Hamas, Israel, Gaza and Violent Resistance
Hamas descended directly from an earlier Islamic movement concerned primarily with the provision of education, health care, food aid and other social services to Palestinians suffering under the Israeli occupation. This group was funded by the Saudi monarchy and... the government of Israel! The latter provided the movement with land, buildings and no small measure of encouragement.
This group was funded by the Saudi monarchy and... the government of Israel! The latter provided the movement with land, buildings and no small measure of encouragement.
Hell bent as Israel was on undermining Arafat and the secular PLO, in the 1980s, Israel and the US supported the nascent, apolitical Hamas. Until, of course, Hamas and its growing constituency realized that they had the means to challenge the corrupt and compliant PLO.
More:
America's Hidden Role in Hamas's Rise to Power
The demands imposed at the insistence of the Bush administration and Congress on the Palestinian Authority in order to lift the sanctions appeared to have been designed to be rejected and were widely interpreted as a pretext for punishing the Palestinian population for voting the wrong way. For example, the United States demanded that the Hamas-led government unilaterally recognize the right of the state of Israel to exist, even though Israel has never recognized the right of the Palestinians to have a viable state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or anywhere else. Other demands included an end of attacks on civilians in Israel while not demanding that Israel likewise end its attacks on civilian areas in the Gaza Strip.
And this from William Sieghart,
We Must Adjust our Distorted Image of Hamas
Who or what is Hamas, the movement that Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister, would like to wipe out as though it were a virus? Why did it win the Palestinian elections and why does it allow rockets to be fired into Israel? The story of Hamas over the past three years reveals how the Israeli, US and UK governments' misunderstanding of this Islamist movement has led us to the brutal and desperate situation that we are in now.
The three articles are worth reading in their entirety.
I am appalled beyond words at the media and governmental madness, attacking Hamas at all costs, ignoring the genocide caused by American (US) bombs and Israeli ...there just isn't a word describing behavior so bestial against people of ones own tribe.
Imagine if it was Iran making these incursions against a segment of their population. But nuclear power Israel blowing 100s of tons of ammunition into the schools, hospitals, homes and public areas...imagine if England had decided to stop the Irgun terrorists, then the Stern Gang with these same measures. Imagine if David Ben-Gurion and his family were attacked by new bunker busting bombs and killed for not giving up Yitzhak Shamir...then bombing a classroom full of kids in order to kill Shamir, and an entire village to 'get' Menachem Begin while visiting a pharmacy.
These people justified the planting land-mines in Arab markets and blew up hotels and killed diplomates and decimated villages...and now they force people into camps and are killing them wholesale under the pretext that they are lobbing rockets from the area. And not just for the last week...but for years and years and years and years.
It is so much a microcosm of American arrogance and exceptionalism, so much a lesson in lies and deceits, so stark a representation of "If they accuse others, they are doing it themselves in spades"...it is a sickening portrayal of the worst in human behavior.
As someone who believes in the basic goodness of individuals, it frightens me. Never underestimate their intelligence, always underestimate their knowledge.
Frank Delaney ~ Ireland
As someone who believes in the basic goodness of individuals, it frightens me.
I couldn't agree more.
Teaser quote:
The conflict between Palestinians and Israelis has heightened since 2001, even as any perceived threat to Israel from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, or even Syria, has declined. Israel, according to Chaim Herzog, Israel's sixth President, had been "born in battle" and would be "obliged to live by the sword." Yet, the Israeli government's conquest and occupation of the West Bank and Gaza brought about a very difficult challenge, although armed resistance on a mass basis was only taken up years later in the Intifadha. Israel could not tolerate Palestinian Arabs' resistance of their authority on the legal basis of denial of self-determination, and eventually preferred to grant some measures of self-determination while continuing to consolidate control of the Occupied Territories, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. However, a comprehensive peace, shimmering in the distance, has eluded all, even as inter-Israeli and inter-Palestinian divisions deepened as peace danced closer before retreating.
The above link is to a Top Level summary. This link is to the full study (107 page pdf file.)
It is to be noted this study was written and published prior to the current invasion of the Gaza Strip by the Israeli Defense Forces.
To bad "he who lives by the sword dies by the sword" is in the New Testament... Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
