Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe does an excellent job putting the Hamas election sweep into perspective, and why it should be viewed as a very good thing indeed.
…I think the sweeping Hamas victory is by far the best result that could have been hoped for.
I say that not because Hamas is anything other than a blood-drenched terrorist group, but because its lopsided win is an unambiguous reality check into the nature of Palestinian society. And if there is one thing that the West badly needs, it is more realism and less delusion about the Palestinians.
And he puts into perfect perspective President Bush’s absolutely absurd comments about the election:
”Obviously, people were not happy with the status quo,” Bush explained. ”The people are demanding honest government. The people want services. They want to be able to raise their children in an environment in which they can get a decent education and they can find healthcare. And so the elections should open the eyes of the old guard there in the Palestinian territories. . . . There’s something healthy about a system that does that.”
Spare us, Mr. President. If a slate of neo-Nazi skinheads swept to power in a European election, would you say that the voters were seeking ”honest government” and ‘’services”? Palestinians are not stupid, and it insults their intelligence to pretend that when they vote to empower a genocidal organization with a platform straight out of ”Mein Kampf,” what they’re really after is better healthcare. Islamist extremism isn’t needed to fix Palestinian hospitals any more than fascism was needed to make Italian trains run on time in the 1920s. If Palestinians turned out en masse to elect a party that unapologetically stands for hatred and mass murder, it’s a safe bet that hatred and mass murder had something to do with the turnout.
Indeed. Read the whole thing.
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I have been telling anyone that will listen this exact thing. Well, not that the win was a good thing, but that it was the will of the people, proving once and for all, the people want Israel decimated. The correlation is even easier to make when you think about it in an American context. I voted for President Bush because he was prosecuting the War on Terror, and I did not believe Kerry would do the same. I voted for war, even with children fast approaching military age, I voted for war. The Palestinians voted for war, simple as that, and I am deathly afraid war is what they are going to get.
One thing Democrats in this country need to realize…Islamofacists persecute atheists with the same zeal they persecute Christians and Jews.
Ed Morissey at Captain’s Quarters says the same thing in his entry ” . . . and Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.” Just one question though: Hamas won 76 of the 132 parliament seats. Who won the other 56 seats and who voted for them?
I tend to agree with the president. I think the election was more about Fatah’s corruption and the will of the people to get rid of the crooks that were running the gov’t.
If Hamas will reject the part of their charter that advocates the destruction of Israel I do not believe they will suffer at the polls.
It was Fatah’s corruption that led to the Hamas victory. The Palestinian people would have voted for any major party against Fatah because they wanted major reform that Fatah would not be forced to implement if they’d once again won electorally.
This is a moving forward for the Palestinian people.
With that said, I agree that the Palestinians need to denounce terror, but right now it’s not healthy for the average Palestinian to speak against Arab terrorism towards Israel. That may cause bullet holes, torture as a collaborator, and, ultimately, death.
Baby steps for the Palestinian people. The first thing they had to do was to try to get rid of the corruption.
Yes…I simplified and generalized, but from my cozy vantage point here in Pennsylvania, I had no choice. 76 seats represent 56% of the whole, once again, a simplistic majority, but acknowledging this was the first attempt for Hamas, not too shabby. Are there good and kind people in that territory? Sure there are, but they do not do enough to stop the madness. Once again, easy for me to say, sitting here, but there must be some way for those living there to recognize what is going on.
Hamas has called for the destruction of a state, and the people elected Hamas. Hamas has sworn to keep its terrorists wing, and the people elected Hamas.
They will reap what they sow…It really is as simple as that.
I read an editorial a few months back that was talking about the pilitical process in Palestine. The author was making the point that Hamas my be evil in all kinds of ways, but they were not liars,at least too their own people. If Hamas says they are rasing money for a health clinic, the money goes to a health clinic. If they say they are raising money for suicide bombers, then the money went to suicide bombers.
This is a similiar phenomenon to the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan is undeniably racist, but they are also undeniably pro-white. If you are in with the Klan there is a warm fellowship with your fellow “Klannies.” This attraction is cross cultural and should not be underestimated.
Hamas is for the Palestinian people as much as Fatah was for their own enrichment and power. It could be argued that Hamas would do the Palestinians a whole lot more good if they were a little more pro-development instead of anti-Israel, but for now that argument would be lost on the Palestinians. I believe that over all this election is a good thing, but only if there continues to be more elections. The results of this election show that the Palestinian people are starting to get a grasp on the idea that their own leadership may be more responsible for their suffering than Israel is, and in that idea lies hope.
“I can forgive you for killing our children but I can’t forgive you for making us kill your children.” Golda Meir
I don’t think I agree with Jacoby. He writes, “And if there is one thing that the West badly needs, it is more realism and less delusion about the Palestinians.”
But deluded Westerners aren’t going to become realists because Hamas gained control of the Pali parliament.
Many liberals, at least the college student variety, are deluded about the Israel-Palestine situation, not because they think Palestinians are nice and peace-loving; they are deluded because they have absolutely no idea what’s going on over there.
Example: Tonight I overheard one such college student talking to her friend on the phone about how she reads the LA Times everyday. She mentioned that Hamas (mis-pronounced) had been elected to run Palestine, and the Israelis were rioting because they didn’t like it. (She also mentioned that Alito is bad because he’s replacing O’Connor, and now there won’t be any swing-votes on the Court, but that’s neither here nor there.)
Here’s a worthwhile article in the National Review that hits a similar note to Jacoby, but I think it’s more relevant. The point is that if Hamas had been merely a minority party, then violence could continue against Israel with the usual plausible deniability that the Palestinian government was involved. The PA party line is, “We’re doing everything we can to prevent terrorism, but we can’t stop the rogues.” None of us really believed that, but it’s the kind of thing that politicians pretend to believe, and they make political decisions accordingly. Now with the terrorists at the helm, the fig leaf is stripped away. If Hamas continues to launch terrorist attacks, then the recognized Palestinian governing entity cannot evade responsibility or consequences. This may bring about a moment of clarity for both insiders and outsiders and, God willing, some good may come of it.
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