Hamas Election Victory



The United States has long considered Hamas to be a terrorist organization. I suppose that there may be some truth to this assertion: their support of suicide bombers, a charter that calls for the destruction of Israel, and the general fomenting of anger towards American interests.

And yet, here we are, a few days removed from a clearly democratic election that propelled them into power. A lot of the news organizations covering the election results are surprised by this. I, for one, am not surprised at all.

Yasir Arafat's party, Fatah, was roundly voted out, amidst widespread allegations of corruption and increasing poverty in the Palestinian Authority. Was this a vote against Fatah, or in favor of terrorism?

For now, anyway, it doesn't matter.

Some of the more left-wing paranoid websites out there claim that the ongoing support of Israel by the Religious Right has less to do with an interest in seeking a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian situation as their attempts to ensure that the Biblically-profesied "end of days" in the Book of Revelations comes true. After all, the Holy Land must belong to the Jews in order for the second coming of the Messiah to happen. I always dismissed those websites as paranoia.

The night of the Hamas victory in Palestine, I decided to channel surf my way over to the ABC Family station and watched the first ten or fifteen minutes of Pat Robertson's TV show . And he made it clear in no uncertain terms that the Hamas victory was a tragedy of the greatest proportions due to the fact that this makes the end-of-days scenario that much unattainable.

Pat Robertson correctly maintained that the Palestinians never had a homeland (a historical fact) and therefore don't really deserve one. This ties in cleanly with his belief that Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for dividing up the holy land. (Do we see a trend here?)

I think it's kind of funny that after the extremely biased news presentation, they switched to a solicitation for money because of all of the charitable work they do. Doesn't Hamas also build schools and hospitals in the name of charity? I'm not sure whether the 700 club or Hamas is the greater terrorist organization.

I'd like to argue that the lack of a historical homeland does not equate to the notion that an ethnic group doesn't deserve one. Any separatist movement around the world -- from the Chechens to the Kurds, even Kashmir and Quebec -- deserves to be taken at least someone seriously, even when the nation(s) from which the people want to secede have legitimate reasons to maintain the status quo.

I've commented before on how I'm not convinced that it's a good idea not to negotiate with terrorists. The Hamas victory forces both the Israeli and US governments to re-evaluate this longstanding policy. The choice is clear: do not negotiate and risk an escalation in tension, or at least be somewhat willing to listen and work something out and maybe find a way to achieve a lasting peace. Certainly an amendment to the Hamas charter to recognize Israel's right to exist belongs in there.

I was saddened about 15 months ago when the news came out that Yasir Arafat had died. His death was under strange circumstances, to say the least. Neither the US government nor the Israeli government did much to counter the rumors that spread quickly through Gaza that he was assassinated. (Even if it's not exceptionally likely...) While I don't trust George W Bush, the image of someone pacing around the White House mumbling, "This isn't what I had planned when I killed Arafat" doesn't strike me as realistic (but I do consider it amusing..)

George Carlin once pointed out that Israeli freedom fighters are called "commandoes." Arab commandoes are called "terrorists." While that may be a bit of an oversimplification, it begs the question of: what is a terrorist other than someone who expresses a position -- oftentimes violently -- that's opposed to our general interests? Why not talk to them to find out where they're coming from?

Posted: Mon - January 30, 2006 at 12:03 AM          

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