Be Careful What You Ask For: HAMAS UPDATE

I had written that at some point Hamas was sure to be sorry that they won the Palestinian Elections. I would not be too surprised if Israel and the US are are not really disappointed that they won, since it now forces Hamas officials to step into the daylight and experience all of the headaches that modern governments face, including dealing with terror promoters as well as disaffected followers.

In any normal country, the kidnapping of a citizen from another country would put the country where the kidnapping happened responsible to resolve the problem.

However in Palestine, the Hamas-Led Government is pushing for negotiations with Israel to resolve the kidnapping. (Lets forget that he was in Israel when he was kidnapped and taken to Gaza.) That simply is the wrong way to run your government and the wrong way to carry out negotiations with Israel or ANY other nation, especially when the kidnappers claim to be from Hamas.

This is the basis of the problem with the current Palestinian leadership. They want to be in control, but they also want to play the same old games as before when they were simply a militant organization. That just won't fly. The actions of Hamas are the actions of the Palestinian Government. Ismail Haniyeh, the Prime Minister of the Palestine Authority, has an editorial in the Washington Post today. (publicized by Little Green Footballs) Here is how he described the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier:

The current Gaza invasion is only the latest effort to destroy the results of fair and free elections held early this year. It is the explosive follow-up to a five-month campaign of economic and diplomatic warfare directed by the United States and Israel. The stated intention of that strategy was to force the average Palestinian to "reconsider" her vote when faced with deepening hardship; its failure was predictable, and the new overt military aggression and collective punishment are its logical fulfillment. The "kidnapped" Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit is only a pretext for a job scheduled months ago.

"kidnapped" what's the deal with the quotes? Is he not really kidnapped? I guess we should ask Corporal Shalit if he thinks he has been kidnapped, but that is not an option at the moment. We can only takes Hamas's word on that.

Lets just say for a minute that Prime Minister Haniyeh is right, that the kidnapping of Cpl. Shalit is just an excuse to flatten parts of Gaza with tanks. So what. It was Hamas that handed the Israelis the excuse to do it. Even better the Israeli Government has already warned Prime Minister Haniyeh that they will use the Cpl.'s death as an excuse to eliminate him. Maybe this will be incentive enough for him to convince his followers not to give Israel another excuse. (Then again, if the Prime Minister's theory is correct, than his elimination has been planned month's ago and nothing he does will stop that.)

The Palestinian Authority called for a truce a couple days back which was promptly rejected by Israel, and rightly so. The simple way to a truce would be to hand over the soldier. Instead, they are using the soldier as a sort of human shield. Not for anything, but the kidnapping seems to be to be such a petty and short-sighted action. Kind of hard to build sympathy when there is no shortage of misbehavior on the part of the "victims."

Now take these other comments:

However, we do not want to live on international welfare and American handouts. We want what Americans enjoy -- democratic rights, economic sovereignty and justice. We thought our pride in conducting the fairest elections in the Arab world might resonate with the United States and its citizens. Instead, our new government was met from the very beginning by acts of explicit, declared sabotage by the White House. Now this aggression continues against 3.9 million civilians living in the world's largest prison camps. America's complacency in the face of these war crimes is, as usual, embedded in the coded rhetorical green light: "Israel has a right to defend itself." Was Israel defending itself when it killed eight family members on a Gaza beach last month or three members of the Hajjaj family on Saturday, among them 6-year-old Rawan? I refuse to believe that such inhumanity sits well with the American public.

Yes, the stop picking on us because we are a Government now. The US has not sabotaged the Palestinian Government, it is Hamas, which knew full well that they were labeled as a terrorist organization. That designation does not go away just because you have been elected. The US congratulated the results of the election and left it to the Hamas-led Government to figure out how to get by without foreign wire payments. Here is a thought, how about use that money you can't wire back home and buy some aid with it. There is no restriction to shipping home food, medicine, and supplies. Why the need to bring only the money back? sure you need money too, but your problem would not be a great if you used the money where it is currently at. That would surely bolster your support at home, while denying anyone an excuse to act militarily.

He also mentions the beach attack on Gaza. Even the UN has backed away from claiming that it was Israel that was the cause of the explosion. Now it might be that Israel was really responsible, but unlikely considering how thorough the Palestinian doctors were at making sure all the shrapnel was removed from the victims. Too bad for Hams that they have to earned a reputation that everyone is willing to believe that they would use victims of their own stupidity for politian gain. The question now is whather or not they can learn how to act responsibly as a Government before their actions get them killed off as terrorists?

Update: 13 July 06

Well this story keeps going downhill all the time doesn't it. So now we have militants in Lebanon kidnapping two more soldiers and the Israeli military taking on Lebanon itself. Kind of serves them right for letting Hezbollah operate in their country as a base for their operations against Israel. It is also kind of sad because Lebanon appears to have been on the path to the first-world, but that is no excuse to let violent people roam around free. It would be like letting al-qaeda operate in Canada.

Then we have the revelation that the Hamas, which is in control of the Palestinian Government is being controlled from Damascus, Syria and that Khaled Meshal in Syria is the "voice" of the Palestinain People:

The first speech yesterday by Khaled Meshal, the Damascus-based head of Hamas' political bureau, since the abduction of Corporal Gilad Shalit was intended mainly to reinforce his leadership position vis-a-vis both Palestinians and Israel. His statements contained little real news. He reiterated the Hamas promise not to hurt Shalit and the position that he would be released only in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

What Meshal did do was to declare that he and not the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah, or Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza, is the sole spokesman for the Palestinian people in the territories and beyond.

The message was also intended for the ears of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: Whether you want it or not, I am the only partner you can speak to about the release of prisoners and suspending the Qassam rocket attacks. - Haaretz

This makes it pretty easy to take the charges that Syria is meddling in Palestine's affairs as fact. Khaled Meshal already has a target on him. the question is, will targets now be placed on Syria for their lack of doing anything about the militants running around their country.

It is too easy to tell Israel to back off in order to calm the situation down. Perhaps this should be sorted out now, once and for all. Backing down now will just encourage the terrorists and continue to prolong the conflict.

Aggression Under False Pretenses - Washington Post
Be Careful What You Ask For: HAMAS - FFI - 28 January 2006

Note: I tend to avoid commenting on the Israel/Palestine issue simply because I think both sides are wrong, in many areas. If I had to place the blame on who is more wrong, then that is easy, it is the side that is blowing up busses and civilians and in general acting like terrorists.