4d ago

Arab States Call for Hamas to Disarm Amid Push for a Palestinian State

www.nytimes.com

nytimes.com

The surprise move, in a declaration endorsed on Tuesday by the 22 member nations of the Arab League, also condemned Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, which set off the devastating war in Gaza.

Archive - https://archive.is/JvfvN

33 comments

I usually have 0 confidence in the Arab states to do anything good, but this headline is misleading. What's being called for here is for Hamas to disarm and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority in the process of creating a Palestinian state, which is like, duh of course independent paramilitaries shouldn't exist inside a sovereign state. It's technically a call for Hamas to disarm, but they had to have known what impression this headline would give. Fuck NYT.
- Why would Hamas yield power back to the PNA after ruling Gaza for 18 years? The good of the people?
  
  I dunno, ask them.
  Hamas Member of Parliament Khalil al-Hayya, also deputy chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau, told the Associated Press in April 2024 that Hamas is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel and that it would lay down its weapons and convert into a political party if an independent Palestinian state is established along pre-1967 borders.
  More seriously, Hamas's claim to legitimacy is their fight for Palestinian self-determination. If that's back on the table, they won't be able to maintain their authoritarian state anymore, because both Palestinians and the international community will want them gone, or at least out of power so democratic elections can take place. Also, this is pretty much what they accepted in the Jan 2025 ceasefire; it'd be a political impossibility for them to maintain undemocratic rule without active Israeli aggression and they know that.
  TL;DR: Because they'll have no other choice. Also I'm not sure what this has to do with my comment.
- The Gulf despots (and the ones in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait) are shit-scared of Arab democracy and have never actually done anything meaningful to help the Palestinians, besides setting up some refugee camps and treating the inhabitants as a source of contagion.
  The last thing the Gulfies want to see is any Arab government with any legitimacy. It would make their own people, and the vast underclass of TCNs, start asking awkward questions.
  
  Definitely true, but that's one thing and calling for Palestinians to stop fighting in the middle of a genocide is another. My point is that the declaration in the article isn't saying that even though the headline makes it seem so. This declaration should be seen fo what it is: A vague platitude that doesn't change the fact that they're a bunch of traitors (which, to be clear, isn't restricted to the Gulf; Egypt and Jordan for example aren't much better).
- Why should palestinians drop arms before occupation end? How can you say that when israeli support ethenically cleansing palestinians?
  
  Creating a sovereign Palestinian state is ending the occupation. Also note that I never said Palestinians should lay down their arms; I only said that when/if a democratic state is created those arms should be in the hands of that democratic state, not unelected paramilitaries.
  TL;DR: Israel fucks off then Palestinian paramilitaries disband, not the other way around.
They should ask end of occupation instead
Trying to imagine them asking this of Ukraine.
- Apart from both being the attacked ones, they have not much in common.
  
  Because Ukraine was allowed some level of sovereignty after the Sovjet Union collapsed, whereas Palestinians have been denied sovereignty ever since the British and French carved up the carcass of the Ottoman empire.
  
  Not true. Israel and russis has very similar talking points
- Trying to imagine them asking this of Russia.
  
  Disarming russia and israel would be cool. Ukraine and palestine should not drop arms till they are safe from occupation
  
  Much easier, as NATO's been gunning for that for decades
The Arab states don’t give a fuck about Palestinians. The Palestinian authority doesn’t give a fuck about Palestinians. What’s the point of this?
- The point is to shift the blame for all of Israel's atrocities onto Hamas. The Arab rulers are losing their grip, they've been exposed as Zionist collaborators and there's growing resentment from their people. That's been their angle this past year, people are getting disappeared in Jordan and Egypt right now if they say anything that can remotely be taken to imply the government isn't doing enough to help Gaza, and they are cracking down on public displays of support of Hamas; and state media is pushing hard the narrative that people are tired of the war and Hamas is being unreasonable and Hamas Hamas Hamas.
  This is for the sheep in the population that haven't woken up yet, and for Western liberals who still believe in all these governments. Meanwhile, Israel is planning to annex the West Bank.
Gulf states which collaborate with Israel collaborate with Israel.
Hamas already has an offer to disband if a two state solution is reached. This is one-siding the blame.
Also the PA is a dictatorship backed by the West and Israel.
If there suddenly would really be a Palestinian state then Hamas would become one of the most successful rebel/freedom fighter organizations ever.
- They wouldn't be the ones recognized by the international community, though. That would most likely go to the Palestinian Authority. They've always been preferred over Hamas.
  
  Regardless, it would still make Hamas successful in reaching the goal of a Palestinian state. And if statehood was recognized then Hamas could immediately disarm and hand control over to the Palestinian army, which would find itself in sudden need of soldiers and leaders.
  
  It wouldn't be the PA either it's too unpopular
  
  Hamas hasn't been gunning for international recognition for over a decade, so that's already accounted for. Hamas's demand is pretty explicitly a Palestinian state period, a Palestinian state led by them. If that happens they'll probably reform as a political party like they did in 2005.
the war that was instigated by BIBI, have they not forgotten that. the arab states, are definitely afraid of palestinians flooding thier borders, for the sole reason in the past they had cause uprising in countries wherever they fleed.

33 comments