A Hamas Win is Good for Israel
No, this isn’t crazy. It’s a theory that could even turn out to be true. I don’t mean to suggest that the Hamas victory is definitely good news — but it could well be so.
First of all, as my brother-in-law already said:
The Hamas win is bad news only to the PA thugocracy, and to misguided naifs that maintain the fantasy that any of the Palestinian leadership ever had goals other than the total destruction of Israel. In reality it has been clear for several years that the only difference between the PA and Hamas approach to the “peace process” was in tactics, not strategy.
The PA has been funding terror for years. Remember the Karina-A? Remember Arafat’s payments to suicide bombers that the IDF discovered in his office? So the fact that terrorism will now be funded directly by the PA will hardly be new. So it’s hard to see what the bad news is here.
The good news, on the other hand, comes in many parts. First of all, as above, those who still believed the Palestinians sincerely desired peace with Israel got a cold dose of reality. This link from my brother-in-law is one of the examples of someone “waking up to the truth,” and it’s a very good read:
In a legally executed, internationally supervised democratic process, the majority of Palestinian adults calmly and thoughtfully committed themselves to pursuing a one-state solution built on the ashes of a defeated Israel.
GWB has already said that the US will not talk to a Hamas-led government until Hamas no longer seeks the destruction of Israel. That, to paraphrase another writer, will happen shortly after the Angel of Death orders mittens and earmuffs. Thus the pressure on Israel — from within and without — to make yet another concession, yet another suicidal maneuver in the name of “peace,” may now cease for a number of years.
But furthermore, Hamas is tied to a series of atrocities against Israeli civilians. It has never disavowed these attacks or accepted anything other than a cease-fire. Under any other circumstances, it was only a matter of time before they would start again.
Now, given that they are in the government, any Hamas terrorist attack is an act of war committed against Israel’s civilian population by a hostile foreign country. Israel should have the right to respond in the same fashion that any other nation would respond to an act of war committed against its civilian population by a hostile foreign country.
Unfortunately, of course, “should” is the operative word. Nonetheless, one can hope that Israel will have considerably greater latitude to respond to deadly attacks now that the Palestinian Authority can no longer claim that it “cannot control” the terrorists — since now the Palestinian Authority is the terrorists.
The question is whether the Palestinians did in fact do this thoughtfully or, as seems more likely, voted for Hamas based on its anti-corruption platform, its humanitarian actions within Palestine, and the party’s promises of economic revitalization, while giving far less regard to its stance on Israel. That a consistent majority of those polled recently desire an end to war (“once the permanent status agreement is implemented – which would allow neither side to make further claims and would require both sides to acknowledge that Palestine and Israel are the homelands of their peoples”) serves as evidence for this position.
I initially thought so as well, but then I came up with a nightmare scenario.
> the majority of Palestinian adults calmly and thoughtfully
> committed themselves to pursuing a one-state solution built
> on the ashes of a defeated Israel.
Nonsense.
Based on conversations I’ve have with Palestinians (who have always been honest with me in the past) the vote for Hamas was based on 2 things:
1) the desire for a government that was representative of and responsive to the needs of the people — the PA is a corrupt system.
2) Hamas’ SOCIAL SERVICES. They supply food and medical care to the needy.
I never thought of it that way until now. Maybe this is a good thing for us.
Condi said today: “The Palestinian people have apparently voted for change, but we believe that their aspirations for peace and a peaceful life remain unchanged.“
WE??? It used to be assumed that the PLO was a minority faction among “peaceful Palestinians”, so the PLO was replaced by the PA. The PA’s Fatah and its Al Aqsa Brigade wasn’t lethal enough for the “democracy-loving Palestinians”, so they upped the ante by giving Hamas nearly 50% more seats than Fatah in the Palestinian parliament.
Sounds a lot like our State Department is preaching “Peace in our time,” like someone else did some 65 years ago.
Until the State Department’s Saudi-paid pension plan is exposed and the Arabists there sacked (read Joel Mowbray’s Dangerous Diplomacy), I wouldn’t expect anything different from the current pace of the Sudetenlandization of Israel.
Thank you for the kind words and the link. Yes, this was a wake-up call for me, and I can’t use distance or ignorance of the basic facts as an excuse. It was simply a case of wishful thinking run amok. Shabbat Shalom.
Much of what you say is true . That if wecan keep in mind that this is all the hand of GD. His will runs the world and whatever seems to be catastrophic still stems from that total Good That GD is .
I agree with Ben Regenspan. The worst problem in Arab politics (not just in the PA – it appears all over the Arab world) is that there are two choices:
1. The secular kleptocrats who care for nothing but their own wealth and power. These gangs control most of the Arab world.
2. The Islamists who honestly care enough about “the people” to engage in social work. Unfortunately, those same Islamists are the ones who believe in repression of all non Islamists culture and never ending Jihad.
From the perspective of a poor man somewhere in Hebron, Al-Hama or Alexandria, #2 is not necessarily worse than #1. Sure, a couple of his kids might die as suicide bombers – but how many would survive because of medical treatment?
I suspect that part of the purpose of the Iraq war is to show that option #3, a democracy with a free, prosperous economy, is available. That would cut the support for #1 and #2.
Clarity.
That is what we have now that we didn’t have before. It is now going to be impossible for anyone to blame Israel for not wanting to negotiate with Hamas. Anyone who tries will be laughed off the planet. Those people are Islamists whose openly stated goal is to wipe Israel off the map.
My letter to the editor was published in the Chicago Tribune. The url is:
http://tinyurl.com/dvrwk
It was written and submitted before I had heard the news about their outright win but it doesn’t really chnge anything I said.
Ben, Akiva, et al, I agree with you that many voted for Hamas for other reasons. Ori’s analysis is sound except that there are many other smaller parties — in other words, they had enough choices. They simply chose the party identified with a series of atrocities.
Another commenter hinted to “peace in our time” — a reference to negotiations with Hitler. “In a legally executed, internationally supervised democratic process, the majority of German adults calmly and thoughtfully committed themselves to” a party that believed Jews to be inferior, and we know where that led. Remember the Nazis, Iran, and Hamas the next time someone sings the praises of democracy. It’s just better than all the alternatives available today.
Hamas’ agenda is far more public than that of the Nazis when Hitler assumed power. The gunmen at campaign rallies weren’t just there for show.
My only regret is that I wrote “now the Palestinian Authority is the terrorists.” That was true from Day 1, but Arafat hid it, and kept the Tanzim etc. at arm’s length. People swallowed the nonsense about a “popular uprising” in late 2000 that PA officials inadvertently admitted three years later was orchestrated by Arafat himself. The point is that now the PA is the terrorists, and everyone knows it.
Why is it that most parents want to keep their children in school, even when their existance is in peril. That time is now and the parents must wake up to the fact. No longer must the left wing idiots stick their heads in a hole wishing the problem dissappeared when removed. Isreal faces extreme danger 1. more powerful rockets to rain on principle cities, 2. Palestinian snipers firing on Israelis from nearby hills close to the airport, 3. the danger from Hizzbollah with it’s 10,000 rockets and it’s close association with Iran, ready to rain fire upon Israel, 4. and the most important threat of all is Iran and it’s nuclear bomb, which will be ready soon. Wake up parents and encourage your children to stand up and be counted WHEN the time comes to fight back.
Please, please, on March 28, do not vote for Labor or Kadima to run Israel’s government. W
Here’s a secular/military view on the subject that says something similar:
http://kiloecho4.bravejournal.com/entry/17670/
I agree with this article. Difference between Hamas & Fatah is only that Hamas davens 5 times a day. Fatah talked in the morning and murders in the evening, while Hamas is too blood thirsty to take a brake in the morning, so it would be easier for Israeli gov to explain to blind international community that they have no partner for peace. Also it doesn’t matter why majority of Pals voted for Hamas, even if they did not, Hamas would be still around and would be causing trouble. But it is better for Israel that they are the ones who are running the show. 1) Before Hamas was in opposition and it was very easy for them to blame PA/Israel for economic problems, when they are in the driver’s seat they have no one else to blame for the Pals econ problems (besides Israel of course). 2) All of their “social” services were sponsored by “charity”, they could run a “country” on charity, so they have to deal in the business world, which should make them more corrupt. (besides politics is a corrupting influence anyway) 3) Fatah would have problems with sharing power with Hamas, so we are likely to see violence between these to terrorists groups, which is the best thing that could have happened.
Ed Katz wrote:
Please, please, on March 28, do not vote for Labor or Kadima to run Israel’s government.
I would add to that the Likud. Netanyahu gave back the hills of Hevron from which snipers shoot down on Jews. Netanyahu went to Wye and refused to repudiate Oslo. Netanyahu has neither faith nor backbone. If he is promised a good photo-op, he will sell his mother. Vote for the Ichud Leumi. If you insist you won’t vote unless it’s for the Hazit, vote for them. If you speak Russian, you can vote for Yisrael Beiteinu. Otherwise put a piece of tissue in the envelope in the ballot box.