Point Of View
The Goldstone Factor \ Yossi Klein Halevi August 13, 2009
Yossi Klein Halevi, Senior Fellow at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies, explains how the Goldstone report may change the scale of the next Middle East War. Read also in Point of View on The Demons of Normalization by Uriya Shavit and When Everything is a Crime by Yagil Henkin.
The Israeli reactions to the Goldstone report on the Gaza war of January 2009 have focused, understandably, on its outrageous omissions and distortions and one-sided judgments, as well as on the moral corruption of the report's sponsor, the UN's Human Rights Commission. But the far-reaching strategic implications of the Goldstone report require no less urgent consideration.
If a large part of the international community endorses the report's conclusions and opts to put Israel on trial – symbolically or literally – the clear message to Israel will be the rescinding of its right to self-defense against Hezbollah and Hamas, both of which are embedded in civilian populations. That will require a basic rethinking of Israel's current strategic policy of containing the terrorist enclaves on its northern and southern borders.
In the decades following the Six Day War, Israeli policy, upheld by successive Labor and Likud governments, was to deny terrorists a foothold along any Israeli border. That was, in part, the rationale behind Moshe Dayan's open bridges policy between Israel and Jordan in the 1970s, as well as Ariel Sharon's West Bank settlement drive and the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. When that war soured, so did the appeal of the policy that inspired it.
Israel's two unilateral withdrawals – from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005 – both resulted in the creation of terror enclaves on its borders, negating long-standing strategy. The policy of prevention was replaced by a policy of containment.
That policy of containment was expressed in the 2006 operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and by this year's operation against Hamas in Gaza. In both those mini-wars, Israel opted not to uproot the terrorist enclaves, hoping that the partial flexing of Israeli power would deter further aggression.
The Goldstone report may well mark the end of Israel's limited wars against terrorist groups. Israel cannot afford to continue to be drawn into mini-wars against terrorists hiding behind their own civilians to attack Israeli civilians, given that each such conflict inexorably draws the Jewish state one step closer toward pariah status. Limited victories on the battlefield are being turned into major defeats in the arena of world opinion.
That untenable situation may well leave Israel no choice but to return to the post-1967 policy of preventing altogether the presence of terror enclaves on its borders. Better, Israelis will argue, to deal decisively with the terror threat and brace for temporary international outrage than subject our legitimacy to constant attrition, even as the terrorist threat remains intact.
Israelis will be keenly watching the pace of Qassam rocket fire from Gaza for signs of an emboldened Hamas. If attacks do intensify – as they have in recent days – and the quiet achieved by the Gaza offensive is forfeited, the Israeli public will blame the Goldstone report. And Israelis' operative conclusions will likely lead to a less restrained response next time – the oppposite result Judge Richard Goldstone sought to achieve in his attempt to deny Israel the right to self-defense.
Showing posts with label hamas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hamas. Show all posts
29 October 2009
Which Way for Hamas?
Volume 56, Number 17 · November 5, 2009
By Nicolas Pelham, Max Rodenbeck
Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of the Militant Islamic Movement
by Zaki Chehab
Nation Books, 250 pp., $15.95 (paper)
Hamas in Politics: Democracy, Religion, Violence
by Jeroen Gunning
Columbia University Press, 310 pp., $34.50
Kill Khalid: The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas
by Paul McGeough
New Press, 477 pp., $26.95
1.
Amid the wreckage of Gaza, Hamas's officials struggle to sound upbeat. The burly interior minister, Fathi Hamad, whose predecessor was killed by an Israeli bomb, defiantly shuns security precautions at his makeshift office in Gaza City's main police station. "Claims that we are trying to establish an Islamic state are false," says the minister, who says his preference would be pursuing a degree in media studies. "Hamas is not the Taliban. It is not al-Qaeda. It is an enlightened, moderate Islamic movement."
Such talk is not the only effort to return to normality. Parasols and beach cabins sprouted this summer along Gaza's twenty-eight miles of sandy shore, the crowded strip's principal public park. Two buildings of the Islamic University, Hamas's most prominent educational institution, had been bombed but the university put on a graduation ceremony with festive lights, a cascade of multicolored balloons, and heart-shaped posters wishing future success to its students, most of whom happen to be women and some of whom flashed jeans and high heels beneath their black gowns. In a theater next to the Palestinian parliament, also shattered by bombs, actresses danced and writhed in the government-sponsored premiere of Gaza's Girls and the Patience of Job.
Such events reflect one side of the ongoing conflict inside Hamas between the pragmatists who put Gazans' needs first, and have sought to lighten their lives after years of punishing blockade and intermittent war, and the ideologues who give priority to "the rule of the sharia of God on earth." Advocates of the latter have tried to apply Islamic law in full, appealing to the Gaza-based and Hamas-controlled Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) to replace the British Mandate–era penal code with a sharia law that provides execution for apostasy, stoning and lashing for adultery, and the payment of blood money counted in camels. So far, the pragmatists have largely frustrated their efforts. "You can't Islamize the law when the political system is not fully Islamic," says the PLC's general director, Nafiz al-Madhoun, who completed a doctorate in law at the University of Minnesota, and once lectured there. "You need to have an Islamic government, judiciary, and political system. And we don't."
In response, the ideologues have resorted to other means, introducing sharia by the back door. With the help of Hamas mosques, the Religious Endowments Ministry has commissioned a morality police to "Propagate Virtue and Prevent Vice," not least by patrolling the beaches for such signs of debauchery as unveiled female bathers and shirtless men. The police have set up arbitration committees in their stations, offering detainees a fast-track resolution by fatwas, or legal opinion, which sometimes comes from the Muslim Scholars League. "The law of God or the law of a judge?" the police have asked petitioners. The Education Ministry insists it has issued no requirement that schoolgirls wear the jilbab, the shapeless body-wrap, but at the start of the school year, some principals did.
The Islamic Resistance Movement (in Arabic, Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya—hence Hamas) remains powerful, but nearly four years after winning the 2006 elections, and two years after its gunmen overpowered Palestinian Authority (PA) forces to seize control of the strip, Hamas no longer acts like an opposition suddenly thrust into power. Silent a year ago, the Ministry of National Economy now negotiates with entrepreneurs seeking licenses for their latest project. The ministry's small-business scheme offers interest-free loans for such things as a $5,000 freezer to put a butcher back in business. The Local Affairs Ministry runs a licensing office for the tunnels to Egypt that remain Gaza's lifeline; the Public Works Ministry is repaving roads with smuggled tar; the Foreign Ministry has commissioned an American journalist to train diplomats; and the Finance Ministry is collecting taxes with increased rigor. A comprehensive Web site (www.diwan.ps) gives details of government appointments and decrees, with greater transparency than the PA, Hamas's counterpart in Ramallah that once ran both parts of the Palestinians' territory, but now runs the West Bank alone, and that under an Israeli thumb.
Hamas has revamped the civil service, pruning departments that under the bloated PA had more undersecretaries than clerical secretaries. Initial protests by Fatah loyalists after Hamas's takeover in June 2007 gave Gaza's new masters an excuse to lower pay grades and shed jobs. "It was a gift from God. Most were already redundant," according to an Interior Ministry official who says he has cut his twelve-member staff (including nine directors-general) by a third. With government salaries paid promptly, most of the time, Gazans make use of strike-free municipal services, including buses and schools. Should Gaza again have a functioning railway, Hamas would run trains on time.
International attempts to isolate Hamas have also helped instead to entrench the Islamists. With all but the most basic goods banned from Gaza, smuggling has thrived through supply lines that Hamas controls. Since 2006, despite Israeli bombing and increasingly effective Egyptian policing, the number of tunnels has grown from a few score to over a thousand. "The siege has empowered those the international community wanted to disempower," a Gazan businessman observed.
Of the nearly 30,000 people the authorities say have received jobs since the party took power, some 25,000 are in the security forces. "You can dial 100 and the police come," a banker said. "Under the PA, police were afraid of thieves, now the thieves are afraid of them." Before the Hamas takeover, says another, he and his friends chose their most battered car when they went to a restaurant, for fear of car thefts. This summer, the jammed streets were full of new cars, a tacit rebuke to Israel's two-year ban on vehicle imports.
The internal calm is matched by an external reprieve. When Israel withdrew in January, leaving 1,387 Gazans dead (according to the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem), thousands homeless, and factories, schools, and infrastructure smashed, Hamas hailed its survival as a great victory. But Israel imposed its own terms, forcing Hamas to quietly drop demands that Israel lift the blockade before Hamas stopped lobbing rockets at the Jewish state. While the range of Hamas's rockets has increased from fifteen to forty kilometers, bringing Tel Aviv suburbs within reach, Hamas has, since the end of the Israeli incursion, fired rockets rarely if ever, and restrained Islamist rivals, such as Islamic Jihad, from doing the same. Between March 17 and September 22 Gazans fired some eighteen short-range rockets without loss of life. Israel has responded with incursions and sometimes fatal bombings. In effect, Hamas now acts as Israel's border guard, preventing further attacks. Israel's swap of twenty female Palestinian prisoners for the first video footage of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier Hamas captured three years ago, has raised guarded hopes in Gaza of a bigger deal to come. In exchange for Shalit, according to Hamas leaders, Israel will soon release hundreds of Israel's ten thousand Palestinian prisoners and might even relax the siege.
To the south too, Hamas hints of better times ahead. Whereas in 2008 Hamas brashly punched a hole through Egypt's border defenses, unleashing an embarrassing stampede of Palestinians into Egyptian shops, Interior Minister Hamad says Hamas now "coordinates fully" with Gaza's sole Arab neighbor. Hamas even poses as a guardian of Egypt's national security, not least by killing al-Qaeda's self-proclaimed preachers and other adherents in Gaza. "Our task now is governance, to consolidate stability rather than continue resistance," says Hamad.
Yet a day after speaking these soothing words, the interior minister offered a very different political horizon. Between towering bodyguards from Hamas's armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, he delivered an apocalyptic address to a summoned assembly of clan elders. It was angels that chased Israel's army from Gaza in last winter's war, he thundered, adding with a numerological flourish that whereas Israel beat twenty-two Arab nations, Gaza's Islamic resistance had routed the enemy in just twenty-two days. The Jewish state, he concluded, would disappear in 2022.
Such reverses in rhetoric reveal a movement struggling to reconcile two competing audiences: the "international community," which calls for Hamas to be more moderate, and a core constituency that grows suspicious at any sign it might be selling out. Much as Communist regimes tacked "Democratic" to their names to disguise totalitarianism, Hamas officials use the word "resistance" to hide the waning of their armed struggle. The culture minister, when he attends theatrical productions, speaks of Resistance Culture. The minister of economy hails recent openings of cafés and restaurants as triumphs of the Resistance Economy. "As long as we don't raise our hands in surrender and continue to struggle, that's resistance," he said.
Hamas has failed to achieve the prime requisite for a more normal life: ending the siege. Gaza under Islamist rule is a cul-de-sac. Air and sea routes are blocked. Only the very sick, wounded, or well connected are allowed passage through sporadically opened land crossings to Israel and Egypt. Few now even bother to attempt the humiliating process of crossing the border, either with Israel or Egypt. "You can't board an Egypt Air plane to get home via Cairo without a fax from Egyptian intelligence," a Gazan graduate of Harvard Business School said.
While some Gazans profit from the boom in contraband, most people have seen their savings, salaries, and businesses atrophy. For all the talk about entrepreneurs, nine tenths now live below the poverty line, according to the UN, which estimates that living standards have plummeted to pre-1967 levels. In Israel per capita GDP is $27,450; in Gaza it's two or three dollars a day. Even merchant families collect UN rations.
If war and siege have not crippled Hamas, Gaza's misery appears to have prompted its greater willingness to compromise and offer its people a political future. Hamas leaders, including the more outspoken exiled leadership based in Damascus, have lately muted criticism of Fatah in the interest of intra-Palestinian reconciliation—even after Abbas's Palestinian Authority reportedly bowed to Israeli pressure and withdrew its demand for UN action against Israel following Justice Richard Goldstone's UN report into war crimes by the belligerents in Gaza's winter war. They have played down the significance of their party's fiery founding charter, which rejects any recognition of Israel, hinting that they could live with a two-state settlement. In its draft laws, Hamas defines "Palestine" not as the area including Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza but as the geographical district over which the Palestinian National Authority rules. As leaders of Fatah did a generation earlier, some members have discreetly met with Israelis at international conferences, talking peace over breakfast. In addition, within its own fiefdom Hamas's leaders have decided to suspend declaration of an Islamist state and application of sharia, and to focus on the economy instead.
Such changes in position are offensive to Hamas's hard-core followers. For what have they struggled, if not for establishing God's kingdom on earth? Rumors in Gaza reinforce the image of a leadership straying from the straight path. Businessmen working with Hamas are said to be investing tunnel profits in renovating plush hotels, prompting some to speak of an emerging Hamas oligarchy. A minister's son reportedly deals in drugs, and the son of a Qassam commander smokes water pipes. The security forces, too, seem to be following the pattern of the region's self-serving police states. Hamas used to threaten external foes and defend its own people, say Gaza's whisperers. Now it does just the reverse.
After Friday prayers on an August afternoon, Abdel Latif Moussa, a preacher in Rafah, the principal town on the Egyptian border, addressed scores of armed supporters. If Hamas did not have the guts to declare Gaza an Islamic emirate, he said, then he would do so, right here and now. Within hours of Moussa's sermon, masked fighters from Hamas's Qassam Brigades surged into the neighborhood. Among the twenty-eight killed were Moussa himself and several Qassam fighters, some felled by the first recorded instance of intra-Palestinian suicide bombing.
This was by no means Hamas's first sign of ruthlessness toward fellow Palestinians. During the first intifada against Israeli rule, which erupted soon after Hamas's official founding in 1987, its nascent armed wing targeted suspected collaborators, prostitutes, and drug dealers as often as it did Israelis. Islamists had long clashed with Fatah activists they called "traitorous" before Hamas's 2007 putsch against them, which culminated in street fighting that left more than one hundred dead. Since then the Qassam Brigades have sprayed gunfire at Fatah demonstrators and knee-capped Fatah organizers until they stopped demonstrating. They have laid siege to rebellious quarters of hostile clans and lobbed rocket-propelled grenades inside until family elders agreed to surrender.
But during August's shoot-out in Rafah, Hamas was not fighting "traitors," but rather its own brothers—people who prayed at the same mosques, studied the same texts, tapped the same financial backers, and used much the same terminology that Hamas used to overthrow Fatah. Such ultra-puritan Islamists are broadly known as Salafists, adherents of a belief system originating in Saudi Arabia that seeks to replicate fully the practices of the Prophet's companions.
Some Salafists have sought to infiltrate the ranks of Hamas, where they find fertile ground for recruits, particularly in its armed wing. Others have fused their search for purity with a jihadist challenge to the established order. Some eschew politics altogether, limiting their activities to preaching. Though dedicated to eliminating foreign influence, their teachers are among Gaza's most widely traveled, having studied in South Africa, Pakistan, Yemen, and Europe. Moussa had studied under such teachers in the Khan Yunis town, before shifting to the jihadist track.
Cracks emerged when Hamas drifted from social activism and armed struggle into politics. After Hamas decided to contest the 2006 elections, one of its preachers in Rafah left the movement with scores of followers. God's will above man's, he said, and besides Hamas had no business participating in an authority established by agreement with Israel. During the contentious interregnum of national unity government before Hamas's takeover of Gaza in June 2007, both Fatah and Hamas solicited Salafist support. Unruly clans seeking an Islamist cover to press their claims bolstered their ranks. Amid the chaos, the Salafists sought to enforce their authority by waging a nasty morality campaign against Internet cafés, hairdressers, the American school, and other such places of ill-repute.
Armed confrontation with the Salafists followed fast on the heels of Hamas's takeover. In July 2007 the Qassam Brigades laid siege to the stronghold of one jihadist group, the Army of Islam, forcing the release of the BBC's kidnapped correspondent Alan Johnston.
In the months that followed, Hamas fought to extend its control, sending the members of the Army of Islam fleeing to other towns. There they sought to rally support among discontents, challenging Hamas's legitimacy with harder-line Islamist rhetoric that accused it of selling out both on its application of sharia and its resistance against Israel. They set up new cells, variously claiming affiliation with al-Qaeda and ridding Gaza of idolatry with such acts as removing the statue of Palestine's unknown soldier from Gaza City's central square.
One of the largest factions, the jaljalat—Arabic for "the reverberations of thunder"—acquired significant support inside Hamas, and sought to target high-profile visitors to Gaza, reportedly including former President Jimmy Carter. Jund Ansar Allah, the Army of God's Companions, led by Moussa, was a relatively new addition. Its operations included a cavalry charge by white stallions intended to emulate early Muslim warriors, notwithstanding the landmines on Israel's fortified border. Qassam Brigades stormed a house in the Khan Yunis refugee camp used by the Jund in mid-July, uncovering money, weapons, and explosive belts. Soon after, a bomb blasted the wedding of a nephew of Fatah's former strongman in Gaza, Mohammed Dahlan, wounding sixty-one. It was after this that Qassam forces targeted Moussa's base in Rafah, the Jund's strongest redoubt with its easy access to tunnels and regional support. Salafists fleeing Rafah found refuge further north, sparking more clashes around Gaza City when Hamas sought to capture them. In two days, Hamas officials said they detained 250 Islamists.
In an attempt to deflect a Salafist backlash, Hamas officials have made a show of honoring the Jund's dead as martyrs, along with their own. They have sought to reaffirm their Islamist credentials with a morality campaign called Fadila, or Virtue, intended to tighten the Islamists' spiritual grip. The Religious Affairs ministry has hired seven hundred new employees to regulate public mores, by such actions as checking couples' marriage licenses.
A sense of unease is again enveloping Gaza. Ramadan, a time of festivity, proved desultory, and not just because of the siege. In what is Hamas's greatest security breach to date, Salafist Web sites published hit lists of Hamas members, detailing their rank in the movement, their tunnel hideouts, and mosques where they can be targeted. Jihadist spiritual mentors did not endorse calls for revenge attacks, and some instead urged unity and calm. But Gaza's streets and mosques were noticeably more subdued after the Rafah bloodshed. Hamas checkpoints—which had all but disappeared from the Gaza Strip—reappeared in the heart of Gaza City, sometimes during daylight hours. The few foreigners Israel allows to visit, who for months had experienced a brief respite, relaxing on its beaches and Web surfing in its wi-fi-equipped cafés, now tend to venture into Gaza in armored cars.
Hamas's resilience and ingenuity in the face of intense challenges are a largely untold success story. But its drive for a monopoly of power has swept aside the consensus-building that exemplified Palestinian politics and replaced it with a one-party statelet. Few believe Hamas wants elections anytime soon. Despite the lip service they pay to the electoral process, its leaders are wary of the large part of the Palestinian public that sullenly blames them for prolonging Gaza's troubles.
Without elections there is scant outlet for organized civil dissent. Opponents seeking to hold Gaza's authorities to internal account have few means but force. Hamas claims that it has crushed "the deviants," but in doing so it has deployed the same mosque-storming tactics Fatah once used against it, arousing scorn over its methods. In the absence of a more inclusive approach, Hamas's greatest achievement—the restoration of Gaza's stability—sometimes feels as bittersweet a prize to ordinary Palestinians as the "victory" it claims over the Zionist enemy.
2.
In a sense, Hamas has become captive to its own success as it struggles now to reconcile the pressing needs of day-to-day governance with the ideology it preached in opposition, and to reconcile as well its Palestinian cause with its wider Islamic one, and its cult of guns and martyrdom with more pragmatic instincts. As several useful new books on Hamas reveal, such gnawing internal tensions are inherent in the approach that Islamists have adopted to the question of Palestine from its very origins. Seeing the "cause" in millennial terms, as part of a universal struggle, the faith-based movement has badly damaged a polity that was fragile and inchoate before the implantation of Israel, and has struggled mightily to remain unified ever since.
Although Hamas itself is not yet a quarter-century old, it is important to recall that the earliest armed resistance to Zionist colonization was not nationalist, but rather pan-Islamist in inspiration. In his gossip- and fact-packed book Inside Hamas, Zaki Chehab, a pro-Fatah Palestinian journalist, reminds us that the namesake of Hamas's Qassam Brigades was, in fact, a Syrian who was educated at Cairo's al-Azhar University. When France occupied Syria in 1920, Ezzedine Qassam briefly led an armed cell, but soon fled to the safety of British-occupied Palestine. As a mosque preacher in Haifa he witnessed the surge in Jewish immigration that followed Hitler's rise, and began a clandestine campaign to arm Muslim fighters.
Qassam himself was "martyred" by British troops in 1935, at the start of the Palestine Revolt, and then largely forgotten until his memory was revived by Hamas. The uprising he helped inspire was eventually crushed by the British, who in the process effectively decapitated the Palestinians' nascent leadership. This weakness, compounded by class tensions within Palestinian society, as well as by the marginalizing of its Druze and Christian minorities, proved fatal ten years later, when the better-led, better-equipped, and desperately determined Jewish Yishuv conquered most of historic Palestine.
The 1948 Nakba, or Calamity, left the Palestinians, still leaderless and now physically dispersed, particularly susceptible to Islamist ideas, and to the romantic notion of guerrilla action. Not only had secular Arab armies proved incapable of defending them, but the success of the Jewish state seemed to present an object lesson in the potential of religion as a political force. The displacement of thousands of Palestinian peasants to refugee camps, meanwhile, created conditions of dislocation, squalor, and unemployment similar to those that were to fan Islamist trends in urban slums across the region.
Not surprisingly, much of the future generation of Palestinian leaders, including Yasser Arafat, entered politics as members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the fiercely anti-imperialist, pan-Islamist movement founded in Egypt in 1928. Even before 1948, according to Jeroen Gunning, a British academic whose Hamas in Politics is an exemplary political primer on the Islamist party's evolution, structure, and thought, the Brotherhood was said to have thirty-eight branches in Palestine, with ten thousand members. Ironically, Arafat's founding of Fatah, the secular party that dominated Palestinian politics until the 1990s, was prompted not by a rejection of Islamist ideas but by the Brotherhood's move, under intense and frequently brutal pressure from Arab regimes, to abandon "armed struggle" in the 1950s.
A generation later, the resurgence of Islamism among Palestinians very much paralleled its rise across the wider Muslim world. A first generation of degree holders, many of them engineers and doctors, were radicalized not just by Israel's occupation and colonization of the West Bank and Gaza after the 1967 war, but also by the limited room for advancement within Palestinian society. Blaming the Arabs' cosmopolitan elite for their series of defeats, the Islamists sensed their own entitlement to power, both as more authentic representatives of the masses and as the true heirs to a tradition of resistance that they saw as being cultural as much as political.
Paul McGeough, an Australian reporter who has written a fascinating account of the rise of Khaled Meshaal, Hamas's most prominent leader today and the chief of its politburo, quotes him as scoffing at his rivals with the words, "We're the root; Fatah is a mere branch." Even at university in Kuwait in the 1970s, where his mosque-preacher father settled after fleeing his West Bank village in 1967, Meshaal refused to join the existing, Fatah-dominated Palestinian students' union, but insisted on creating a parallel Islamic one. Under his guidance Hamas later refused to join the PLO, the umbrella grouping of Palestinian parties. Hamas also refused to coordinate with others during the 1987–1992 intifada, and refused to participate in national elections before 2005. To the frustration of others it saw itself alone as the Palestinians' rightful leader.
When the Palestinian mainstream moved, during the 1980s, toward compromise with Israel, Islamist factions shifted into outright opposition. While the Muslim Brotherhood had retained a network inside Palestine, based in mosques and student clubs, Khaled Meshaal and a group of younger Islamists in the diaspora had formed a network of their own, collecting funds from Palestinian workers in the wealthy Gulf states. Their dual effort merged in the creation of Hamas. By the time Yasser Arafat signed the first peace deal with the Israeli enemy in 1993, establishing a proto-state under his rule in Gaza and the West Bank, the new party had the means and determination not merely to challenge his course, but to sabotage the entire "peace process."
Its effort, pursued mainly by means of a bloody series of bombings targeting Israeli civilians beginning in 1994, brought Hamas global notoriety but not, at first, much popularity among its own people. For most of that decade, Jeroen Gunning writes, opinion polls rarely showed the Islamists gaining more than 20 percent approval, a level that broadly reflected the performance of similar Islamist parties in other countries. Hamas's slow ascent to victory in the 2006 election came largely as a result of bungling by all of its adversaries.
Indeed, Israel's mishandling of Hamas began even before the group's creation. The Israelis turned a blind eye to recruitment by the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1970s and 1980s, largely because they saw the Islamists as a foil to nationalist groups. Belatedly alerted to the arming of Hamas cells during the first intifada, Israel increased its appeal by televising the trial of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the wheelchair-bound Gaza preacher who was Hamas's spiritual head, and then by exiling hundreds of Hamas activists to Lebanon, where they had a useful chance to make contact with fellow Islamists such as Hezbollah.
Hamas's subsequent resort to hideous "martyrdom operations," as suicide bombings were called, owed much to Hezbollah's inspiration and perhaps also to its technical expertise. Israel's response of targeted assassinations hugely bolstered Palestinian sympathy for Hamas, even as it served to radicalize its followers. As Paul McGeough's book makes abundantly clear, for instance, Khaled Meshaal, a relative hard-liner, rode to dominance within Hamas on the wave of outrage that followed Israel's botched attempt to poison him in Amman in 1997. By contrast, when in 2003 Israel succeeded in murdering Ismail Abu Shanab, a respected Gazan intellectual with an engineering degree from Colorado State University, it eliminated a Hamas official who had argued passionately against suicide bombings and in favor of a long-term truce.
Israel's dramatic acceleration of Jewish settlement in the occupied territories during the 1990s, and its systematic undermining of the Palestinian economy by means of roadblocks and closures, convinced many Palestinians that Hamas was perhaps correct in judging the peace process a sham. Even as Yasser Arafat's credit waned among his own people, both Israel and the Clinton administration pushed him to crack down on Hamas. This he did, with some brutality and considerable success, in a campaign that put hundreds of Hamas activists into Palestinian prisons. Yet rather than being rewarded for risking the anger of his own people, Arafat was simply pressured to do more, and told that he would be held to account for any atrocity carried out by Hamas.
In effect if not in intention, Israel handed the Islamists veto power over the peace process. It also so weakened Arafat that when Israel floated the possibility of an offer at Camp David in 2000, the Palestinian leader shied from pursuing it, largely because he feared he could not swing his people to support it. When, in the autumn of 2000, the second intifada broke out in the wake of this failure, Arafat felt obliged to ride the violence rather than attempt to contain it, and soon lost control of his movement as local Fatah activists strove to outdo Hamas in fury.
Arafat was hardly a mere victim. His Fatah party proved just as helpful to Hamas as their mutual enemy. Not only did his suppression of the group smack to many Palestinians of treachery but Arafat's cronies were notoriously corrupt and incompetent. Their handling of the 2006 legislative elections that swept Hamas to power, brilliantly described by Gunning, was almost farcically self-destructive. As Zaki Chehab quotes a Gazan voter telling him at the time, "We don't believe in Hamas's political views, but we want to show the Fatah leadership that we have alternatives."
Yet Hamas may also claim much credit for its success. In stark contrast to Fatah, it has acted with strategic vision, careful planning, and steely discipline. Much of its leadership has deeper local roots, and is generally of a higher caliber: in the cabinet it formed after the 2006 election, no fewer than seven of its twenty-four ministers held advanced degrees from American universities. Politicians such as Meshaal are far more charismatic on television than Arafat's hapless successor, Mahmoud Abbas.
With its clandestine structure of local cells and a dispersed leadership that operates by consensus, Hamas has proved extremely resilient to attack. Despite the bloodiness and apparent futility of its methods in combating Israel, it has shown both a high degree of managerial competence and a responsiveness to Palestinian public opinion that can be surprising for a religiously inspired organization. Yet the need to placate its ideological core, combined with Hamas's evolution of a structure that links Meshaal and his money, safely offshore, directly to Qassam commanders, so bypassing political scrutiny by their less strident colleagues, also builds in rigidity on key issues, most obviously that of peace. Sadly, Hamas's inflexibility has often proved, in the eyes of its constituents, to have been vindicated by events.
Hamas is unlikely to be budged anytime soon from its Gaza stronghold. It is playing a waiting game, hoping that other forces will blink before it does: that the international community will feel shamed into relieving the siege of Gaza, or that Egypt's hostile regime will fall, or that Benjamin Netanyahu's Israel will prove so stingy in its dealings with Mahmoud Abbas that the Fatah government on the West Bank will collapse. But in the meantime Hamas is under pressure to deliver something more than bravado to its people. Perhaps, as Gunning suggests, it will one day admit that its armed struggle against Israel (unlike against its internal rivals) has been largely symbolic, and that its declaration of a divine right to Palestine represents more of a credo than a political program. Gunning declines to judge whether, with regard to hopes for Middle Eastern peace, Hamas is what political science would term an "absolute spoiler," or only a limited one. But as he says, politics is never static, nor are political organizations.
—Gaza and Cairo, October 6, 2009
12 January 2009
The World's Pornographic Interest in Jewish Moral Failure
The World's Pornographic Interest in Jewish Moral Failure
06 Jan 2009 02:55 pm
Okay, yesterday I was depressed. Today, I'm just pissed off. It's absolutely astonishing to me how interested the world is in Israel's failings. This is the source of a bitter but hilarious observation I once heard a Kurdish leader make: He was complaining to me that his people were cursed, and I asked him what he meant: Cursed by geography, cursed by their proximity to Kurd-hating Arabs, what? He said the Kurds were cursed because they didn't have Jewish enemies. Only with Jewish enemies would the world pay attention to their plight.For the record: I defend Israel's right to defend itself, but I fear that Gaza will quickly become a quagmire. I fear for the lives of Israelis, obviously, but I also fear for the lives of Palestinian civilians -- I have friends there, in harm's way -- in part because the Israeli army (and I say this from personal experience) can be a big, rough bulldozer of an army, and in part (large part) because Hamas terrorists unblinkingly and ostentatiously use their own civilians as human shields. I've seen this up-close, and it's repulsive. One story the media isn't telling, because it's impossible to get this story in these circumstances (especially because Israel stupidly won't allow foreign reporters into Gaza) is how much resentment the Hamas policy of using Palestinians as human shields causes among Gaza civilians. Early reports indicate that Hamas mortar teams were firing from the UN School. This shouldn't surprise anyone.
One more thing, speaking of pornography -- we've all seen endless pictures of dead Palestinian children now. It's a terrible, ghastly, horrible thing, the deaths of children, and for the parents it doesn't matter if they were killed by accident or by mistake. But ask yourselves this: Why are these pictures so omnipresent? I'll tell you why, again from firsthand, and repeated, experience: Hamas (and the Aksa Brigades, and Islamic Jihad, the whole bunch) prevents the burial, or even preparation of the bodies for burial, until the bodies are used as props in the Palestinian Passion Play. Once, in Khan Younis, I actually saw gunmen unwrap a shrouded body, carry it a hundred yards and position it atop a pile of rubble -- and then wait a half-hour until photographers showed. It was one of the more horrible things I've seen in my life. And it's typical of Hamas. If reporters would probe deeper, they'd learn the awful truth of Hamas. But Palestinian moral failings are not of great interest to many people.
04 January 2009
How Hamas Educates Its Children
I think it is worthwhile to watch this clip and to pass it on to others,
including media outlets.
The question arises: Bereft of any meaningful education, but indoctrinated
with the most vitriolic Jew-hatred, what will these children do as adults?
Will there be marauding teenagers and young adults roaming the cities
raping and killing?
The adult population in Gaza obviously doesn't care about the welfare,
prospects and prosperity of the next generation. It strongly reminds me of
the indoctrination during the Nazi-regime: "salvation through destruction;
blood and soil, etc etc etc."
including media outlets.
The question arises: Bereft of any meaningful education, but indoctrinated
with the most vitriolic Jew-hatred, what will these children do as adults?
Will there be marauding teenagers and young adults roaming the cities
raping and killing?
The adult population in Gaza obviously doesn't care about the welfare,
prospects and prosperity of the next generation. It strongly reminds me of
the indoctrination during the Nazi-regime: "salvation through destruction;
blood and soil, etc etc etc."
29 December 2008
PLO and Fatah Officials: Hamas is Responsible for the Deaths of Its People
|
|  | |||
| Special Dispatch | No. 2164 | December 29, 2008 Palestinian PLO and Fatah Officials: Hamas is Responsible for the Deaths of Its People | ||||
 | ||||
| SUBSCRIBE | UNSUBSCRIBE | DONATE | CONTACT US | ||||
 | ||||
| MEMRI | MEMRI TV | THE MEMRI BLOG | MEMRI ECONOMIC BLOG | ISLAMIST WEBSITE MONITOR PROJECT TURKISH MEDIA PROJECT | IRAN BLOG | ARAB CULTURE BLOG | ||||
 | ||||
| Along with expressing solidarity with the Hamas casualties in Gaza, PLO and Fatah officials criticize Hamas for its contribution to the escalation that led to the Israeli attack. They blamed Hamas for not listening to PLO's call to prolong the tahdiah, for not preparing properly for the possibility that Israel would attack, and for combining its government functions with its resistance activity, which made it vulnerable to an attack on its institutions. Hamas, for its part, accused the PLO and Fatah of collaborating with Israel. In his visit to Egypt, PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) placed the responsibility for the Israeli attack on Hamas, saying, "We called the leaders of Hamas, and told them both directly and directly, through Arab parties and non-Arab parties. We talked with them on the phone. We told them, 'Please, do not end the tahdiah.'"(1) Director of the Palestinian TV & Radio Authority: Hamas is In the Grips of Megalomania Bassem Abu-Sumayyah, director of the Palestinian TV & Radio Authority and columnist for the PLO daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, reiterated the accusation that "Hamas blocked its ears… They should have had even a little bit of political and security sense, and not left the people wandering, and losing their way, getting killed and injured. It is clear that Hamas was struck by megalomania since they took over Gaza, which blinded them so they would not listen to any advice. Hamas behaved like a superpower, as if they have weapons and means like Hizbullah in Lebanon, and as if they can conduct a war like the July war [of 2006]. Hamas's people thought they have a number of missiles that can enable them to prevail in a war of such size."(3)
Editor of the PLO daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida Hafez Al-Barghouthi criticized Hamas for not prolonging the tahdiah, and for kidnapping Gilad Shalit: "Prolonging the tahdiah was a supreme national interest. Why hasn't [Hamas] prevented the aggression and the massacre? How many times have we written, and President Abu Mazen has declared, that these missiles [that Hamas is firing at Israel] as ineffective and contrary to the supreme national interest. Even Hamas saw them as contrary to the supreme national interest at the time of the tahdiah. We said, also, that the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit cost us 500 casualties in one year."(4)
Abdallah Awwad, columnist for the PA daily Al-Ayyam, argued against Hamas' attempt to be both a government as well as a fighting resistance: "The Israeli incursions after 2000 [during the Al-Aqsa Intifada] and the destruction of the PLO headquarters were enough [for the PLO] to see the incompatibility of being a government at the same time as fighting the resistance… We are paying the price of stupidity, and the maniacal love of being rulers, that has nothing in it except for hollow slogans. [A choice must be made to be] either a government or a resistance. When the two are combined, it gives the occupying power easy targets… The example of the destruction of the PLO headquarters in the West Bank during the Intifada should have sufficed… What happened in Gaza demonstrates that the lesson was not learned. Instead of disappearing under the ground, which is the basis for any resistance, Hamas personnel remained exposed in the open… This destructive formula contained within it a premise that the occupation will not dare to carry out a bloody attack on Gaza."(6)
| ||||
06 August 2008
Hamas and Fatah are a bigger threat to the Palestinians than Israel
View from a booth: This is an editorial from the Beirut Daily Star. Enjoy. RS
Hamas and Fatah are a bigger threat to the Palestinians than Israel
By The Daily Star Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Editorial
It is a damning indication of just how bad things have become in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip when Fatah militants there must look to Israel for protection from their Palestinian rivals. The Jewish state announced on Monday that it would help a group of 150 Fatah fighters who had fled weekend clashes in Gaza relocate to the West Bank, after determining that they would face "imminent danger" if they were to return home. The scenes of Israel coming to the rescue of Palestinians after a bout of Arab fratricide were reminiscent of the events of Black September, during which scores of Palestinians sought asylum in Israel to escape King Hussein's crackdown on the Palestine Liberation Organization. The only difference this time around is that instead of seeking refuge from a heavy-handed Arab crackdown, Palestinians are fleeing from the murderous hands of their own Palestinian brothers.
Achievement of the Palestinian cause requires that all factions maintain a semblance of orderliness and keep their eyes on the price of independent statehood. In this both Fatah and Hamas have been miserable failures. Both have put partisan interests ahead of national ones and therefore have failed to maintain anything like a united Palestinian front. Even the mediation attempts of Egypt, Yemen and Saudi Arabia have not been enough to curb the political infighting and internecine bloodshed that have served to further threaten the Palestinians' very right to existence.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza has been deteriorating since the international community callously decided to punish an entire people for having exercised their democratic rights in the legislative elections of January 2006. But the Hamas movement is now exacerbating the situation by undermining the rule of law in the territory. After accusing its Fatah rivals of carrying out a deadly bombing late last week that killed five Hamas leaders and a little girl, the Islamist party launched what can be only be described as a witch-hunt, rounding up some 200 Fatah activists. Fatah provided an equally bad example of governance in the West Bank when it retaliated against the move by rounding up scores of people it branded "Hamas activists," including many judges, students and activists who have no known affiliation with the Islamist party. On both sides of divided Palestine, civilians must now add Fatah and Hamas to the long list of threats to their security and wellbeing.
The events of the last week are just the most recent example of how the situation in the Occupied Territories has gone from bad to worse under the watchful eyes of elected Palestinian "representatives." Hundreds of people were killed last year when the two groups allowed their rivalry to degenerate into street violence. Hundreds more were prevented from going about their normal activities such as attending school, going to work or expressing political views.
Over the past few days the two Palestinian factions seem to be close to repeated the same disastrous mistakes. We have seen Palestinians denigrating the legitimacy of other Palestinians, Palestinians making war on other Palestinians, and Palestinians arresting other Palestinians, while the Jewish state has come to the rescue of those Palestinians who fear for their lives. Israel has never looked so good.
27 July 2008
Al-Jazeera Interviews Palestinian Officials on Gaza Blasts
Al-Jazeera Interviews Palestinian Officials on Gaza Blasts
By: iStockAnalyst Sunday, July 27, 2008 6:54 AM
Email
Comments (0)
Post Comment
Bookmark It
Text of report by Qatari government-funded, pan-Arab news channel Al-Jazeera satellite TV on 26 July
["Midday" news programme, featuring an interview with Azzam al- Ahmad, head of the Fatah bloc in the Palestinian Legislative Council, via satellite from Ramallah, by Layla al-Shayib in the studio; and an interview with Mahmud al-Zahhar, a leading member of the Hamas movement, via satellite from Gaza, by Al-Habib al- Ghuraybi in the studio - live]
[Al-Shayib] Azzam al-Ahmad, head of the Fatah bloc in the Palestinian Legislative Council, is with us from Ramallah. Mr Al- Ahmad, we have heard your reply to Hamas's accusations against you. Who do you think is behind what happened in Gaza yesterday?
[Al-Ahmad] I can definitely say that conflicts within Hamas - and I do not want to mention names - were the reason for the deterioration of the security situation in Gaza. Fatah has absolutely nothing to do with these explosions because we in Fatah have a clear strategy we will never abandon. It says differences and divisions in the Palestinian arena can be solved only through dialogue. Therefore, it is not possible for us to carry out such operations. Hamas reacted by detaining more than 170 persons since morning today. By the way, some of them belong to Hamas and others to the Army of Islam and other factions. Hamas also raided the headquarters of Deputy Ziyad Abu-Amr although he was one of the candidates who were named and supported by Hamas in the elections. Why did they raid his office? Did Dr Zakariya al-Agha carry out bombings in order to raid his office? The houses of journalists and the headquarters of the Bar Association and the Fatah parliamentary bloc were also raided. All this proves that Hamas is trying to aggravate the crisis instead of heeding President Abu-Mazin's [Mahmud Abbas] call for dialogue.
[Al-Shayib] Some in Hamas say that following the recent calm agreement some Palestinian parties are trying to depict security in Gaza as fragile. What is your opinion?
[Al-Ahmad] No, this is not accurate. With regard to calm, President Abu-Mazin was the first to call for it. By the way, we tried to reach a calm agreement even before the Gaza coup. I represented Fatah in the dialogue held in Gaza with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front [for the Liberation of Palestine]. They were convinced of the need for calm only after we had paid a heavy price. They always become convinced at the wrong time. We could have avoided the human and material losses inflicted on the Palestinian people. Hundreds of people were martyred. President Abu-Mazin also played a key role in urging the Egyptian leaders, Israel, and the United States to reach the calm agreement. Therefore, we are for calm and for commitment to it. We are also for expanding the calm agreement to include the West Bank in the hope that we can deny the Israeli side of its pretexts as it is trying to avoid the implementation of its commitments.
[Al-Shayib] How can this problem be solved quickly to avoid further exacerbation of the situation? Some in Hamas say justice should take its course on this issue. Do you agree with this opinion?
[Al-Ahmad] Yes, but not only on this issue. All issues, all crimes, all killings that took place in Gaza, and all violations of the law in Gaza should be subject to law when reconciliation is sought. Even if the leaders of factions are the ones who issued the decision to commit these crimes, they must be exposed regardless of their affiliation with Hamas, Fatah, the Popular Front, or the Democratic Front. Law and the supremacy of the law are the basis. Therefore, we call for the implementation of the Arab League resolution by restoring Palestinian unity, ending the state of division, and committing to law. This is the crux of the Yemeni initiative, which was adopted by the Damascus summit and on whose basis President Abu-Mazin called for a comprehensive national dialogue. Dialogue is the only way to solve internal Palestinian differences.
[Al-Shayib] Azzam al-Ahmad, head of the Fatah bloc in the Palestinian Legislative Council, in Ramallah, thank you very much.
[Al-Ghuraybi] Dr Mahmud al-Zahhar, a leading member of the Hamas movement, is with us from Gaza. Dr Al-Zahhar, you might have heard Mr Al-Ahmad. He said and even emphasized that what happened was the result of internal conflicts and an attempt by Hamas to cover these conflicts.
[Al-Zahhar] In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. He said what happened was definitely the result of internal conflicts. In turn, I say Azzam al-Ahmad is definitely not telling the truth. If he has any information about internal conflicts within Hamas, let him tell us between who and who these conflicts are. This is a game indicating that they committed the crime and are trying to blame Hamas for it. Abu-Rudaynah [Palestinian president's adviser] today said these operations will continue because differences within Hamas continue. These are their claims as if they have information and as if one does not know what is going on in his house. The second point is that the so-called Brigades of Return, which belong to Fatah, have claimed responsibility. Third, he called for justice. We will apply justice this time. We were overwhelmed with mercy for them in the past. We were sorry for them because they were deceived with the money paid to them, but now we will announce facts to the public as they become available. He spoke about justice and law. What is going on in the West Bank? Did they not cooperate with the Israeli entity every minute to destroy Hamas? They arrested Husayn Abu-Kuwayk but we threatened them that if he was not released, another person would be arrested here. Therefore, they released him on the same day but Israel arrested him the next day. They have a programme which they called the programme of security cooperation with Israel. All martyrs today except the little girl were targeted more than once by the Israeli side. They are one of the tools of occupation in the West Bank.
[Al-Ghuraybi, interrupting] If we adopt this factional logic, we might as well ask about Fatah's interest in sowing chaos in Gaza.
[Al-Zahhar] This is clear. The Palestinian television is now chanting for the Fatah revolutionaries and airing pictures of martyrs. What does this mean? Fatah's interest is clear. Azzam al- Ahmad denied this and said he wanted calm. Where is the calm he wants? All those arrested belong to Fatah. In this case, we will say only what the Brigades of Return said to him. We will pursue them. Some of them were arrested and the others will be pursued. We will place facts before all people. If Fatah is responsible, it will have to bear the consequences on the level of leaders and personnel.
[Al-Ghuraybi] Azzam al-Ahmad said the same thing. He said we appeal to law but on condition that justice is fair and neutral.
[Al-Zahhar] Our experience with them on the issue of fair and neutral justice is clear. They asked all personnel of the judiciary not to work. They disrupted work at courts and left the Gaza Strip without judiciary. What sort of neutral justice does he want? Besides, why do they not activate the judiciary in the West Bank? Why are people are arrested, shops closed, and houses knocked down? Some collaborated with Israel and were arrested but none of them received a court verdict? It is well known that Fatah has ruined all civil and military courts in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, so what sort of justice does he want? The judiciary he respects is only the Israeli judiciary.
[Al-Ghuraybi] How much will this incident influence the Palestinian reconciliation efforts?
[Al-Zahhar] Azzam, who spoke a minute ago, was the one who signed the Sanaa agreement. You could have asked him what happened in the media between him and the group around Abu-Ammar [Yasir Arafat] which had continuous contacts with Israel. They exposed themselves in the media. One told the president he had no knowledge while the second told him he had knowledge. What dialogue are they talking about? How can one imagine Abu-Mazin hugging and kissing one from Hamas after having hugged and kissed Olmert? How can these two things be reconciled? How can a person's programme that supports the United States and Israel be in harmony with the programme of resistance, confrontation of Israel, and opposition to the US project in the region? Such reconciliation cannot take place. This is what we warned of and what we called national truce. If Fatah manages to collect funds from Dayton and some other parties to destroy Hamas for its so-called coup - they are the ones who tried to turn against Palestinian legitimacy - what dialogue will then make sense?
[Al-Ghuraybi, interrupting] Your point is very clear. Dr Mahmud al-Zahhar, a leading member of the Hamas movement, thank you very much.
Originally published by Al-Jazeera TV, Doha, in Arabic 1304 26 Jul 08.
(c) 2008 BBC Monitoring Middle East. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.Story Source: BBC Monitoring Middle East
By: iStockAnalyst Sunday, July 27, 2008 6:54 AM
Comments (0)
Post Comment
Bookmark It
Text of report by Qatari government-funded, pan-Arab news channel Al-Jazeera satellite TV on 26 July
["Midday" news programme, featuring an interview with Azzam al- Ahmad, head of the Fatah bloc in the Palestinian Legislative Council, via satellite from Ramallah, by Layla al-Shayib in the studio; and an interview with Mahmud al-Zahhar, a leading member of the Hamas movement, via satellite from Gaza, by Al-Habib al- Ghuraybi in the studio - live]
[Al-Shayib] Azzam al-Ahmad, head of the Fatah bloc in the Palestinian Legislative Council, is with us from Ramallah. Mr Al- Ahmad, we have heard your reply to Hamas's accusations against you. Who do you think is behind what happened in Gaza yesterday?
[Al-Ahmad] I can definitely say that conflicts within Hamas - and I do not want to mention names - were the reason for the deterioration of the security situation in Gaza. Fatah has absolutely nothing to do with these explosions because we in Fatah have a clear strategy we will never abandon. It says differences and divisions in the Palestinian arena can be solved only through dialogue. Therefore, it is not possible for us to carry out such operations. Hamas reacted by detaining more than 170 persons since morning today. By the way, some of them belong to Hamas and others to the Army of Islam and other factions. Hamas also raided the headquarters of Deputy Ziyad Abu-Amr although he was one of the candidates who were named and supported by Hamas in the elections. Why did they raid his office? Did Dr Zakariya al-Agha carry out bombings in order to raid his office? The houses of journalists and the headquarters of the Bar Association and the Fatah parliamentary bloc were also raided. All this proves that Hamas is trying to aggravate the crisis instead of heeding President Abu-Mazin's [Mahmud Abbas] call for dialogue.
[Al-Shayib] Some in Hamas say that following the recent calm agreement some Palestinian parties are trying to depict security in Gaza as fragile. What is your opinion?
[Al-Ahmad] No, this is not accurate. With regard to calm, President Abu-Mazin was the first to call for it. By the way, we tried to reach a calm agreement even before the Gaza coup. I represented Fatah in the dialogue held in Gaza with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front [for the Liberation of Palestine]. They were convinced of the need for calm only after we had paid a heavy price. They always become convinced at the wrong time. We could have avoided the human and material losses inflicted on the Palestinian people. Hundreds of people were martyred. President Abu-Mazin also played a key role in urging the Egyptian leaders, Israel, and the United States to reach the calm agreement. Therefore, we are for calm and for commitment to it. We are also for expanding the calm agreement to include the West Bank in the hope that we can deny the Israeli side of its pretexts as it is trying to avoid the implementation of its commitments.
[Al-Shayib] How can this problem be solved quickly to avoid further exacerbation of the situation? Some in Hamas say justice should take its course on this issue. Do you agree with this opinion?
[Al-Ahmad] Yes, but not only on this issue. All issues, all crimes, all killings that took place in Gaza, and all violations of the law in Gaza should be subject to law when reconciliation is sought. Even if the leaders of factions are the ones who issued the decision to commit these crimes, they must be exposed regardless of their affiliation with Hamas, Fatah, the Popular Front, or the Democratic Front. Law and the supremacy of the law are the basis. Therefore, we call for the implementation of the Arab League resolution by restoring Palestinian unity, ending the state of division, and committing to law. This is the crux of the Yemeni initiative, which was adopted by the Damascus summit and on whose basis President Abu-Mazin called for a comprehensive national dialogue. Dialogue is the only way to solve internal Palestinian differences.
[Al-Shayib] Azzam al-Ahmad, head of the Fatah bloc in the Palestinian Legislative Council, in Ramallah, thank you very much.
[Al-Ghuraybi] Dr Mahmud al-Zahhar, a leading member of the Hamas movement, is with us from Gaza. Dr Al-Zahhar, you might have heard Mr Al-Ahmad. He said and even emphasized that what happened was the result of internal conflicts and an attempt by Hamas to cover these conflicts.
[Al-Zahhar] In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. He said what happened was definitely the result of internal conflicts. In turn, I say Azzam al-Ahmad is definitely not telling the truth. If he has any information about internal conflicts within Hamas, let him tell us between who and who these conflicts are. This is a game indicating that they committed the crime and are trying to blame Hamas for it. Abu-Rudaynah [Palestinian president's adviser] today said these operations will continue because differences within Hamas continue. These are their claims as if they have information and as if one does not know what is going on in his house. The second point is that the so-called Brigades of Return, which belong to Fatah, have claimed responsibility. Third, he called for justice. We will apply justice this time. We were overwhelmed with mercy for them in the past. We were sorry for them because they were deceived with the money paid to them, but now we will announce facts to the public as they become available. He spoke about justice and law. What is going on in the West Bank? Did they not cooperate with the Israeli entity every minute to destroy Hamas? They arrested Husayn Abu-Kuwayk but we threatened them that if he was not released, another person would be arrested here. Therefore, they released him on the same day but Israel arrested him the next day. They have a programme which they called the programme of security cooperation with Israel. All martyrs today except the little girl were targeted more than once by the Israeli side. They are one of the tools of occupation in the West Bank.
[Al-Ghuraybi, interrupting] If we adopt this factional logic, we might as well ask about Fatah's interest in sowing chaos in Gaza.
[Al-Zahhar] This is clear. The Palestinian television is now chanting for the Fatah revolutionaries and airing pictures of martyrs. What does this mean? Fatah's interest is clear. Azzam al- Ahmad denied this and said he wanted calm. Where is the calm he wants? All those arrested belong to Fatah. In this case, we will say only what the Brigades of Return said to him. We will pursue them. Some of them were arrested and the others will be pursued. We will place facts before all people. If Fatah is responsible, it will have to bear the consequences on the level of leaders and personnel.
[Al-Ghuraybi] Azzam al-Ahmad said the same thing. He said we appeal to law but on condition that justice is fair and neutral.
[Al-Zahhar] Our experience with them on the issue of fair and neutral justice is clear. They asked all personnel of the judiciary not to work. They disrupted work at courts and left the Gaza Strip without judiciary. What sort of neutral justice does he want? Besides, why do they not activate the judiciary in the West Bank? Why are people are arrested, shops closed, and houses knocked down? Some collaborated with Israel and were arrested but none of them received a court verdict? It is well known that Fatah has ruined all civil and military courts in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, so what sort of justice does he want? The judiciary he respects is only the Israeli judiciary.
[Al-Ghuraybi] How much will this incident influence the Palestinian reconciliation efforts?
[Al-Zahhar] Azzam, who spoke a minute ago, was the one who signed the Sanaa agreement. You could have asked him what happened in the media between him and the group around Abu-Ammar [Yasir Arafat] which had continuous contacts with Israel. They exposed themselves in the media. One told the president he had no knowledge while the second told him he had knowledge. What dialogue are they talking about? How can one imagine Abu-Mazin hugging and kissing one from Hamas after having hugged and kissed Olmert? How can these two things be reconciled? How can a person's programme that supports the United States and Israel be in harmony with the programme of resistance, confrontation of Israel, and opposition to the US project in the region? Such reconciliation cannot take place. This is what we warned of and what we called national truce. If Fatah manages to collect funds from Dayton and some other parties to destroy Hamas for its so-called coup - they are the ones who tried to turn against Palestinian legitimacy - what dialogue will then make sense?
[Al-Ghuraybi, interrupting] Your point is very clear. Dr Mahmud al-Zahhar, a leading member of the Hamas movement, thank you very much.
Originally published by Al-Jazeera TV, Doha, in Arabic 1304 26 Jul 08.
(c) 2008 BBC Monitoring Middle East. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.Story Source: BBC Monitoring Middle East
Fatah and Hamas may be getting ready for another bloodbath
This is what happens when you deal with clans, not democratic institutions, cloaked though some may be with that mantle. So much for peace with the Palestinians. If they are not careful, they will find themselves Jordanian subjects and not "Palestinians". In 2000, had Yasir Arafat had the word "yes" in his vocabulary, they would have a state right now. Alas, Arafat had what seems to be a congenital defect among Palestinians: sadly, they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Randy Shiner
Fatah and Hamas may be getting ready for another bloodbath
By The Daily Star Monday, July 28, 2008
Editorial
After three deadly bombings and a string of tit-for-tat arrests, tensions between Fatah and Hamas are once again running dangerously high. The last time that the rivalry between the two groups degenerated into street violence nearly a year ago, hundreds of innocent people were killed as a result. If the leaders of both Palestinian factions fail to come to their senses and rein in their respective supporters, the streets of Gaza and/or the Occupied West Bank could soon see yet another needless bloodbath.
Hamas leaders acted rashly when they almost immediately accused Fatah of carrying out an attack in Gaza late Friday night - and then responded by rounding up almost 200 Fatah members and shutting down cultural and sports offices. Fatah upped the ante of irresponsible behavior when it retaliated to Hamas' move by arresting 20 the Islamist group's members in the Occupied West Bank. Both groups know what can happen when these kinds of retaliatory actions get out of hand and both groups now have an urgent responsibility to prevent that from happening again.
Over the past few years, the rivalry between Hamas and Fatah has rapidly made its way up the list of threats to the Palestinians' existence. In some circles, it is still fashionable to blame Israel for all of the Palestinians' troubles, but in this instance, the leaders of Hamas and Fatah have committed crimes of equal magnitude against their own constituents. Not only have scores of people died at the hands of their armed forces, the fighting has also served to greatly undermine the Palestinian cause. It has become increasingly difficult for the international community to feel sympathy for the Palestinian people when their own leaders provide so much media ammunition to distract the world from their plight. The image of lawlessness and internecine warfare conveys the image of a people who are simply not ready for self-governance or an independent state.
The lessons from the Occupied Territories ought to also weigh heavily on Lebanese leaders, who have also shown a propensity to allow their power struggles to degenerate into violence that claims the lives of innocent victims. International mediators will soon grow tired of helping those who show no interest whatsoever in helping themselves.
Randy Shiner
Fatah and Hamas may be getting ready for another bloodbath
By The Daily Star Monday, July 28, 2008
Editorial
After three deadly bombings and a string of tit-for-tat arrests, tensions between Fatah and Hamas are once again running dangerously high. The last time that the rivalry between the two groups degenerated into street violence nearly a year ago, hundreds of innocent people were killed as a result. If the leaders of both Palestinian factions fail to come to their senses and rein in their respective supporters, the streets of Gaza and/or the Occupied West Bank could soon see yet another needless bloodbath.
Hamas leaders acted rashly when they almost immediately accused Fatah of carrying out an attack in Gaza late Friday night - and then responded by rounding up almost 200 Fatah members and shutting down cultural and sports offices. Fatah upped the ante of irresponsible behavior when it retaliated to Hamas' move by arresting 20 the Islamist group's members in the Occupied West Bank. Both groups know what can happen when these kinds of retaliatory actions get out of hand and both groups now have an urgent responsibility to prevent that from happening again.
Over the past few years, the rivalry between Hamas and Fatah has rapidly made its way up the list of threats to the Palestinians' existence. In some circles, it is still fashionable to blame Israel for all of the Palestinians' troubles, but in this instance, the leaders of Hamas and Fatah have committed crimes of equal magnitude against their own constituents. Not only have scores of people died at the hands of their armed forces, the fighting has also served to greatly undermine the Palestinian cause. It has become increasingly difficult for the international community to feel sympathy for the Palestinian people when their own leaders provide so much media ammunition to distract the world from their plight. The image of lawlessness and internecine warfare conveys the image of a people who are simply not ready for self-governance or an independent state.
The lessons from the Occupied Territories ought to also weigh heavily on Lebanese leaders, who have also shown a propensity to allow their power struggles to degenerate into violence that claims the lives of innocent victims. International mediators will soon grow tired of helping those who show no interest whatsoever in helping themselves.
29 June 2008
Israel funding Hamas, Olmert admits
Let's see. This is dated June 26, last Thursday. Did YOU see anything about this in this country on this? I will be interested to know the motivation behind this policy. There has to be a rationale for this funding to happen. It may not be a good reason, but a reason nonetheless.
Randy Shiner
Headline News
Thursday, June 26, 2008 Israel Today Staff
Israel funding Hamas, Olmert admits
The office of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted on Wednesday that it is allowing the transfer of hundreds of millions of shekels to the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip every month.
Most of the funds enter Gaza in currency exchanges for the dollars and euros Hamas smuggles into the territory following fund-raising trips to Iran and other supportive Middle East regimes.
In a letter to the Prime Minister's Office earlier in the week, the Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center warned that the government was actively aiding the perpetuation of Hamas rule in Gaza, despite its own stated policies.
Shurat Hadin director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner explained that without the influx of Israeli shekels, the currency of record in Gaza, Hamas would be financially unable to rule. By allowing the entry of shekels into Gaza, Darshan-Leitner noted that Israel is breaching an economic embargo of Gaza by Western powers that Israel itself insisted upon, and is helping a terrorist organization to launder money, a direct violation of the Terror-Funding Act of 2005.
Worse, said Darshan-Leitner, is the fact that " the Israeli government's policy of transferring shekels is assisting the Hamas terrorists with their missile attacks on the Negev communities."
In response, Olmert's office wrote that "due to conclusions that there is an Israeli interest that the transfer of funds continue, a decision was made to continue to transfer certain sums of money to the Gaza Strip."
Shurat Hadin has threatened to sue the government both in local and international courts if the transfer of funds does not cease.
Randy Shiner
Headline News
Thursday, June 26, 2008 Israel Today Staff
Israel funding Hamas, Olmert admits
The office of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted on Wednesday that it is allowing the transfer of hundreds of millions of shekels to the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip every month.
Most of the funds enter Gaza in currency exchanges for the dollars and euros Hamas smuggles into the territory following fund-raising trips to Iran and other supportive Middle East regimes.
In a letter to the Prime Minister's Office earlier in the week, the Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center warned that the government was actively aiding the perpetuation of Hamas rule in Gaza, despite its own stated policies.
Shurat Hadin director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner explained that without the influx of Israeli shekels, the currency of record in Gaza, Hamas would be financially unable to rule. By allowing the entry of shekels into Gaza, Darshan-Leitner noted that Israel is breaching an economic embargo of Gaza by Western powers that Israel itself insisted upon, and is helping a terrorist organization to launder money, a direct violation of the Terror-Funding Act of 2005.
Worse, said Darshan-Leitner, is the fact that " the Israeli government's policy of transferring shekels is assisting the Hamas terrorists with their missile attacks on the Negev communities."
In response, Olmert's office wrote that "due to conclusions that there is an Israeli interest that the transfer of funds continue, a decision was made to continue to transfer certain sums of money to the Gaza Strip."
Shurat Hadin has threatened to sue the government both in local and international courts if the transfer of funds does not cease.
18 June 2008
HOPE IN THE MIDDLE EAST: Why Hamas Needs Its Cease-Fire with Israel
From the booth: consider that this piece was written by a Swiss reporter for a German newspaper. It takes the writer almost half the article to mention rockets on top of civilians in Israel and never mentions that the Hamas terrorists hide behind civilians and launch their terror attacks from within populated areas. The conclusions, however, are hopeful; I'm not holding my breath.
Randy Shiner.
HOPE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Why Hamas Needs Its Cease-Fire with Israel
By Pierre Heumann in Tel Aviv
Hamas and Israeli negotiators have agreed to a cease-fire that could ring in a new era. Instead of fighting, they want to lay down their weapons.
Getty Images
A female Hamas fighter: Hope for a cease-fire
It is now official: The cease-fire between Hamas and the Israelis will begin on Thursday, Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev confirmed on Wednesday morning in Jerusalem. The deal, brokered by Egypt in Cairo, will bring to an end more than a year of fighting between the Palestinian extremist group and the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip -- a conflict which has cost the lives of more than 400 Palestinians and seven Israelis. Should the agreement manage to bring the fighting to a stop, Israel could lift the blockade of the Gaza Strip as early as next week.
It is a moment the 1.4 million Gaza Strip residents have long been waiting for. For months, Palestinians there have been faced with empty store shelves and widespread shortages of everything from fuel to food. It will also mean an end to Israeli bombing runs and military activities in the densely populated region. Israelis, meanwhile, are hoping the deal will stop the steady stream of homemade rockets fired across the border -- though on Tuesday evening, after the deal was announced, yet more rockets sailed into Israel.
REPRINTS
Find out how you can reprint this SPIEGEL ONLINE article in your publication. The negotiations have been underway for months. Finally, though, the Egyptian middlemen were able to find common ground between the two sides. It is an impressive success which saw Hamas move a long way from its original list of demands. In the beginning, for example, the extremist Islamist group wanted the cease-fire to also extend to the West Bank. There, moderate Palestinians with the Fatah movement under Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are in power -- and Israel has a free hand to hunt down Hamas terror cells. Securing the right to continue such searches was vital to the Israelis. The two sides agreed to leave the issue of the West Bank for future negotiations.
A Hamas Climb-Down
The climb-down on the part of Hamas shows that they are dependent on a cease-fire. Israel has sharply cut supplies to the Gaza Strip in reaction to the rockets which are regularly fired at the south of Israel from the Hamas-controlled territory. As a result, the 1.6 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are currently experiencing one of the territory's worst-ever crises. The harsh Israeli economic sanctions have now brought Hamas to their knees. In accordance with the international boycott which has been in effect since Hamas seized power one year ago, Israel only allows the Gaza Strip to receive just enough fuel, food, construction material and medicine that is necessary for people to survive -- but not enough, however, to make modern life possible.
DER SPIEGEL
Graphic: The Palestinian Territories at a glance (click to enlarge).
The Israeli government had been hoping that protests on the part of the Palestinian population against their catastrophic living conditions would be enough to bring about regime change -- in other words, to bring Hamas down. It's true that these hopes have not been fulfilled. But within the population there have been signs of resistance against the policies of Hamas which are bringing the Gaza Strip into ruin. According to Palestinian political scientist Mkhaimar Abu Sada from Al-Azhar University in the Gaza Strip, Hamas is using the crisis to win political capital for itself and to drive citizens to acts of desperation against Israel. "Hamas is putting the blame for the misery on Israel," he says. "But fewer and fewer Palestinians are convinced that that is the case."
A Statesman-Like Hamas?
After a year of being in control of the Gaza Strip, Hamas is now showing its statesman-like side. Hamas strategists hope that improving supplies to the territory will help to strengthen the Islamist group's standing among Palestinians -- which would then lead to a further consolidation of their position in the Gaza Strip. In the process, they want to resolve the internal split among Palestinians in their favor.
But it is precisely in this point that Hamas has to prove that it can push through its policies and that it is willing to use force against its Palestinian allies. It will soon become clear if Hamas will act to stop the various militant splinter groups in the Gaza Strip from breaking the cease-fire. That is set to be a difficult test. Some radical groups have already announced that Hamas' agreement to a cease-fire does not apply to them.
The stakes for Hamas are considerable. In the coming weeks, it will seek to push its agenda forward -- and not just on the militarily front, but most of all in terms of its political and social goals. One of its key aims is the Islamization of Palestinian society in Gaza.
Hamas won't have much time to do so, though, because Israel will be unwilling to accept any disruptions to the cease-fire, according to sources in the Defense Ministry. From Jerusalem's perspective, it is Hamas' responsibility to put an end to the rocket attacks. Israeli politicians and military officers are extremely skeptical that the cease-fire can hold.
Despite the lack of enthusiasm in Jerusalem, the Israelis have accepted the cease-fire. After all, a rejection of the "gentlemen's agreement" would have been a slap in the face for the Egyptian government, whose chief negotiators have served for months as middlemen between Israel and Hamas.
Israel also wants to prove that all the diplomatic options have been exhausted before it commences planned military operations in the Gaza Strip. Those operations are intended to put an end to the hail of rockets from within the Hamas-controlled territory -- assuming, of course, that the cease-fire does not hold.
Pierre Heumann is the Middle East correspondent for the Swiss newsweekly Weltwoche.
Randy Shiner.
HOPE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Why Hamas Needs Its Cease-Fire with Israel
By Pierre Heumann in Tel Aviv
Hamas and Israeli negotiators have agreed to a cease-fire that could ring in a new era. Instead of fighting, they want to lay down their weapons.
Getty Images
A female Hamas fighter: Hope for a cease-fire
It is now official: The cease-fire between Hamas and the Israelis will begin on Thursday, Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev confirmed on Wednesday morning in Jerusalem. The deal, brokered by Egypt in Cairo, will bring to an end more than a year of fighting between the Palestinian extremist group and the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip -- a conflict which has cost the lives of more than 400 Palestinians and seven Israelis. Should the agreement manage to bring the fighting to a stop, Israel could lift the blockade of the Gaza Strip as early as next week.
It is a moment the 1.4 million Gaza Strip residents have long been waiting for. For months, Palestinians there have been faced with empty store shelves and widespread shortages of everything from fuel to food. It will also mean an end to Israeli bombing runs and military activities in the densely populated region. Israelis, meanwhile, are hoping the deal will stop the steady stream of homemade rockets fired across the border -- though on Tuesday evening, after the deal was announced, yet more rockets sailed into Israel.
REPRINTS
Find out how you can reprint this SPIEGEL ONLINE article in your publication. The negotiations have been underway for months. Finally, though, the Egyptian middlemen were able to find common ground between the two sides. It is an impressive success which saw Hamas move a long way from its original list of demands. In the beginning, for example, the extremist Islamist group wanted the cease-fire to also extend to the West Bank. There, moderate Palestinians with the Fatah movement under Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are in power -- and Israel has a free hand to hunt down Hamas terror cells. Securing the right to continue such searches was vital to the Israelis. The two sides agreed to leave the issue of the West Bank for future negotiations.
A Hamas Climb-Down
The climb-down on the part of Hamas shows that they are dependent on a cease-fire. Israel has sharply cut supplies to the Gaza Strip in reaction to the rockets which are regularly fired at the south of Israel from the Hamas-controlled territory. As a result, the 1.6 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are currently experiencing one of the territory's worst-ever crises. The harsh Israeli economic sanctions have now brought Hamas to their knees. In accordance with the international boycott which has been in effect since Hamas seized power one year ago, Israel only allows the Gaza Strip to receive just enough fuel, food, construction material and medicine that is necessary for people to survive -- but not enough, however, to make modern life possible.
DER SPIEGEL
Graphic: The Palestinian Territories at a glance (click to enlarge).
The Israeli government had been hoping that protests on the part of the Palestinian population against their catastrophic living conditions would be enough to bring about regime change -- in other words, to bring Hamas down. It's true that these hopes have not been fulfilled. But within the population there have been signs of resistance against the policies of Hamas which are bringing the Gaza Strip into ruin. According to Palestinian political scientist Mkhaimar Abu Sada from Al-Azhar University in the Gaza Strip, Hamas is using the crisis to win political capital for itself and to drive citizens to acts of desperation against Israel. "Hamas is putting the blame for the misery on Israel," he says. "But fewer and fewer Palestinians are convinced that that is the case."
A Statesman-Like Hamas?
After a year of being in control of the Gaza Strip, Hamas is now showing its statesman-like side. Hamas strategists hope that improving supplies to the territory will help to strengthen the Islamist group's standing among Palestinians -- which would then lead to a further consolidation of their position in the Gaza Strip. In the process, they want to resolve the internal split among Palestinians in their favor.
But it is precisely in this point that Hamas has to prove that it can push through its policies and that it is willing to use force against its Palestinian allies. It will soon become clear if Hamas will act to stop the various militant splinter groups in the Gaza Strip from breaking the cease-fire. That is set to be a difficult test. Some radical groups have already announced that Hamas' agreement to a cease-fire does not apply to them.
The stakes for Hamas are considerable. In the coming weeks, it will seek to push its agenda forward -- and not just on the militarily front, but most of all in terms of its political and social goals. One of its key aims is the Islamization of Palestinian society in Gaza.
Hamas won't have much time to do so, though, because Israel will be unwilling to accept any disruptions to the cease-fire, according to sources in the Defense Ministry. From Jerusalem's perspective, it is Hamas' responsibility to put an end to the rocket attacks. Israeli politicians and military officers are extremely skeptical that the cease-fire can hold.
Despite the lack of enthusiasm in Jerusalem, the Israelis have accepted the cease-fire. After all, a rejection of the "gentlemen's agreement" would have been a slap in the face for the Egyptian government, whose chief negotiators have served for months as middlemen between Israel and Hamas.
Israel also wants to prove that all the diplomatic options have been exhausted before it commences planned military operations in the Gaza Strip. Those operations are intended to put an end to the hail of rockets from within the Hamas-controlled territory -- assuming, of course, that the cease-fire does not hold.
Pierre Heumann is the Middle East correspondent for the Swiss newsweekly Weltwoche.
18 May 2008
Anti-Semitic Hate Speech in the Name of Islam
05/16/2008 04:30 PM'WIPE OUT THE JEWS'
Anti-Semitic Hate Speech in the Name of Islam
By Matthias Küntzel
Though most Muslims reject Islamism and its propaganda, anti-Semitic messages from satellite channels like the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa are helping to bring a message of hate and intolerance to Europe. The effects of such hate preaching can already be felt in Germany.
Sowing the seeds of hate: The Hamas satellite station Al-Aqsa recently used a Mickey Mouse clone to teach Muslim children -- in Gaza and Europe -- to hate Jews.
"Sanabel, what do you want to do to help the Al-Aqsa Mosque?" Farfur asks on the children's program of Hamas's Al-Aqsa television station. "We want to fight." "And what else?" "Wipe out the Jews." Now Farfur, the cartoon character on Hamas's children's television program, is satisfied. Farfur is a carbon copy of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse, but the Hamas version does something that Mickey would never do: He entertains children while propagating the murder of Jews.
International protests forced Hamas to take its Disney clone out of circulation. Al-Aqsa complied, but promptly turned Farfur's departure into an anti-Semitic statement: Farfur was clubbed to death by an Israeli official. Then the girl hosting the program turned to the camera and said: "You've seen how the Jews killed Farfur as a martyr. What do you want to say to the Jews?" A three-year-old girl named Shaima called into the show to say: "We don't like Jews, because they are dogs! We will fight them!" "Oh, Shaima, you're right," the girl in the studio replied, "the Jews are criminals and our enemies."
Farfur's appearances are typical of Hamas's anti-Semitic propaganda, which the organization also exports to Germany via satellite, hoping to breed new generations of fanatical anti-Semites and suicide bombers.
The Hamas station, founded in 2006, is modeled on the Hezbollah station in neighboring Lebanon, al-Manar. Al-Manar's children's program shows children wearing explosive belts and images of dying Israeli soldiers, with triumphant chants as background music. Cartoons depict scenes like that of a child blowing himself up near Israeli soldiers, or of a smiling boy flying toward Israel on a missile. Adult viewers can enjoy video clips that use inspirational graphics and rousing music to glorify the act of committing a suicide bombing, while the evening lineup offers family entertainment with a series of films based on the classic anti-Semitic forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
In late 2004, France banned the broadcasting of al-Manar through the European Eutelsat satellite system, citing the station's anti-Semitic content. Nevertheless, messages of hate were still being broadcast into the living rooms of Muslims in Germany via satellites controlled by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, ArabSat and NileSat. Exposure to this programming was apparently not without consequences.
Rabbi Zalman Gurevitch was wearing a traditional black robe when he left his synagogue in Frankfurt's Westend neighborhood on Sept. 7, 2007. It was the Sabbath. According to the police report, he encountered a 22-year-old German of Afghan descent "spontaneously and coincidentally" a short time later. It was early evening and the man, shouting "You shit Jew, I'm going to kill you," plunged a knife into the rabbi's abdomen. Gurevitch was recognizable as a Jew. He survived, thanks to luck and emergency surgery.
Although this attack was an isolated incident, it is hard to overlook how hatred imported from Beirut and Gaza resurfaces in the form of daily acts of anti-Semitism in schools and athletic clubs, on streets and in the subway. Young children raised to be anti-Semitic are already using the phrase "You Jew!" as a derogatory expression in kindergartens and on playgrounds. Schoolchildren berate their teachers, calling them Jew dogs, for not offering Sharia-compatible instruction, and Jewish schoolchildren are attacked and feel compelled to switch to Berlin's Jewish high school and to hide the insignia of their Jewish faith -- the yarmulke and the Star of David -- when in public.
Neo-Nazi sentiments were behind the majority of anti-Semitic incidents reported in 2006. At the same time, however, the number of anti-Semitic criminal offences committed by Muslims jumped from 33 to 88.
In 2007 the German Interior Ministry published a study on the worldviews of "Muslims in Germany," the most comprehensive of its kind to date, which confirmed this trend. According to the study, "anti-Semitic attitudes were found among young Muslims far more often than among non-Muslim immigrants or domestic non-Muslims." The study cited examples of Muslim students to illustrate that this anti-Semitism cannot be dismissed as the product of an underdog attitude within marginalized social groups, but instead represents an ideological way of thinking. "The pervasiveness of sweeping anti-Semitic prejudices among Muslim students was also noticeable," the study pointed out. "Such prejudices, expressed indirectly by slightly more than one-third and in extreme form by about 10 percent of students, are significantly more common than anti-Christian sentiments."
What is the source of this profound hatred, which stations like al-Aqsa and al-Manar are spreading and one in 10 of the Muslim students surveyed embraces? The Middle East conflict is often cited as a reason, but this is too simplistic. Hostility toward Jews has existed since Islam came into being. In its charter, Hamas quotes the Prophet Muhammad as saying: "The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him." Through the use of such language, the hatred of Jews is given a religious justification.
Nazi Germany entered the picture in the 20th century. The Nazis, hoping to use early Islamic hostility toward Jews for their own ends, paid substantial sums of money to support the Muslim Brotherhood's anti-Jewish campaigns in Egypt. And just as they had radicalized widespread Christian anti-Semitism in Europe, the Nazis did their utmost to radicalize the latent anti-Judaism that had originated in early Islam.
While everything Jewish was considered evil in early Islam, everything evil was now being labeled as Jewish, from wars and revolutions to the drug trade and the decline of moral values. Between 1938 and 1945, the Nazis' radio station broadcast its lies about a supposed Jewish world conspiracy into the Islamic world every evening. The professionally produced programs were broadcast in Arabic, Persian and Turkish, and were very popular. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the Hamas charter has also adopted this legacy.
The Jews, we read in Article 22, "stood behind the French Revolution, the Communist Revolution and most of the revolutions we hear about... They stood behind World War I ... There is no war going on anywhere without them having their finger in it."
Whether in the case of Muhammad or here, in both cases Hamas used sources to justify its hatred of the Jews that are older than Israel. But once someone has fallen for this demonizing delusion, he will find his anti-Jewish concept of the enemy confirmed in everything that an Israeli government does or fails to do. What is more, those who hold Jews responsible for all the world's ills will paint the Jewish state as the root of all evil. Following Hamas's example, they will celebrate or deny the Holocaust, even in Berlin.
Teachers in the German capital are sometimes confronted with Muslim students who expressly use the Holocaust to justify their sympathies for the Nazis ("I like Hitler; he did the right thing with the Jews"), refusing to take part in school trips to concentration camp memorials. During one excursion to the German Historical Museum, a group of Muslim youth gathered in front of a replica of a gas chamber in Auschwitz and applauded.
Can we blame Israel for the mindset that leads to such activities? Perhaps it would be more apt to conclude that the waves of hatred that the Nazis' shortwave radio transmitter once broadcast into the Arab world are now returning in the form of a delayed echo.
Building Street Cred for the Islamist Movement
Most Muslims reject Islamism and its propaganda. According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, only about one percent of Muslims living in Germany are members of Islamist organizations whose political objectives include anti-Semitism. But the non-organized potential for radicalization is significantly greater. According to the "Muslims in Germany" study, between eight and 12 percent of Muslims hold anti-Western and anti-democratic views. "Attitudes ranging from strongly fundamentalist to openness to Islamism" are found among younger Muslims, according to the study. One of the respondents, the authors write, articulated a "desire for a young political avant-garde," which, the respondent said, must "take matters into its own hands."
Following the demise of the socialist bloc and the decimation of protest movements with a secular orientation, such a rebellious impulse does in fact shape the Islamist movement into an anti-Western avant-garde of sorts. As the only adversary of the global world order, it possesses an ideology, a lot of money and supporters worldwide. Advertising for the Islamist cause has used pop culture with as little inhibition as Hamas has unscrupulously resorted to a Hollywood cartoon character to recruit children. Trend-conscious clothing, music and lifestyle advertising bring "street credibility" to the Islamist mission. Online shops, like the Hamas-affiliated portal Islamicstatewear.com, sell T-shirts with expressly religious messages, like "Islam! Submit!," "I love my Prophet" and "State University of Mecca," while musicians like the rapper "Ammar114" (his name is based on the 114 suras of the Koran) use their raps to promote their version of Islam.
Other Muslim rappers portray themselves as representatives of a "Jihad Generation" and pepper their "intifada rap" with anti-Semitism of the worst kind. "Zyklon Beatz," a Berlin rap group, released a CD in 2006 with lyrics describing Jews as animals and demonizing them as devils in human form. Rapper Bushido, who won the prestigious ECHO Music Award in February 2008 and was broadcast live on RTL as Germany's best hip hop artist, stylizes himself as a Muslim assassin: "I am a Taliban … I am this terrorist young people believe in … I am King Bushido, and my second name is Mohammed. And I have set your city on fire."
In a rap video placed on the Internet, a Lebanese man living in Berlin chants: "Kill every Jewish pig, the Jahudis are unclean. They should all die and they aren't worth our tears. Arabs like us rule." Within a few weeks, his video, which translates Hezbollah's and Hamas's universes of hatred into a form more accessible to youth, had provoked hundreds of comments, most of them enthusiastic.
But one criticism of the German-language hip hop scene -- that such statements no longer provoke a scandal -- also applies to the German public at large. While the anti-Semitism coming from the extremist right wing attracts attention, and for good reason, there is too little awareness of anti-Semitism articulated by Muslims. For some, hatred of Jews is as much a part of the Middle Eastern world as water pipes and mosques. Others say nothing because they see Muslims mainly as victims. Still others gloss over Islamic anti-Semitism as an understandable reaction to the Middle East conflict, while organizations like the Left Party even see potential common ground with the Islamist movement.
In 2003, the German Interior Ministry banned Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Arab anti-Semitic organization, and in 2005 it ordered Yeni Akit, a Turkish anti-Semitic publishing house, to shut down. And in 2007, the Interior Ministry supported projects to combat anti-Semitism among Muslim youth. But the Foreign Ministry has consistently undermined all of these efforts by accepting the importation of anti-Semitic propaganda through Saudi Arabian and Egyptian satellite broadcasters.
Meanwhile, a rabbit named Assud has replaced Mickey Mouse on Hamas's children's program. "Why is your name Assud (lion) if you are a rabbit?" a girl asked in the broadcast on Feb. 8, 2008. "Because I, Assud, will clean up the Jews and devour them." The girl nodded in agreement, and said: "May Allah's will be done."
Hamburg political scientist Matthias Küntzel, 53, is a member of the board of directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. His recent book "Islamic anti-Semitism and German Politics," was recently published by LIT Verlag.
Anti-Semitic Hate Speech in the Name of Islam
By Matthias Küntzel
Though most Muslims reject Islamism and its propaganda, anti-Semitic messages from satellite channels like the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa are helping to bring a message of hate and intolerance to Europe. The effects of such hate preaching can already be felt in Germany.
Sowing the seeds of hate: The Hamas satellite station Al-Aqsa recently used a Mickey Mouse clone to teach Muslim children -- in Gaza and Europe -- to hate Jews.
"Sanabel, what do you want to do to help the Al-Aqsa Mosque?" Farfur asks on the children's program of Hamas's Al-Aqsa television station. "We want to fight." "And what else?" "Wipe out the Jews." Now Farfur, the cartoon character on Hamas's children's television program, is satisfied. Farfur is a carbon copy of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse, but the Hamas version does something that Mickey would never do: He entertains children while propagating the murder of Jews.
International protests forced Hamas to take its Disney clone out of circulation. Al-Aqsa complied, but promptly turned Farfur's departure into an anti-Semitic statement: Farfur was clubbed to death by an Israeli official. Then the girl hosting the program turned to the camera and said: "You've seen how the Jews killed Farfur as a martyr. What do you want to say to the Jews?" A three-year-old girl named Shaima called into the show to say: "We don't like Jews, because they are dogs! We will fight them!" "Oh, Shaima, you're right," the girl in the studio replied, "the Jews are criminals and our enemies."
Farfur's appearances are typical of Hamas's anti-Semitic propaganda, which the organization also exports to Germany via satellite, hoping to breed new generations of fanatical anti-Semites and suicide bombers.
The Hamas station, founded in 2006, is modeled on the Hezbollah station in neighboring Lebanon, al-Manar. Al-Manar's children's program shows children wearing explosive belts and images of dying Israeli soldiers, with triumphant chants as background music. Cartoons depict scenes like that of a child blowing himself up near Israeli soldiers, or of a smiling boy flying toward Israel on a missile. Adult viewers can enjoy video clips that use inspirational graphics and rousing music to glorify the act of committing a suicide bombing, while the evening lineup offers family entertainment with a series of films based on the classic anti-Semitic forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
In late 2004, France banned the broadcasting of al-Manar through the European Eutelsat satellite system, citing the station's anti-Semitic content. Nevertheless, messages of hate were still being broadcast into the living rooms of Muslims in Germany via satellites controlled by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, ArabSat and NileSat. Exposure to this programming was apparently not without consequences.
Rabbi Zalman Gurevitch was wearing a traditional black robe when he left his synagogue in Frankfurt's Westend neighborhood on Sept. 7, 2007. It was the Sabbath. According to the police report, he encountered a 22-year-old German of Afghan descent "spontaneously and coincidentally" a short time later. It was early evening and the man, shouting "You shit Jew, I'm going to kill you," plunged a knife into the rabbi's abdomen. Gurevitch was recognizable as a Jew. He survived, thanks to luck and emergency surgery.
Although this attack was an isolated incident, it is hard to overlook how hatred imported from Beirut and Gaza resurfaces in the form of daily acts of anti-Semitism in schools and athletic clubs, on streets and in the subway. Young children raised to be anti-Semitic are already using the phrase "You Jew!" as a derogatory expression in kindergartens and on playgrounds. Schoolchildren berate their teachers, calling them Jew dogs, for not offering Sharia-compatible instruction, and Jewish schoolchildren are attacked and feel compelled to switch to Berlin's Jewish high school and to hide the insignia of their Jewish faith -- the yarmulke and the Star of David -- when in public.
Neo-Nazi sentiments were behind the majority of anti-Semitic incidents reported in 2006. At the same time, however, the number of anti-Semitic criminal offences committed by Muslims jumped from 33 to 88.
In 2007 the German Interior Ministry published a study on the worldviews of "Muslims in Germany," the most comprehensive of its kind to date, which confirmed this trend. According to the study, "anti-Semitic attitudes were found among young Muslims far more often than among non-Muslim immigrants or domestic non-Muslims." The study cited examples of Muslim students to illustrate that this anti-Semitism cannot be dismissed as the product of an underdog attitude within marginalized social groups, but instead represents an ideological way of thinking. "The pervasiveness of sweeping anti-Semitic prejudices among Muslim students was also noticeable," the study pointed out. "Such prejudices, expressed indirectly by slightly more than one-third and in extreme form by about 10 percent of students, are significantly more common than anti-Christian sentiments."
What is the source of this profound hatred, which stations like al-Aqsa and al-Manar are spreading and one in 10 of the Muslim students surveyed embraces? The Middle East conflict is often cited as a reason, but this is too simplistic. Hostility toward Jews has existed since Islam came into being. In its charter, Hamas quotes the Prophet Muhammad as saying: "The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him." Through the use of such language, the hatred of Jews is given a religious justification.
Nazi Germany entered the picture in the 20th century. The Nazis, hoping to use early Islamic hostility toward Jews for their own ends, paid substantial sums of money to support the Muslim Brotherhood's anti-Jewish campaigns in Egypt. And just as they had radicalized widespread Christian anti-Semitism in Europe, the Nazis did their utmost to radicalize the latent anti-Judaism that had originated in early Islam.
While everything Jewish was considered evil in early Islam, everything evil was now being labeled as Jewish, from wars and revolutions to the drug trade and the decline of moral values. Between 1938 and 1945, the Nazis' radio station broadcast its lies about a supposed Jewish world conspiracy into the Islamic world every evening. The professionally produced programs were broadcast in Arabic, Persian and Turkish, and were very popular. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the Hamas charter has also adopted this legacy.
The Jews, we read in Article 22, "stood behind the French Revolution, the Communist Revolution and most of the revolutions we hear about... They stood behind World War I ... There is no war going on anywhere without them having their finger in it."
Whether in the case of Muhammad or here, in both cases Hamas used sources to justify its hatred of the Jews that are older than Israel. But once someone has fallen for this demonizing delusion, he will find his anti-Jewish concept of the enemy confirmed in everything that an Israeli government does or fails to do. What is more, those who hold Jews responsible for all the world's ills will paint the Jewish state as the root of all evil. Following Hamas's example, they will celebrate or deny the Holocaust, even in Berlin.
Teachers in the German capital are sometimes confronted with Muslim students who expressly use the Holocaust to justify their sympathies for the Nazis ("I like Hitler; he did the right thing with the Jews"), refusing to take part in school trips to concentration camp memorials. During one excursion to the German Historical Museum, a group of Muslim youth gathered in front of a replica of a gas chamber in Auschwitz and applauded.
Can we blame Israel for the mindset that leads to such activities? Perhaps it would be more apt to conclude that the waves of hatred that the Nazis' shortwave radio transmitter once broadcast into the Arab world are now returning in the form of a delayed echo.
Building Street Cred for the Islamist Movement
Most Muslims reject Islamism and its propaganda. According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, only about one percent of Muslims living in Germany are members of Islamist organizations whose political objectives include anti-Semitism. But the non-organized potential for radicalization is significantly greater. According to the "Muslims in Germany" study, between eight and 12 percent of Muslims hold anti-Western and anti-democratic views. "Attitudes ranging from strongly fundamentalist to openness to Islamism" are found among younger Muslims, according to the study. One of the respondents, the authors write, articulated a "desire for a young political avant-garde," which, the respondent said, must "take matters into its own hands."
Following the demise of the socialist bloc and the decimation of protest movements with a secular orientation, such a rebellious impulse does in fact shape the Islamist movement into an anti-Western avant-garde of sorts. As the only adversary of the global world order, it possesses an ideology, a lot of money and supporters worldwide. Advertising for the Islamist cause has used pop culture with as little inhibition as Hamas has unscrupulously resorted to a Hollywood cartoon character to recruit children. Trend-conscious clothing, music and lifestyle advertising bring "street credibility" to the Islamist mission. Online shops, like the Hamas-affiliated portal Islamicstatewear.com, sell T-shirts with expressly religious messages, like "Islam! Submit!," "I love my Prophet" and "State University of Mecca," while musicians like the rapper "Ammar114" (his name is based on the 114 suras of the Koran) use their raps to promote their version of Islam.
Other Muslim rappers portray themselves as representatives of a "Jihad Generation" and pepper their "intifada rap" with anti-Semitism of the worst kind. "Zyklon Beatz," a Berlin rap group, released a CD in 2006 with lyrics describing Jews as animals and demonizing them as devils in human form. Rapper Bushido, who won the prestigious ECHO Music Award in February 2008 and was broadcast live on RTL as Germany's best hip hop artist, stylizes himself as a Muslim assassin: "I am a Taliban … I am this terrorist young people believe in … I am King Bushido, and my second name is Mohammed. And I have set your city on fire."
In a rap video placed on the Internet, a Lebanese man living in Berlin chants: "Kill every Jewish pig, the Jahudis are unclean. They should all die and they aren't worth our tears. Arabs like us rule." Within a few weeks, his video, which translates Hezbollah's and Hamas's universes of hatred into a form more accessible to youth, had provoked hundreds of comments, most of them enthusiastic.
But one criticism of the German-language hip hop scene -- that such statements no longer provoke a scandal -- also applies to the German public at large. While the anti-Semitism coming from the extremist right wing attracts attention, and for good reason, there is too little awareness of anti-Semitism articulated by Muslims. For some, hatred of Jews is as much a part of the Middle Eastern world as water pipes and mosques. Others say nothing because they see Muslims mainly as victims. Still others gloss over Islamic anti-Semitism as an understandable reaction to the Middle East conflict, while organizations like the Left Party even see potential common ground with the Islamist movement.
In 2003, the German Interior Ministry banned Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Arab anti-Semitic organization, and in 2005 it ordered Yeni Akit, a Turkish anti-Semitic publishing house, to shut down. And in 2007, the Interior Ministry supported projects to combat anti-Semitism among Muslim youth. But the Foreign Ministry has consistently undermined all of these efforts by accepting the importation of anti-Semitic propaganda through Saudi Arabian and Egyptian satellite broadcasters.
Meanwhile, a rabbit named Assud has replaced Mickey Mouse on Hamas's children's program. "Why is your name Assud (lion) if you are a rabbit?" a girl asked in the broadcast on Feb. 8, 2008. "Because I, Assud, will clean up the Jews and devour them." The girl nodded in agreement, and said: "May Allah's will be done."
Hamburg political scientist Matthias Küntzel, 53, is a member of the board of directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. His recent book "Islamic anti-Semitism and German Politics," was recently published by LIT Verlag.
29 April 2008
Carter Mis-Representing Hamas Positions
I saw Carter’s piece in the NYT, and it stank like rotten meat for exactly the reasons set forth below from Arutz-Sheva’s reportage. Either he did not understand what Meshaal was telling him, or, as the title of the article indicates, he is misrepresenting (indicating an intent to deceive the public about) Hamas’ positions. Carter is many things, but he is not stupid. That leaves only the other option available. It is one thing to go and try to start a conversation but to misrepresent what was said in those discussions or what came out of them indicates to me that Carter’s goal was not simply to start a discussion. He did not want the world to think he was a failure. With the lies and misrepresentations in his NYT op-ed piece, Carter is a failure, involved in a serious self-deception as to his motivation to start the talks in the first place. For shame.
Randy Shiner
Carter Mis-Representing Hamas Positions
by Hillel Fendel
In a New York Times op-ed on Monday, ex-Pres. Jimmy Carter says Hamas wants peace - while Hamas leader Khaled Meshal presents an entirely different picture.
Carter wrote in the Times about his recent meetings in Israel with the leaders of Hamas and Fatah, and painted a rosy picture of prospects for peace with Hamas. He attacked the United States and Israel for having categorized Hamas as a terrorist organization, and for therefore not talking with them.
It is a "counterproductive Washington policy [of] recent years," Carter writes, "to boycott and punish political factions or governments that refuse to accept United States mandates. This policy makes difficult the possibility that such leaders might moderate their policies."
Carter himself, on the other hand, talked with Hamas officials, and based on their "official responses," came up with the following conclusions (inter alia):
"Hamas will accept any agreement negotiated by Mr. Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert provided it is approved either in a Palestinian referendum or by an elected government.... Hamas will disband its militia in Gaza if a nonpartisan professional security force can be formed... Hamas will accept a mutual cease-fire in Gaza, with the expectation (not requirement) that this would later include [Judea and Samaria]..."
At an April 21 press conference in Jerusalem, Carter said, "Hamas said they would agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders [enabling Israel to continue to exist as it did prior to 1967 - ed.] if this was approved by the Palestinians, and that they would agree to accept Israel's right to exist as a neighbor with whom they would have peaceful relations."
Arab affairs analyst Yehonatan D. HaLevi writes that an interview given by Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal shows that Carter either did not understand the answers he was given, or that he is purposely presenting a false picture designed to "launder" Hamas in Western eyes.
Meshal: The Struggle Will Continue
HaLevi writes that Meshal told Al-Jazeera just three days ago from Syria something very different: "As opposed to the rosy picture presented by Carter, according to which Hamas is willing to recognize Israel under the current circumstances, Meshal said that the struggle against Israel would continue."
HaLevi quoted Meshal as having explained, "Israel is only willing to accept our ceasefire proposal - including a full retreat from eastern Jerusalem and to the '67 borders, the return of the refugees, but no recognition of Israel - if circumstances force it to do so and if a change in the balance in power forces it do so. Hamas is working to make sure this happens."
Hamas Accepts Democratic Results - Only Under Certain Conditions
In addition, though Carter says Hamas is willing to accept the results of a Palestinian Authority referendum, in actuality, Hamas has placed so many qualifications on this as to render it totally moot. Meshal told Al-Jazeera, "Hamas will accept the will of the Palestinian nation, as reflected in free elections for the Palestinian National Council in accordance with agreed-upon principles, or in a free referendum inside [within the PA-controlled areas] and outside [abroad] - on condition that the Palestinian negotiator will be obligated to Palestinian rights in accordance with the Document of National Consensus on the issues of Jerusalem, the refugees, and borders."
"In other words," HaLevi sums up, "Hamas will accept the results if they are identical with the original Hamas position."
Hamas and Shalit
It should also be noted that Carter says approvingly of Hamas that it will "permit Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured by Palestinian militants in 2006, to send a letter to his parents." No date has been set for this to happen. "If Israel agrees to a list of prisoners to be exchanged, and the first group is released, Corporal Shalit will be sent to Egypt, pending the final releases," Carter writes - without noting that the "list of prisoners" is many hundreds of names long and includes many who have been involved in the murder and maiming of dozens of Israelis in terrorist attacks.
HaLevi says Carter's position is puzzling: "He sees nothing wrong with Hamas even though it is a terrorist organization... He is essentially enabling terrorist and Fascist organizations to take over western democracies whenever these groups win a majority of the vote. In addition, Carter is trying with all his might to launder Hamas and to market it to Israel and the international community as a moderate force - even though Hamas itself presents a totally opposite stance."
Randy Shiner
Carter Mis-Representing Hamas Positions
by Hillel Fendel
In a New York Times op-ed on Monday, ex-Pres. Jimmy Carter says Hamas wants peace - while Hamas leader Khaled Meshal presents an entirely different picture.
Carter wrote in the Times about his recent meetings in Israel with the leaders of Hamas and Fatah, and painted a rosy picture of prospects for peace with Hamas. He attacked the United States and Israel for having categorized Hamas as a terrorist organization, and for therefore not talking with them.
It is a "counterproductive Washington policy [of] recent years," Carter writes, "to boycott and punish political factions or governments that refuse to accept United States mandates. This policy makes difficult the possibility that such leaders might moderate their policies."
Carter himself, on the other hand, talked with Hamas officials, and based on their "official responses," came up with the following conclusions (inter alia):
"Hamas will accept any agreement negotiated by Mr. Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert provided it is approved either in a Palestinian referendum or by an elected government.... Hamas will disband its militia in Gaza if a nonpartisan professional security force can be formed... Hamas will accept a mutual cease-fire in Gaza, with the expectation (not requirement) that this would later include [Judea and Samaria]..."
At an April 21 press conference in Jerusalem, Carter said, "Hamas said they would agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders [enabling Israel to continue to exist as it did prior to 1967 - ed.] if this was approved by the Palestinians, and that they would agree to accept Israel's right to exist as a neighbor with whom they would have peaceful relations."
Arab affairs analyst Yehonatan D. HaLevi writes that an interview given by Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal shows that Carter either did not understand the answers he was given, or that he is purposely presenting a false picture designed to "launder" Hamas in Western eyes.
Meshal: The Struggle Will Continue
HaLevi writes that Meshal told Al-Jazeera just three days ago from Syria something very different: "As opposed to the rosy picture presented by Carter, according to which Hamas is willing to recognize Israel under the current circumstances, Meshal said that the struggle against Israel would continue."
HaLevi quoted Meshal as having explained, "Israel is only willing to accept our ceasefire proposal - including a full retreat from eastern Jerusalem and to the '67 borders, the return of the refugees, but no recognition of Israel - if circumstances force it to do so and if a change in the balance in power forces it do so. Hamas is working to make sure this happens."
Hamas Accepts Democratic Results - Only Under Certain Conditions
In addition, though Carter says Hamas is willing to accept the results of a Palestinian Authority referendum, in actuality, Hamas has placed so many qualifications on this as to render it totally moot. Meshal told Al-Jazeera, "Hamas will accept the will of the Palestinian nation, as reflected in free elections for the Palestinian National Council in accordance with agreed-upon principles, or in a free referendum inside [within the PA-controlled areas] and outside [abroad] - on condition that the Palestinian negotiator will be obligated to Palestinian rights in accordance with the Document of National Consensus on the issues of Jerusalem, the refugees, and borders."
"In other words," HaLevi sums up, "Hamas will accept the results if they are identical with the original Hamas position."
Hamas and Shalit
It should also be noted that Carter says approvingly of Hamas that it will "permit Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured by Palestinian militants in 2006, to send a letter to his parents." No date has been set for this to happen. "If Israel agrees to a list of prisoners to be exchanged, and the first group is released, Corporal Shalit will be sent to Egypt, pending the final releases," Carter writes - without noting that the "list of prisoners" is many hundreds of names long and includes many who have been involved in the murder and maiming of dozens of Israelis in terrorist attacks.
HaLevi says Carter's position is puzzling: "He sees nothing wrong with Hamas even though it is a terrorist organization... He is essentially enabling terrorist and Fascist organizations to take over western democracies whenever these groups win a majority of the vote. In addition, Carter is trying with all his might to launder Hamas and to market it to Israel and the international community as a moderate force - even though Hamas itself presents a totally opposite stance."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
