There is something to be said for the Hamas victory. Little. Little good anyway except that Hamas is and always has been straight about their objectives. Destroy Israel, kill the Jews, as their mothership so succinctly put it - "wipe Israel off the map." So jerking Israel off with "moderate" terrorist vs. "extreme" terrorist, a thoroughly intellectually insulting premise, btw - no longer plays. Israel can and must destroy her mortal enemy. Hamasazis live by the sword and must die by the sword.
Fatah is another story. Abbas will continue to play the "moderate" terrorist card so that Abbas can establish Fatahland in Judea/Samaria (aka the West Bank.) The US, EU and even Israel will fund this fantasy long enough for the Pali Arabs to wrest control of the West Bank away from Israel and set up a terror state on Israel's Western border.
This is obvious. It is also frightening and the worst possible strategy for Israel's continued existence.
People speculate that Abbas will view June 14 as his day of independence. That the geographic separation and the serious blood now spilled between them does indeed create an opportunity. I don't see it. Abbas has always said what the west wanted to hear to keep the flow of money coming into his coffers. Money for munitions, arm, war.
Hamas, OTOH, has a different paymaster - Iran and so has no such motive. That deception is unnecessary.
Ben wrote,
Before, there was never a geographic distinction between the
"moderates" and "extremists". Moderates could talk peace, extremists
could shoot, then moderates would shrug and say "look, Israel broke the
ceasefire- but if we fired first, it's really Israel's fault anyway,
and you can't really expect us to control the extremist while the
Israels still occupy blah blah blah." The moderates couldn't really
call the extremists out, because they feared exactly what has already
happened. Now, no more fear. It's a done deal, there are really three
sides in the fight. Now, with geography and some serious blood between
them, this changes. Hamas can be made the palestinian scapegoat, and
give mental cover to reconcilliation by the rest.
And while it is true that the moderates have not really been moderate,
the fact is that they COULD have been moderate, and if they can accept
past moderate status as the truth and blame Hamas for being the bees in
the bonnet, who really cares who said what when? History is a mess at
it is.*
I don't agree. The geography that is relevant is the the land of Israel. Ut's the geography Islam cares about. It's what the Arabs want. Have always wanted. The only ones that have been literally dying for peace are the Jews.
Moderate, my ass. It was only a tact to buy time, get money, and arm the jihad until it was strong enough to defeat Israel. Caroline Glick writesin todays J Post here;
For their part, the Palestinians held open and free elections in
January 2006. They chose to deny parliamentary representation to non-terrorists,
and placed Hamas at the head of the Palestinian Authority. They turned newly
Jew-free Gush Katif, which Israel surrendered unconditionally, into terror
training camps. They turned the ruins of the communities of northern Gaza into
launch pads for missile and rocket attacks against Ashkelon and Sderot. They
turned the abandoned international border between Gaza and the Sinai into a
global jihadist highway through which terrorists from the Iranian Revolutionary
Guards, Hizbullah, Hamas and al-Qaida, as well as massive quantities of
armaments have flooded into Gaza.
For the residents of Gaza, who overwhelmingly support Hamas, the
situation has become particularly dire. Since foreign correspondents have
abandoned the area, no one seems to notice or care about the fact that in Gaza
today, children are murdered in front of their parents, passengers are removed
from cars and shot in the streets, and doctors are murdered in hospitals as
patients are violently removed from life support systems and taken out of
operating rooms. No one bats a lash as jihadists bomb pubs and Internet cafes.
No one hears as Gazans pray for a return of the so-called "occupation."
Jeff wrote me in an email and I quite agree;
As the U.S. State Dept. runs to support the terrorist entity, Fatah, and President Abbas, we must be diligent in disseminating the truth about Fatah and all of her vile branches.
We must also make noise by contacting our Congressman and Senators and discourage them from supporting Fatah and Abbas.
As you know, this mendacious label of moderate given to Fatah and Abbas is contrived propaganda.
Lest we forget, Fatah has been culpable for the murder and maiming of more innocent Israelis and Jews - than Hamas - since the inception of the "Oslo" death process.
We are all aware of Fatah's track record - dating back to the mid-60's.
Unfortunately, our elitist leaders in the U.S. and the elitist leaders in Israel spout this mendacity about Fatah and Abbas being moderate, etc.
Believe you me that next week, when the evil and feckless Olmert meets the evil and feckless Bush, Bush and his minions will press Israel - hard - to make multiple concessions to Fatah and Abbas. These murderous bastards, whose hands are stained with the blood of innocent Jews and Israelis, are being depicted in the media (even FOX NEWS) in sympathetic and empathic terms. I find this beguiling, inaccurate and nauseating.
It would be most instructive if Bush, Condi, Olmert and Peres could sit together in a dark room and view reel after reel of MEMRI film documenting the PA's moderate positions.
Obviously this will never happen.
Also, just watch the number of leftist, liberal American Jews who jump on the bandwagon to support and prop up Fatah and fetid mouthed Abbas.
The real geography at play here is Hamas to the left of Israel, Fatah on the right and the recent Arab media reports of Syria making preparations for war with Israel
A Qatari newspaper has confirmed reports that Syria is preparing for a summer war with Israel. More here.
Iran is behind it all.
UPDATE: Robert Tracinski makes my point in TIA DAILY;
Iran's New Summer Offensive
Gaza is the First Stage of a New
Iranian Offensive Against the West
Most commentators on the Hamas takeover of Gaza are missing the real story.
They miss it for the same reason that they have missed the real story in Iraq.
They miss it because they think they are looking at a civil war—Sunnis versus
Shiites in Iraq, Hamas versus Fatah in Gaza—when the real story is a regional
war, with Iran at its center.
The Islamist takeover of Gaza is really the first stage in Iran's new summer
offensive against the West.
The Hamas takeover was not factional rivalry that spun out of control. It was
clearly a deliberate, planned military campaign. In the Gaza town of Khan Yunis,
for example, Hamas fighters destroyed the headquarters of the Fatah-controlled
security forces by detonating
a one-ton bomb buried in a tunnel under the building. This is more than a
civil war: it is a carefully planned, well-executed revolutionary putsch against
the Palestinian Authority.
What happened after the Hamas military victory is even more telling. Stories
have been filtering
out about Fatah supporters being rounded up into prison camps, of Fatah
fighters being bound and thrown off of high-rise rooftops or subject to summary
executions in the street. Having taken power by brute force, Hamas is making it
clear that it intends to rule by fear. Summing up all of these events, a
spokesman for Hamas declared, "The era of justice and Islamic rule have
arrived."
This should all be familiar. The same kind of "justice" and Islamic rule
arrived in Iran in 1979—and now Iran has finally managed to export its Islamic
Revolution into the Sunni Arab world. Gaza is now an outpost of Iranian-inspired
totalitarian Islamic rule.
And there is a good possibility that this won't stop in Gaza. Fatah is a
leftover of the old era of the quasi-secular nationalist Arab "strongman." But
Fatah's strongman Yasser Arafat is dead, both literally and metaphorically: his
type is losing out, in the Muslim world, to the revived Islamist movement
represented by Hamas. One side in this conflict is tired and dispirited—while
the other is fanatically devoted and believes that it has the forces of history
on its side.
And there is a good possibility that this won't stop in Gaza. Fatah is a
leftover of the old era of the quasi-secular nationalist Arab "strongman." But
Fatah's strongman Yasser Arafat is dead, both literally and metaphorically: his
type is losing out, in the Muslim world, to the revived Islamist movement
represented by Hamas. One side in this conflict is tired and dispirited—while
the other is fanatically devoted and believes that it has the forces of history
on its side.
While jubilant Hamas fighters stormed the last remaining Fatah redoubts in
Gaza, Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas responded by calling for new elections. The
overall sense coming from Fatah spokesmen is not one of defiance or resolve, but
a sense of resignation and despair. "There is no future for us," one Fatah
supporter told
the New York Times, while a Palestinian Authority official concluded, “We
Palestinians are writing the final chapters of our national enterprise.” It
should be no surprise to hear that hundreds of Fatah officials have already fled
to Egypt. Fatah is a sinking ship, and the rats who make up its crew are
deserting it. At this rate, Fatah will ultimately lose, not only Gaza, but the
West Bank as well.
Seeing Fatah thugs dragged into the streets and shot by a rival gang of
terrorists may not cause us to shed any tears—it couldn't happen to a more
deserving group of people—but we shouldn't be deceived into thinking of this as
a purely internal, factional struggle. During the first Palestinian intifada, in
the late 1980s and early 1990s, most of the people killed by Palestinian
terrorists were other Palestinians—those who were considered "collaborators" or
advocates of peace with Israel. It was necessary for Arafat to eliminate all
Palestinian opposition, so that he could take over the Palestinian territories
(with our help, alas) and use them as a base from which to attack Israel.
This time, it is Iran—the main financial, military, and ideological sponsor
of Hamas—that is seeking to take over. So, too, in Lebanon, where Iran's
satellite, Syria, is also using factional fighting as an excuse to liquidate
opposition—as in the latest assassination
of an anti-Syrian politician. Syria seeks to
break Lebanon between a new Sunni Islamist uprising in the north and the
Shiite Islamist Hezbollah militia in the south—all with the goal of reasserting
Syrian and Iranian control.
Add to this the continuing Iranian support for insurgents in Iraq and new
evidence that Iran is providing weapons and training to the Taliban in
Afghanistan—an act of war against the United States, not to mention the entire
NATO alliance—and we can see the whole regional picture. In Lebanon, Iran has
used Hezbollah to establish a base against Israel on the north, which is now
matched by Gaza as a base against Israel on the South. Iraq is under siege from
both sides, with Syrian and Iranian support pouring in to both Sunni and Shiite
terrorist gangs—while Iran has now begun to strike out eastward against the US
and NATO in Afghanistan.
In short, Iran is bent on regional domination, and it is advancing on all
fronts.
This is exactly the picture that emerged during Iran's last summer offensive:
Hezbollah's rocket war against Israel in July and August of last year. The only
thing that has changed in our strategic position since then is that things have
gotten worse: Iran has been emboldened to make further advances, while a
Democratic victory in the US election has reassured Iran and Syria that America
will eventually retreat and abandon the region to their control.
If we're not going to surrender to this Iranian onslaught—if we're not going
to forget the lessons of September 11 and allow terrorist-sponsoring Islamist
regimes to metastasize across the Middle East—we need to start fighting back
immediately.
Tired, discredited, and possibly broken by his failures in Iraq, President
Bush seems to have given up on providing any leadership against the Iranian
threat. Fortunately, we still have Joe Lieberman, who has established himself as
the only political figure willing to lead in this crisis by declaring
that we should start an air war against Iran in retaliation for its acts of war
against US troops in Iraq. What is really new in Lieberman's declaration is that
he has proposed the use of military force against Iran, not as potential future
measure to pre-empt Iran's nuclear weapons program, but as an immediate act of
retaliation in response to the war Iran is already waging against us.
Our enemy in that war is already on the offensive in the farthest-flung
corners of its would-be empire, from the Mediterranean to the Himalayas—but it
is vulnerable at the center. There is still time for an air war against Iran
itself, targeting terrorist training camps, nuclear facilities, assets of the
Iranian Revolution Guard, and the gasoline supply lines that keep the Iranian
economy moving, all with the aim of bringing down the regime.
It's that—or surrender the greater Middle East to a nuclear-armed Islamist
empire headed by Iran.
I had to run it all. PAID only.
UPDATE: This is what Israel faces everyday while the world kisses its ass.
UPDATE: This is a special mental illness.
U.S. contemplating more weapons to Palestinians
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