the time in these 20 years has been marked by acute conflict. They could have had a chance to plan new elections.

Of course Israel would have opposed them, as they would have further legitimized the independence of a territory that they want to occupy, but that would have just further exposed their contradictions (the democratic balward of the Middle East that opposes free elections in their neighbour’s house), all while gaining more support from other Western democracies.

They didn’t even have to successfully run the elections, if eventually the conditions didn’t permit them, but sometimes even showing the intention suffices.

Instead, by clinging onto power for so long, they have just fueled the rhetoric of their opponents who depict them as an undemocratic regime - and alienated many from their cause.

@fabio @palestine
My aim is not to defend Hamas, but to avoid distractions from the more pressing issue at hand, which is the ongoing genocide.

If that were immediately resolved, then we could focus on the broader political issues, going back to the original, western-backed, settler colonialism that started this conflict 80 years ago.

@fabio @palestine
Also seems a bit tone-deaf for us Westerners to be lecturing Palestinians on democracy given the current political trends in Western countries.

@freediverx @fabio @palestine It should be them lecturing us instead, because they have been through more grassroots uprisings from below, while too many of us are held hostage by liberal counterinsurgency so our efforts are diverted into ineffective dead ends.

@freediverx@mastodon.social @palestine@a.gup.pe I criticize authoritarianism and authoritarian tendencies regardless of where they happen, including the US (especially the US).

But just because democracy is endangered worldwide it doesn’t mean that we should turn a blind eye, just because nobody is the position to cast the first stone. Because that’s exactly what causes the degradation.

@fabio @palestine
I suspect you have good intentions, but I think it’s a mistake to choose this moment to focus on that particular narrative.

@tortitude@kolektiva.social @freediverx@mastodon.social @palestine@a.gup.pe I wouldn’t call holding free elections an act of liberal counterinsurgency.

And let’s not mix the ability to run grassroot uprisings with the ability to run a State. Most of the illiberal regimes in history were born as grassroot uprisings which used their initial intentions in order to justify their permanent permanence in power.

@freediverx@mastodon.social @palestine@a.gup.pe quite the opposite.

Israel doesn’t have a way out of this. The only thing they see is their plan to build a genocide riviera to please the political representatives elected by the most fanatic squatting terrorists among their people, and they use Hamas as a scapegoat that justifies their own fanatical violence.

The West is increasingly divided, many are now recognizing the Palestinian State, but nobody is stepping forward to lay out how that State would look like, what kind of governance it should have, who will pay for rebuilding everything, how coexistance with the State that surrounds them would look like, etc.

This is exactly the moment to have these talks. Without concrete plans on how the near future should look like the West will be stuck on symbolic recognitions that don’t change anything on the ground.

When we say that the near future of Gaza must be reconstruction and free elections without Hamas we are pulling fuel away from the most brittle and demonizing Zionist rhetoric. If Hamas is really the reason why they’re doing this, then once Hamas is gone they must acknowledge that they have no reason for doing this.

If instead the world keeps acting by picking opposing sides in mutually exclusive “from the river to the sea” narratives, while having no vision of what should change for things to change, then there’s no way to end the conflict, no way to take fuel away from Netanyahu’s narratives and let the world see his contradictions, and no way to let Palestinians choose what kind of State they want.