So How Has the West’s Policy Towards Hamas Worked Out?
Remember Hamas?
Let me review. It’s that group governing the Gaza Strip; providing it with a revolutionary Islamist, terrorist, would-be genocidal client of Iran; repressing women; kicking out Christians; and seeking to subvert most Arab states, expel Western influence from the region, indoctrinate children to be suicide bombers, and set off another war with Israel as soon as it is ready. Oh, yes, and it’s on the Mediterranean Sea.
Do you think that might be some cause for concern in the West?
Well, of course, Hamas remains largely isolated, though one hears increasing arguments that it is either:
1. Moving toward moderation.
2. Moderate compared to al-Qaeda.
3. Easily removable by building up the Gaza economy so a large middle class will be created and will presumably ignore the tight controls, guns pointed at its face, and indoctrination in order to ask the current regime to stand aside.
Of course, I’m making fun of the silly things said about this situation, yet the above analysis is quite accurate. And it gets worse.
Let’s cut away all the obfuscation and detail and understand something that is of the most vital importance: Western governments have secured the survival and stability of a revolutionary terrorist Islamist regime that is dedicated to destroying their interests.
Despite the Western support for sanctions, the United States and European countries:
– Prevented Israel from overthrowing that regime during the 2008-2009 war initiated by Hamas. By doing so, they also badly damaged any hope for Israel-Palestinian peace, since the Palestinian Authority (PA) is greatly intimidated by fear of being outflanked and subverted by Hamas. And the PA cannot make peace when it cannot deliver half the territory it claims to speak for.
– In the Gaza flotilla issue, the West allowed the success of an operation mounted by Hamas supporters using classical terrorist group tactics, albeit disguised as a humanitarian operation. By using jihad warriors willing to give up their lives, a confrontation was generated. The jihadists attacked Israeli soldiers, willingly suffering nine dead.
Yet in exchange for that loss of what might be called useful (dead) idiots — quite small in the eyes of Hamas and its allies — what a political-strategic bounty was generated! Antagonism toward Israel mounted, and sympathy (nominally for average Palestinians in Gaza, but in practice for the Hamas regime) was built.
Rather than see any suffering in Gaza as being caused by Hamas policies — if there were no attacks on Israel and military build-up, there would be no restrictions — Western media often presented it as due to Israeli meanness. Evidence to the contrary about good conditions prevailing in Gaza (as elsewhere in the world) for those who have money was underplayed.
Western governments have secured the survival and stability of a revolutionary terrorist Islamist regime that is dedicated to destroying their interests.
Those governments have been securing the survival and security of terrorists before Hamas became a major player.
Every time the Palestinians got the worst end of their aggressive behaviour in rushed the West to mollify and cuddle them with millions of dollars and Euros and rhetorical outbursts against the Israelis.
Look back at the political machinations of Baker and the State Department, during the Bush the Elder Administration, and see how they along with the Europeans brought Arafat out of exile and forced him onto Israelis as the only legitimate
EgyptianPalestinian with whom they could discuss peace.How many attempts did Tenet and the CIA get at training Palestinian security forces, from the Clinton Admin through the Bush the Younger rule, which policed by day and terrorised by night.
Taking the attitude of Chris Patten (Commissioner for External Relations for the European Commission) during the 1990s as an example it would not be far fetched to think that the Western Governments were and are not so much interested in their own interests and security but in the grinding down of Israel.
Billions of Euros and Dollars splurged more out of maliciousness and spite than the claimed preoccupation with the Peace Process between Palestinians and Israelis.
The process has built up to where the media in general feel liberated to help by stoking the fires of hatred of things Jewish.
This is mostly the Bush admins fault for insisting on elections in 2006 and allowing Hamas to run.
Hamas is committed to destroying Israel and the Jews.
It is clear, they are a genocidal organization that has a blood lust to murder Jews.
Now let’s connect the dots. Obama has been in contact with Hamas since BEFORE he was elected (a crime, but who cares about the law), under Obama several hundred million dollars has been funneled to the Gaza Strip (some thru the UNRWA) KEEPING the Hamas in power. Obama has been pushing to accept Hamas as the legitimate representative of the Palestinians in Gaza.
What is so terrible? Nothing if you thing that the murder of Jews will lead to peace.
Now we have the Imam at the Victory “Cordoba” Mosque supporting Hamas and Hamas supporting the GZ Site.
Throw in Iran? Iran supports Hamas (I know WHO would ever think a shia would help a sunni group), couple this with the same pattern of normalcy with Hezbollah becoming “mainstream” and it begins to paint a picture that it’s OK for “moderate” moslems to support Hamas and Hezbollah.
This “mainstreaming” of Radical Islamic Groups started of course with Fatah & the PLO. Let’s not for get the Abbas, a “moderate” still is a holocaust denier and says that Jews have no connection to Jerusalem & the Temple Mount.
The embrace of “moderate” moslems that selectively only want to see Israel destroyed and the Jews murdered is moving the line in the sand about moral and ethical justice.
The GZ Imam, now on the State Dept dole, has no problems being friends with Iran and Hamas.
As an American Jew?
I am buying ammo….
It is pure insanity for the US (or anyone else) to give money to HAMAS!!! There’s no excuse for it. Claims that “We didn’t give money to HAMAS, but to (XYZ) don’t hold water; any idiot can see that money given to Palestine goes either to HAMAS, Fatah or Hizbollah! You’d have to be a blind, deaf idiot to believe otherwise.
There is an article today at Time online reporting the shocking (to them) poll results that show the vast majority of Americans think Obama is Muslim. His support of Hamas as the voice of the Palestenian people is just one reason for those poll results. (Time, typically makes sure to say that our belief that Obama is a Muslim is false!)
However, Obama’s predellictions do not explain the actions of previous administrations that BEGAN this perfidious practice in the first place! I remember when we first started arming the “Palestenian police” and the objections that any weapons given to Palestenians of any stripe will land in the hands of the terrorists. All the oh-so-smart elites said it wouldn’t happen; well, now we see it did! Why can’t they understand that “Palestenian” and “Terrorist” are nearly synonymous???
“Stupid is as stupid does” and we’ve been “stuck on stupid” for a LOOOONG time!
First of all, no one gives a rat’s ass about the Palestinians and the brutal dictatorial regimes they suffer under. Not the Obama administration, not the European Quartet and most Europeans, not the Russians, and most certainly not the other Arab states.
Secondly, the sole reason why these groups express alarm or concern about the plight of the Palestinians is to hammer Israel. Indeed, literally anything Israel does either for or against the Palestinians is subject to lengthy, bitter, and overwhelmingly negative criticism practically everywhere. For example, Israel produced an investigative report on the recent IDF incursion into the Gaza Strip. That report was criticized by the human rights NGO’s as being a coverup, by the UN as being unprofessional and failing to really investigate IDF “crimes against humanity”, and by the Palestinians as proving that Israel and the IDF are just a bunch of baby murdering, women killing butchers! The fact that the Hamas and the PLO presented no investigative report on their possible misbehavior was barely noticed by anyone and hardly mentioned by any news service.
Thus Dr. Rubin it is not so much that these various Western diplomatic and political groups and NGO’s are supportive of Hamas, rather it is that they have a convenient weapon with which to bash Israel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL321ehEkNs
Barry, permit the indulgence to rephrase your question-
How has Obamas outreach to the muslim world worked out?
No need to guess. The results are in-
http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2010/0805_arab_opinion_poll_telhami.aspx
Since Obama has become President the standing of the USA in the muslim world has tanked and the standing of Iran in the muslim world has skyrocketed.
Why? In my opinion because Obama is viewed as weak and Iran is viewed as strong.
Bush did better.
Israel might consider the example of Grant and Sherman. The Confederacy was destroyed when the Union stopped being a gentleman and went for total war. The Confederates (my kin) accepted the reality of total defeat and reconciled to live in the world of that reality.
“Moderate compared to al-Qaeda.”
So is my mother in law. But I don’t want her living next door to me either.