20 years later… Gaza decides who loses!

Gaza under the shadow of genocide was on the world's agenda with the election held 20 years ago.

On January 25, 2006, the Palestinian Legislative Council elections were held. The vote took place before international observers. The elections were legitimate until the ballot boxes were opened and the results became clear.

When Fatah, openly backed by Washington, was left with 45 seats—or rather, when Hamas won 74 of the 132 seats—the states that impose democracy on the world went back on their word. Western countries, primarily the US and Israel, did not recognize the result of the election Hamas won.

Hillary Clinton's words, then a New York senator, which came to light years later, revealed how the oppression inflicted on the people of Gaza was systematized through diplomatic channels. In a 2006 meeting with the editorial board of the Jewish Press newspaper, Clinton had said that pushing for elections in Palestine was "a big mistake." Her real confession was this: "If we were going to push for elections, we should have done something to determine who would win."

So democracy was acceptable to the West only as long as the results could be predetermined.

What followed is well known. The government Hamas formed was boycotted. Aid to Gaza was cut off. Sanctions were stepped up and a blockade descended on the city. Gaza, turned into the world's largest open-air prison, was bombed at every opportunity, and thousands of civilians were slaughtered by Israel.

That was not enough. After October 7, the people of Gaza, who had once supported Hamas—the movement they elected at the ballot box—with their lives and blood, were subjected to genocide. Leading figures of the movement—Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut, Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Yahya Sinwar in Rafah—were martyred. The leadership cadre was targeted one by one, and Gaza was reduced to rubble.

Israel, with the West and the US behind it, thought it could destroy Hamas in its home and along with its home, on the calculation that "if you cut off the head, the body falls apart."

But it did not turn out that way.

Last Tuesday, in the midterm elections held in the US on November 3, the Democrats took both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The main reasons for the results, much discussed in recent days, came to the fore as the cost of living and anger at Trump, whom they had trusted so much. According to a report by the American television channel CBS, 89 percent of voters said the struggle to make a living was influential in their vote choice.

But there is another equation in this picture. That is Gaza.

In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed defeated Republican Mike Rogers to become the first Muslim elected to the US Senate. El-Sayed was a candidate who advocated cutting military aid to Israel and did not hide it. According to the reckoning of Haaretz, one of Israel's influential newspapers, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spent around 40 million dollars to prevent El-Sayed from winning. But the enormous money could not change the result. Haaretz announced El-Sayed's victory thus: "Opposing Israel is not an obstacle to winning in critical states."

Arrogance forces even the assessment of the situation to be made in indirect sentences. Haaretz cannot say "opposing Israel wins you critical states," and contents itself with saying "not an obstacle."

In Detroit, Shri Thanedar, also backed by AIPAC, lost as well. In return, at least five democratic socialist candidates who advocate restricting military aid to Israel entered the House across the US.

In fact, we had seen the first sign of this fracture a year ago in New York. Zohran Mamdani had won against the Israel lobby, big donors, the media, and the establishment. In that election, the first political bill for support of the Gaza genocide was presented.

According to data from the American think tank Pew Research Center, 80 percent of Democrats and independent voters close to the Democrats view Israel unfavorably. Yet the same Democratic Party, during the Biden administration, became one of the chief instigators of the Gaza genocide by providing Israel with weapons and a diplomatic shield. The party is the same party, but the generations are changing. People who have watched the genocide in Gaza live for three years are making choices at the ballot box that go beyond their party's policy.

So what happened in Israel a week before the US elections?

In the October 27 elections, the Netanyahu bloc fell from 64 seats in 2022 to 53. Likud lost nine seats. No majority emerged to form a government. The Arab parties achieved their highest result in history with 19 seats. Turnout rose to its highest level since 1999. Now, the fate of the government planned to be formed in Israel depends on the 19 seats that are meant to be ignored.

The picture is becoming clearer and clearer, and what does it tell us?

Those who ignored the popular will that came out of the ballot box in Gaza in 2006 have begun to pay the price 20 years later.

They could kill Hamas's leaders, but they could not defeat the spirit of the people of Gaza. That spirit, today, thousands of kilometers away from Gaza, in Detroit, in Denver, is giving direction to the ballot boxes.

Let me end with this sentence that has been circling in my mind for two days:

Hillary Clinton lamented in 2006 that they had not been able to determine who would win in Gaza. In 2026, Gaza now determines who loses in America.