Bad to Worse

Daniel Levy observes that efforts to isolate Hamas are, indeed, weakening its sway over the Palestinian population to some extent. Weakening it in favor of al-Qaeda.

Comments

This finding has been the subject of several stories in the Israeli press over the past month. I fail to see how these al Quada terrorists are any worse then the Hamas terrorists. They all have the same objective, namely to force the Government of Israel to go out of business.

Posted by SLC | June 1, 2007 6:22 PM

When and where was the last Hamas sponsored attack outside of greater Israel?

Posted by simple answers | June 1, 2007 9:50 PM

Hamas got a big boost through covert support from Israel in the 80s, who saw it as a counterbalance to the PLO. Not a great decision in retrospect but reminiscent of some unintended consequences resulting from CIA intervention. Nothing, of course, would undermine the more radical Palestinian factions like a just peace settlement. Hopefully the next U.S. and Israeli administrations are going to be in a position to reopen productive negotiations.

Posted by Jake | June 2, 2007 2:34 AM

What will grow from this assault on Hamas (and continuing Israeli/American attempts to suppress people's right to self-determination in general) will, obviously, be more radical than Hamas. And certainly it might conclude that attacking the US is an option. Well, as they say: you reap what you sow.

Posted by abb1 | June 2, 2007 5:05 AM

abb1,

Well, as they say: you reap what you sow.

Fair enough, but curious if that applies to such actions as:

1) Shooting Qassam rockets (especially knowing what the reaction would be);
2) Suicide Bombing civilian targets;
3) The intifada generally;
4) Or in a political sense, demanding concessions from an "entity" you refuse to recognize, and instead, repeatedly calling for its destruction.

Or is that maxim only a one way street? (It's pretty racist to say Palestinians aren't capable of reaping what they sow, no?)

But in this specific case - the topic of the NY Times article - while certainly the U.S. and Israel have cause for concern, it is the Palestinians themselves who should be the most concerned as the targets here are Palestinian pharmacies, internet cafes, cd and video stores, and shooting at schools that allow co-ed sports, etc...

Aside from that, there's a lot of havoc that can still be wreaked on the near enemy - and any type of peace deal will be further frustrated by this type of behavior.

I doubt even most European governments are going to conclude that the answer is freeing up aid money for Hamas, but you never know.

Posted by SoCalJustice | June 2, 2007 9:36 AM

SoCalJustice:

"I doubt even most European governments are going to conclude that the answer is freeing up aid money for Hamas, but you never know."

This raises an interesting question. What if Hamas has created a faux Al Qaeda cell or two in Gaza? Would they be clever enough to do this? Imagine the benefit: instead of being henpecked to become more "moderate" like Fatah (whose Islamist spin-off is current in a shooting war with the Lebanese government), why not redefine what moderate means? Compared to Al Qaeda, Hamas could pitch itself as moderate.

Posted by Fred | June 2, 2007 5:04 PM

But what did they sow, SoCalJustice? They just happen to live there. Read something, this, for example.

Posted by abb1 | June 3, 2007 11:17 AM

abb1, so your answer then is no, "reaping what they sow" does not apply to them...

Even in Hedge's article, there's plenty of actions by certain Palestinians which guarantee a boomerang effect.

One example:

One shows an Israeli bus, marked by a Star of David, smashed and on fire. "Don't be merciful to those inside" reads the slogan underneath. "Blow it up! Hit it!" Hamas has signed the mural. Another shows masked Palestinian gunmen, AK-47 assault rifles strapped to their backs, loading a mortar to fire on a settlement. One mural shows a pile of yellow skulls, all marked with a blue Star of David.

Etc.., etc...

Saying that you "understand" where that comes from is one thing. Saying that what "is sewn" by those actions has no "reaping" effect - well, that's clearly wrong.

It's come back to haunt Palestinians something fierce (also known as "brutal" and/or "disproporionate" and/or "arbitrary" violence - that didn't exist before the intifada).

And now its haunting them for other reasons.

Posted by SoCalJustice | June 3, 2007 12:29 PM

There are two people on the Internet who can argue what you're arguing without annoying me, or at least without inevitably annoying me. That's just wrong, a bug in the system.

Posted by abb1 | June 4, 2007 10:33 AM