Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 31.07.2024
On July 31, the Zionists assassinated Isma’il Haniya, the political leader of Hamas, a national liberation movement. We condemn this cowardice murder of the Zionist apartheid state of a freedom fighter.
On May 6, 2017, Isma’il Haniya was elected head of Hamas’s political bureau in place of Khaled Mash’al, who had held this position since 1996. Haniya expressed his movement’s commitment to the values of jihad and martyrdom, stressing that jihad is a religious duty that must never be subject to negotiations and that armed resistance is a Palestinian right and a “strategic option” that Hamas will pursue and intensify until the final liberation of Palestine “from the river to the sea.” He also emphasized that Hamas regards it as its mission to develop increasingly sophisticated means of warfare, from rockets to attack tunnels, and to train the next generation of fighters in their effective use. Accordingly, he praised fighters who had carried out attacks on the settler colonialist Israelis, including on civilians, calling them heroes. He also emphasized that Hamas would never recognize Israel under any circumstances.
Haniya’s rhetoric has been consistently anti-American imperialism, for example when he condemned the U.S. for killing “the mujahid” bin Laden, calling this an expression of America’s “policy of oppression,” and when he hoped that Allah would “declare war” on the U.S.
At a March 23, 2014, Hamas rally in Gaza under the heading “Perseverance and Loyalty to the Martyr’s Path,” marking a decade after the death of the movement’s founder, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, Haniya stressed the value of martyrdom. He also said “You can take all the jobs and all the seats and leave us the homeland.”
Addressing Israel, Haniya said: “The resistance conceals more than you can imagine. The occupation will pay dearly for any aggression or foolish measure it takes. Oh Zionists, you still have Yassin’s blood on your hands… We ejected you from Gaza in the days when we had limited weaponry and when you oppressed us in the solitary confinement cells of the Saraya [compound] in Gaza [the Israeli prison]. Today, we are stronger. We have developed the resistance, and it has redoubled its strength…” He added: “Self-sacrifice and resistance are the way to liberate Palestinian soil and restore Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa… Out of deprivation, we shall establish the balance of terror. Out of the ruins, we shall rock Tel Aviv. With our bare hands, we shall dig into the rock and do the impossible…”
During a January 2015 visit to Tunisia, Haniya repeated Hamas’s commitment to liberating Palestine “from the river to the sea,” telling his audience: “Your honor is the honor of Palestine – Palestine from the Sea to the River… The land of Palestine, oh brothers and sisters, is an Islamic waqf, as decreed by the second caliph, Omar ibn Al-Khattab. We shall not relinquish the Islamic waqf on the land of Palestine, and Jerusalem shall not be divided into Western and Eastern Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a single united city, and Palestine stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, and from Naqoura [Rosh Ha-Niqra] to Umm Al-Rashrash [Eilat] in the south.”
During this visit, he also repeated Hamas’s refusal to recognize Israel: “[We say] to the monstrous entity on the land of Palestine: As long as the people in Tunisia, in Sfax, say: ‘The people wants the liberation of Palestine,’ we say to Israel: ‘Dark days await you, Allah willing.’ Dark days await the Zionist entity. Brothers and sisters, we were told that if we wanted the war to stop and the siege to be lifted, and if we wanted the red carpet to be rolled out so that we could reach the White House and other places, we would have to recognize Israel, to curse the resistance, and to release[Gilad Shalit. We said, from the very heart of the siege, from under the ruins, from the places being bombarded by the F-16 planes… We said then, and I say to you now, in the capital of south Tunisia: We will never recognize Israel.“
Haniya, however, had a weakness due to his membership in the middle class. He relies on Chinese imperialism that pushed Hamas to unite with the PA and accept the illusion of a two-state solution.
The Zionists hated Haniya as much as the slave owners in the south of the USA hated John Brown, who also used guerilla warfare and terror to liberate the black slaves. John Brown, like Haniya, was a very religious person, and the white racists caught him and hanged him and his sons. However, when the soldiers of the North of the US entered the South, they sang, “Here is buried John Brown.”
Family members of Ismail Haniyeh, including his sister, were murdered by a Zionist airstrike on their home in the western Gaza City on Tuesday.
According to medical sources, at least 10 people of the Haniyeh family were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their home in the Beach refugee camp, western Gaza City. On April 10, Haniyeh lost three of his sons in an Israeli airstrike on their car in the Beach camp.
A sister of Ismail Haniyeh has been arrested on suspicion of contact with operatives from Hamas and supporting acts of terror, defense sources said Monday. In other words, the Zionists arrested her because she is the sister of Haniya.
Haniya’s vision of free Palestine from the river to the sea is absolutely correct and so it will be; unfortunately for Hamas and Haniya, they arrived too late in history, and the liberation of Palestine is the task of the revolutionary working class.
Salute the martyr, Haniya!
Palestine, red and free from the river to the sea!