While some in the Australian mainstream media seem to naively believe that the Hamas win in the Palestinian elections was a great surprise - read Amira Hass to discover why so many Palestinians voted for the militants - veteran Israeli commentator Aluf Benn articulates an official, yet revealing, view:
"The Israelis warned the Americans that that unsupervised Arab democracy will bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power, not pro-Western liberals. But Washington refused to listen and insisted on holding the elections on schedule. The new reality requires both Washington and Jerusalem to re-evaluate the situation, before the Hamas effect hits Amman and Cairo. In any case, it will be hard to turn back democratic change and resume the comfortable relations with the old dictatorships.
"Israel will have to formulate a new foreign policy and strive for peace between nations, not merely with their rulers. And that will be much more complicated."
Putting aside the fact that the Americans and Israelis seem to believe they have right to "supervise" Arab democracy - Robert Fisk recently said that, "The Arab world, which is principally what we're talking about, would love some of this shiny beautiful democracy which we possess and enjoy. They would love some of it. They would like some freedom. But many of them would like freedom from us - from our armies, from our influence. And that's the problem, you see. What Arabs want is justice as much as democracy. They want freedom from us, in many cases. And they're not going to get that" - the rise of Hamas signals a radical shift in the Middle East conflict.
Although one Hamas official has already signalled that Islamic law would be a source for legislation in the occupied territories - Gideon Levy rightly says that a "secular, moderate and uncorrupt movement would have been preferable" - last week's election result certainly offers the Israelis and Americans a lesson: force will never work. The Israelis may have assassinated any number of Hamas "terrorists", and yet such moves only led to a stronger resistance movement.
Besides, Israel once funded and supported Hamas. Read this UPI report from 2002:
"Israel and Hamas may currently be locked in deadly combat, but, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years.
"Israel ‘aided Hamas directly – the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization),’ said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies.
"Israel's support for Hamas ‘was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative,’ said a former senior CIA official."
The future path of the Middle East peace process is certainly in question, but to suggest, as many Western commentators seem to believe, that the election of Hamas has ruined any chances of peace, conveniently forgets the fact that the PLO and Israel were not moving in that direction for years.
"The Israelis warned the Americans that that unsupervised Arab democracy will bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power, not pro-Western liberals. But Washington refused to listen and insisted on holding the elections on schedule. The new reality requires both Washington and Jerusalem to re-evaluate the situation, before the Hamas effect hits Amman and Cairo. In any case, it will be hard to turn back democratic change and resume the comfortable relations with the old dictatorships.
"Israel will have to formulate a new foreign policy and strive for peace between nations, not merely with their rulers. And that will be much more complicated."
Putting aside the fact that the Americans and Israelis seem to believe they have right to "supervise" Arab democracy - Robert Fisk recently said that, "The Arab world, which is principally what we're talking about, would love some of this shiny beautiful democracy which we possess and enjoy. They would love some of it. They would like some freedom. But many of them would like freedom from us - from our armies, from our influence. And that's the problem, you see. What Arabs want is justice as much as democracy. They want freedom from us, in many cases. And they're not going to get that" - the rise of Hamas signals a radical shift in the Middle East conflict.
Although one Hamas official has already signalled that Islamic law would be a source for legislation in the occupied territories - Gideon Levy rightly says that a "secular, moderate and uncorrupt movement would have been preferable" - last week's election result certainly offers the Israelis and Americans a lesson: force will never work. The Israelis may have assassinated any number of Hamas "terrorists", and yet such moves only led to a stronger resistance movement.
Besides, Israel once funded and supported Hamas. Read this UPI report from 2002:
"Israel and Hamas may currently be locked in deadly combat, but, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years.
"Israel ‘aided Hamas directly – the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization),’ said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies.
"Israel's support for Hamas ‘was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative,’ said a former senior CIA official."
The future path of the Middle East peace process is certainly in question, but to suggest, as many Western commentators seem to believe, that the election of Hamas has ruined any chances of peace, conveniently forgets the fact that the PLO and Israel were not moving in that direction for years.
7 Comments:
last week's election result certainly offers the Israelis and Americans a lesson: force will never work.
Wouldn't Hamas conclude that force worked quite well..?
I most certainly do not support the eradication of Israel. The Hamas charter is worrying in many ways.
I support, ideally, a bi-national state with all peoples living together. In the interim, a two-state solution is the best option, but until the Zionists learn that expansion and oppression is completely contradictory to a free and open Palestine, we have a serious problem.
"I most certainly do not support the eradication of Israel."
"I support, ideally, a bi-national state with all peoples living together."
So in practice - "ideally" - you support the eradication of Israel. Do you honestly think that the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza would live with the current day Israeli jews in a country that incorporated Israel and Palestine called Israel?
Ant, your silence speaks volumes. You can sling shit endlessly, but lack the real courage of a professional journalist to set the record straight.
'yes, yes, we want justice for the blacks, but because of their justifiable hatred of the whites, they will massacre them, so to avoid that we must maintain the current power-structure.'
Who was making that argument? I doubt the Afrikaaners in power were. Anyway, sure, nothing is static. However some problems are more intractable than others, and we're talking about some rather insurmountable cultural differences that, in my analysis, are unlikely to erode with time. Due to the cultural traits of many Muslim Palestinians, I strongly doubt they will ever agree to live in an entity called Israel, even if relations between Palestinians and Israelis improves and even if they're guaranteed equal rights. In my estimation, a two state solution is the only acceptable outcome for both sides now and into the future.
Thus, I think it's extremely difficult to say "I support the continued existence of Israel and I support a one state solution." Keeping those two balls in the air isn't possible now and in the future, by my reckoning. You may not agree, but there you go. Anyway, that was the topic at hand, and that's what I was commenting on. Perceived injustices etc I wasn't.
David, Adamm01 and Orang, there is a very real reason that the record needs to be set straight. It is because Ant is actually part of the story. He has nothing to add to the middle east debate other than his empty polemics. Why should his views be preferred over others? Does he actually have any qualifications? Does he only selectively present material here? Who does he actually represent? Real journalists would answer such questions.
It must be very comforting for Ant that the most erudite response in his defense comes from a sycopANT who needs to refer to my penis size.
He does have a case to answer just as he puts those under close scrutiny whom he believes to act unethically.
The Macquarie University episode is an indictment on tertiary education.
I am sorry, I don't know what a "jouiranlists" is.
Journalists however usually make others the subject of their enquiry. Not so with Ant and hence the onus on him to come clean.
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