Recognizing Palestine while ignoring Hamas? How so?

This year's UN General Assembly in New York, compared with past years, was the stage for quite colorful, lively and equally important events. Palestine and Gaza stamped their mark on the General Assembly agenda and on the activities of the statesmen present there on this occasion. The special session on Gaza at the General Assembly became an occasion for explaining the Israel issue to the whole world at length, with all its history, its present, and all the roots of the problem.

Since the occupying state of Israel was founded, it has never been subjected to so much criticism; the aggression, seizures and violations in its policies of occupation and expansion have never been so much on the agenda. In the following days, in all the events outside the session as well, the statesmen who gathered, again with the Gaza agenda, breathed a completely new air regarding the Palestinian cause. More than 150 states declared that they recognized the State of Palestine.

The grounds for these declarations were in themselves accusations directed at Israel, and expressed arguments of rightness concerning the, albeit late, acknowledgment of the rightness of the Palestinian cause. The sole agenda of the meeting held by President Erdoğan together with the leaders of 8 Islamic countries with Trump was also Gaza. The leaders or Foreign Ministers of Indonesia, Pakistan, Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE came together with a US president for the first time in such an initiative to stop Israeli aggression in Gaza.

It appears the meeting was very effective and useful. It was known that President Erdoğan had been preparing for this meeting for a long time. Subsequently, right after the meeting with Trump in Washington DC, Trump addressed Netanyahu, saying "Enough, stop," and, in response to a question, announced that he "would not allow the annexation of the West Bank," on which Israel is working at full throttle right now.

Will Trump do what he says, can he, will he foresee the situation in the face of Netanyahu's "disobedience" and take a measure? It cannot be known. But when we look at the interim sum of all these developments up to here, we see that the Palestinian Cause has become today a cause recognized, known and conceded as right by the whole world. This year's UN General Assembly meeting stands out as a turning point in this process.

So what is all this the work of? Without doubt these are the effects of the Al-Aqsa Flood, which set into motion on 7 October 2023. There have been, and are, great losses in Gaza. The genocidal Israeli barbarity has savagely slaughtered tens of thousands more children at the very beginning of their lives, and continues to slaughter them. For two years, with not a day or hour on which it did not rain bombs, it has turned Gaza into a field in which all of humanity's calibrations are tested. The genocidal power that has moved against Gaza with all its barbarity has on this occasion shown everyone that it constitutes a danger to all humanity.

With Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Tunisia, Qatar, and so on, with its promised-land goals that it no longer shrinks from pronouncing, it has brought a threat to all the countries of the region very close. And against this threat there is no armed force that actually stands against it other than Hamas. It was also Hamas that showed the world that a complete barbaric monster lies beneath this democratic, modern and "normal" looking country, and that warned and awakened the whole world against this threat. With the honorable war it has waged, Hamas is not fighting only its own war; it is warning and awakening all humanity against this threat that has taken the world captive.

This being so, precisely as a result of these warnings, an unconsciousness displayed by the unprecedented participation now forming to recognize Palestine also awakens concerns about what kind of delusion or deception this recognition brings with it. While all people and countries stand with their hands and arms tied before this herd of killers, enemies of humanity, only Hamas protects the people of Gaza, only Hamas actually stands against them. But those who graciously declare today that they will recognize the State of Palestine also make this recognition conditional on Hamas's exclusion.

On the ground, Israel is destroying the two most basic conditions for a state they would recognize: it is killing or expelling the people, and seizing the land. Those who recognize Palestine today are recognizing a state without land and without people. While Israel, let alone Gaza, is rapidly putting into effect its plan to annex the West Bank, it aims to render the State of Palestine to be recognized effectively null and void.

That Mahmoud Abbas, who is today the de facto president of the state being recognized, condemned 7 October in his speech at the UN and called on Hamas to hand over its weapons to them is a perfect example of black comedy. That the Palestinian cause has gained such great prestige today is thanks to the glorious struggle Hamas has waged for two years. If Britain, France, Canada and many European countries have today reached the point of recognizing the State of Palestine, this is thanks to the struggle Hamas has actually put forth. That they think of excluding Hamas, let us call that normal, but Mahmoud Abbas's call to Hamas is as laughable as it is excessive, and it completely destroys his legitimacy to represent the Palestinian cause.

Unfortunately a significant portion of the Islamic countries is at the same point. Their reasons are well known. Today many of them look at Hamas with no different an eye than Israel. They are even secretly waiting with bated breath for Israel to destroy Hamas, and so the failure of the Zionist power has the effect of a complete disappointment for them.

Making the recognition of the State of Palestine conditional on the exclusion of Hamas has essentially no value whatsoever. Hamas is not an organization, an apparatus, an organ that anyone can tear away from Palestine and exclude; it is Palestine itself. Were it otherwise, had the Palestinian cause been left to the likes of Abbas, it would long since have come to an end.

The best expression for Hamas is the reality voiced by President Erdoğan, which should be thrust into everyone's eyes: It is a Kuva-yi Milliye movement defending its own homeland against occupying usurpers. Its legitimacy, and its organic existence, derive from this.