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The Pioneer > Online Edition : >> Misplaced sympathy for Hamas.

Barry Rubin

A repressive fascist Hamas that has oppressed the people of the Gaza Strip, murdered Palestinian Authority supporters, used civilians as human shields, needs to be shamed rather than placated

Pleased to meet you/ Hope you guess my name/ But what’s puzzling you/ Is the nature of my game: The Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil

Is it so hard to guess the name? Is it so difficult to understand the nature of the game? Apparently so.

“Israeli assault complicates efforts to improve relationship with US,” says the Washington Post. “Israeli raid exacerbates regional tensions and threatens peace process,” claims a report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Scotsman, not interested in the details, called it a “massacre.”

And so the blame is placed. Yet why should either claim be true? After all, neither the US Administration nor the Palestinian Authority is friends of Hamas and its reign in the Gaza Strip. Both have had their people murdered by Hamas and that group, an ally of Iran, wants to drive the former out of the region and overthrow the latter.

Hamas has oppressed the people of the Gaza Strip, murdered Palestinian Authority supporters in hospitals and thrown them off roofs; driven the Christians out; taken relief supplies for its own soldiers; launched a war on Israel in December 2008 that caused avoidable death and destruction; used civilians as human shields and mosques for ammunition dumps; indoctrinated children to be suicide bombers; are putting women into a Taliban-like situation; and repeatedly announces its antisemitic views and intention to wipe out Israel and massacre its people.

For some, none of this makes any difference though — to be fair — the media they get information from may not have presented these facts. For those on the Left, Hamas should be considered as a fascist organisation which they passionately oppose. For those sympathetic to human rights or women’s rights, or many other good causes, Hamas should be anathema.

What should be paramount, then, is an international determination to overthrow the Hamas regime. After all, while it had earlier come in first in elections, it staged a coup and overthrew what was perceived as the rightful Government of the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority. To do such a thing would — to paraphrase the Carnegie report — reduce regional tensions and aid the peace process lead to an independent Palestinian state. Yet this rather obvious idea simply does not seem to have occurred to any Western Government or elite.

So instead there is a policy, albeit an eroding one, of isolating Hamas and denying it at least some supplies and money, demanding that it accept the idea of real peace with Israel and cease the use of terrorism. Even this seems too much for many people and, increasingly, for some Governments.

In the face of this very profound and essential wrongness, precisely what measures Israel takes toward a half-dozen vessels seeking to break the blockade that much of the world supports seems a rather secondary issue.

Then there is the confrontation itself.

It is unlikely that the clash between Israeli forces and revolutionary Islamists on a Turkish vessel carrying Hamas supporters and supplies to Gaza is going to change anything at all in terms of the politics and issues of the regions. Yet these events tell us a lot about international thinking nowadays and the tactics used by the revolutionaries who want to transform West Asia and turn it into Islamist totalitarian states.

Everything I have written above would, in many circles, be considered shocking. Yet it is all obviously demonstrably true and profoundly valid for the conduct of international affairs. If any North American or European country had done the same thing as Israel, it would be excused. If any other Third World country did so, it would be ignored.

Why does the Israel-Palestinian conflict continue? The Palestinians. If the Palestinians stopped fighting there would be peace; if Israel stopped fighting there would be even more war.

Why were people killed in the sea off of Gaza? The Islamist-led forces there. Because — as was shown with five of the six ships — if they didn’t fight nobody would be hurt but if they assaulted Israeli soldiers, the latter would defend themselves.

Oh, by the way, the Turkish group that organised this operation also has had ties with Al Qaeda. In other words, numerous Western institution are cheering — or at least being fooled — by an allegedly humanitarian action of ‘peace activists’ run by an organisation that supported the 9/11 attack. Contemplate that irony for a few minutes.

Of course, this isn’t the first time a revolutionary movement has deliberately sacrificed people for a perceived benefit to the cause. Indeed, Hamas does that all the time. But it might perhaps be the first time it has fooled so many people. Or, perhaps I should see the second, given international reactions to the 2008-2009 war in the Gaza Strip. And the more successfully Hamas (and Hizbullah) uses such tactics, the more people they will get killed in their pursuit of international sympathy and support.

Recognition of these facts is necessary for democratic societies that intend to survive. And yet that is not at all what is happening.

Now events have gone one step further. In order to pursue their goals, Hamas wants to escape from its isolation and win international support for both its regime over Gaza and in its struggle against Israel. And what are these goals? Ruling the Gaza Strip forever, seizing the West Bank and putting the PA leadership in front of a firing squad, obliterating Israel and committing genocide on its Jewish population, creating a totalitarian Palestinian state, destroying Western influence in the region, and helping to overthrow all the existing Arab Governments as a junior partner of Iran.

This might be expected to bother a lot of people, especially in the West, especially on the Left, especially among intellectuals who benefit from living in free societies. And yet that’s not necessarily true either.

As part of its effort, Hamas supporters organised a six-ship convoy to bring supplies to the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip has always been a poor area, even compared to the West Bank. Despite ruling over the area for more than a decade while receiving a huge amount of foreign aid in comparison to the size of the population, the PA did little for the people. It led them into an unnecessary five-year-long destructive war in 1999 that only made things worse for them.

Hamas has now ruled the Gaza Strip for about five years. Yet it has preferred continued war with Israel, a full-scale military mobilisation, and hardline policies rather than working for the development of the area and jobs for the people.

Yet who is blamed for the status of that area today?

— The writer is director of the GLORIA Center, Tel Aviv, and editor of the MERIA Journal.

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