Sunday, June 24, 2007
My Apologies
Men and women who had already fought their own first intifada paid a heavy sacrifice in blood, and forced Israel to take them seriously. Move aside, the newcomers seemed to say. We are in charge now. Leave it to us.
For Gazans and West Bankers - secular and religious activists alike - this was galling. When the newcomers began to flaunt their new-found wealth, building ostentatious villas in one of the poorest places on earth, disillusion quickly set in.
And there was brutality too. Hamas activists were hounded, arrested, beaten and humiliated.
Wow, there must have been quite a spate of jaywalking to get all those poor Hamas members arrested. Or was it failing to change the address on their drivers licenses? Oh no, now I remember - IT WAS MASS MURDER, PAUL ADAMS YOU FUCKING IDIOT. I understand that offing Jews (or at the very least Israelis) is certainly no crime in the British media. And I can get over the rousing brass section playing behind the story of the PLO nobly paying a heavy sacrifice in blood. But for the BBC correspondent to fail to mention even that Fatah arrested Hamas "activists" not just because they were doing what Hamas "activists" do - (y'know, saving the whales, registering voters, lobbying for a neighborhood watch program, etc.) but because they were obligated to do so under the peace accords is simply astounding. Ass-tounding.
Then there's this:
A bitter desire for revenge began to fester.
And imagine how much keener that desire became after Hamas won a democratic election in January 2006, only to see that Fatah's disdain persisted.
You see? Hamas is just all about democracy and listening to the people, and love and ponies and democracy and democracy. And what do they get for this love of the ponies and democratic process? Disdain. Only disdain. And that really, really hurt their feelings.
Hamas had not really expected to find themselves suddenly in power. They wanted, rather, to be regarded as a legitimate part of the Palestinian movement.
But Fatah assumed that in time, its rivals would be crushed. Israel, through air strikes and mass arrests, worked hard to achieve this.
The international community shunned Hamas because of its association with terrorism, despite being advised by many on the ground that constructive engagement might be a more profitable course of action.Hamas supporters, not surprisingly, became convinced that they were the targets of an international conspiracy designed to destroy them.
Do you see? Do you see what they went through? Can you feel the injustice running in the streets? The international community - well known pricks about stuff like this - shunned Hamas because of their associations with whateveryoucallit. Shunned. Just say that word to yourself a few times and see how it feels. Almost makes you want to haul someone out for a little impromptu execution in the streets, doesn't it? And it's not like people didn't tell them. Oh no. If we told the international community once, we told them a thousand times: don't shun the activists (the whales! the neighborhood watch!) just because of their association with thingymawhat. Don't shun - engage. And don't just engage. Make sure it's constructive. Otherwise you're just going to make them think - not surprisingly - that you are part of an international conspiracy designed to destroy them.
I mean, seriously. How can you be surprised? Arrested for nothing, disdained by the other, um, activists, and finally, shunned by a pre-warned international community. How could a group with their hearts so obviously in the right place be treated so very, very horribly? Only possible answer: International consipracy designed to destroy them. And organized by who, you ask? Well, isn't that obvious? I, like Paul Adams, don't need to point a Shylock-like finger at anyone, but I'll tell you it rhymes with evilracistnazihitlerapartheidimperialistoppressors.
Thank you, Paul. Your perspicacity and real grasp of the facts has made us all just a little bit better informed about this important, nuanced issue. Kudos and huzzah to you!
Dick.
