What those who say Hamas attacked "out of the blue" should see

After the Al-Aqsa Flood operation that the Qassam Brigades launched against Israel on 7 October, it was of course no surprise that Israel would respond in anger with a wildly disproportionate retaliation. Those who accuse Hamas of acting irresponsibly for making such a move knowing this, even among those who would support Hamas under normal conditions, make up a large total. In fact, their thinking that Hamas made such a move "out of the blue" shows what kind of indifference they were in regarding the state of the deep humanitarian problems in Palestine as of 6 October.

That is, as of 6 October, across the whole world, even among its friends, the Palestinian cause had almost been turned into a fait accompli in its present state and had become unimportant. In an Islamic world that had come a considerable way on the road to normalising relations with Israel, what was happening in Palestine, Gaza, Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque, even when heard of, seemed to have become habitual, accepted and normalised as it was. Yet for Palestinians the space in which they lived was shrinking more with each passing day, and Al-Aqsa Mosque, the sanctity of all Muslims, was moving step by step towards destruction.

The absence of a strong objection supplied everyone with an excuse for accepting the present situation as it was. Yet this was an oppression whose sighs reached the throne of the universe and which could not be accepted. That it could be accepted meant nothing other than the exhaustion of all humanity. A Gazan, or a Palestinian in the West Bank subjected to the terror of occupation, seizure and settlement, was living that oppression in deed every day, every moment. Even a small detail of what he lived through is terrifying enough to make you ashamed of your humanity. In the West Bank, which is not under Hamas's administration, that the house you own and have lived in for generations can be taken from you at any moment, that bulldozers come to the door to bring it down on your head, that a pig-faced American Jew comes and claims your house, that to get from one street to another you must pass through three checkpoints and endure occupier insolence in the meantime... these are routine, ordinary oppressions. Being arbitrarily beaten and killed comes on top. All of this still continues, but its cry no longer even reached the rest of the world, not even Muslims.

The cries had been suppressed so that they would not spill beyond Gaza and Jerusalem. What suppressed the cries was not only the hypocritical, fraudulent propaganda of Israel and its supporters, but the worldliness, conformism and indifference of Muslims. To become indifferent to oppression, to take it as habit, to get used to living with it... To feel that you cannot cope with an oppression you once constantly objected to and give up, and not just give up but reconcile with it, behave as if there were no oppression and normalise relations with it. This is what it is called to become a partner in the oppressor's oppression.

Hamas, in the final phase, succeeded in making this oppression, which had also suffered from the indifference of Muslims, the cause of Palestine, the cause of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque, once again the first-order cause of the whole world. It did so by displaying the most manly and epic example of heroism on a ground where Israel, the US and Europe were waging war in the most unmanly and treacherous way, with both their weapons technology and their propaganda. Not only did they turn Israel's Iron Dome into a sieve; with their disproportionate success against disproportionate technological power, and their performance of shoving it in the world's face, they also smashed the steel domes of the Crusader-Zionist order of perception to pieces. All the streets of the Islamic world shook off the dead earth sprinkled over them and moved into an awakening.

The streets of the Western world too began to question the reason for their own countries' unconditional support for Israel, and what kind of hidden debt it rested on. What are the leaders of the big European countries, who have risked complicity with an Israel that dares genocide against a defenceless people and massacres civilians and children by bombing schools, hospitals, marketplaces, churches and mosques, hiding from their own peoples? Hamas has undermined the values of human rights, freedoms, democracy and equality that today are marketed as the values of the Western world and told to the world, and what emerged from underneath in all its nakedness was only a primitive racism, religiosity, bigotry and genocidalism. The unmasking of this order built on deceiving people is a disappointment for Westerners too, but a gain for humanity.

Those who look at Hamas's operation through Israel's retaliatory massacres and see more harm than benefit, an unreckoned, needless and therefore irresponsible act, are plainly in most cases anxious about the comfort this event has disturbed. Hamas has thrown into turmoil the world's present order built on oppression, hypocrisy, exploitation and inequality. It has also upset the calculations of the Islamic countries that, though they are not the founders of this vile order, and are even its victims, try to secure a stable living for themselves within it. That the Islamic countries that have accepted humiliation within this order of oppression are more disturbed by Hamas than anyone is of course not incomprehensible. But there is nothing to be done.

Even so, it has begun to be seen that the epic heroism displayed on 7 October against the treacherous and unmanly Zionist war machine was not a one-off. The more Israel rises with all its fury, particularly since it began ground operations, the more it disgraces itself before the world each day. By contrast, the Qassam Brigades are seen to display a clear superiority on the field against the occupying forces in hand-to-hand combat. Israel is sinking into a quagmire. The quagmire it has sunk into is, on the part of the forces facing it, their manly and heroic stance whose death is martyrdom, and on its own part, its fear, its unmanliness and its attachment to life.

We said at the outset that the process that began on 7 October has the power to change the whole world. Over time this power makes itself felt much more. With every bomb it drops, Israel buries in Gaza all the image, prestige and power it has accumulated in every field for 75 years. Every death of a baby falls into the middle of the West along with Israel and causes great destruction. When Muslims die they become martyrs, and every martyrdom waters the parched hearts of Muslims around the world and renews their faith.

At this moment the faith, trust and expectations placed in the West by Muslims across the world are completely exhausted. This consciousness that has awakened in the peoples creates pressure on the rulers. The rulers have reached the point where they cannot remain indifferent in the face of this consciousness that has awakened in the peoples and may increasingly reach the point of explosion.

Indeed, all the Islamic countries that had earlier entered the "normalisation" process with Israel have stepped back. The Jordanian government, unable to remain indifferent to the people's growing anger, withdrew its ambassador from Israel. Bahrain, which had opened an embassy in the name of normalisation, also withdrew its ambassador.

It would be useful for those who sincerely ask why Hamas launched this attack "out of the blue" to try looking from this angle too.