Hamas beats protestors

[ymu]

I agree that the media make it sound like Hamas were the perpetrators of a coup. That could be because there is some truth in it. They took over Gaza through violence, not an election.

Huh?

Let's take this one step by tiny step:

Firstly, Hamas have long been the dominant force in Gaza, whilst the PLO has always been dominant in the West Bank. The deliberate Israeli promotion of the home-grown Islamic opposition in the powder keg that is Gaza had a strong socio-economic influence on this.

To summarise this very simplistically: Palestine was previously very well known for being an intensely secular society, as you might guess from the fact that the PLO has no religiously-based party at all, but it does have strong socialists/communist (and therefore avowedly atheist) representation; this is a key reason the refugees have been so appallingly treated by neighbouring states - they are/were considered a political threat to the status quo. There was no sudden mass conversion in Palestine; the reasons are far more prosaic. Hamas had Israeli-channelled funds to provide the essential social services and food distribution systems which are utterly critical to survival in Gaza; the PLO groups had funds diverted away from them.

The Hamas "coup" in Gaza prior to the last election was a response to the deep corruption within some elements of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority. The leaders who had been in exile never really managed to reconnect with the people and had few qualms about enjoying the priveleges; after all they'd been living in relative comfort in exile for nearly 40 years and could never truly comprehend the reality for the vast majority of Palestinians. This betrayal was particularly cruel as it allowed the outside world to view Palestine as "normal" and nothing more to worry about post-Oslo.

Many Palestinians concluded that Israel could not be tackled before Arafat was dealt with; others argued that the two could be done together, but the latter position became increasingly untenable with the mass reinvasion of the West Bank in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, under cover of the media storm.

When the Palestinian street talks, the politicos of every stripe better listen - these people were born and bred on non-violent direct action and civil disobedience; they have developed resources and determination almost beyond comprehension when viewed from the comfort of the West. I'm not a fan of the men of violence - they dominate the struggle to the detriment of the people, IMO - but it is inevitable that the clean hands of Hamas would step in - would have to step in - to resolve this national scandal once and for all.

To that end, they decided to run in the recent elections, and they won by a very clear margin - a surprise, but frankly not that much of a surprise. Few Israeli elections have seen anything like as big a % of the vote for the winning party as Hamas were able to garner; or indeed Arafat for that matter.

/extra-simplistic remedial class for media-addled neocons

 

[moono]

Additionally, there were at least two attempts on Haniyeh's life in the week prior to the full-scale coup attempt by Fatah. These assassination attempts, orchestrated by Dahlan it is believed, were a part of that coup attempt.


Footnote; With a view to the political path and actually winning control democratically, Hamas announced a unilateral ceasefire in August of 2004. This assisted their election victory in 2006. They broke that ceasefire as a result of the Gaza Beach shelling atrocity, still awaiting investigation. Between those two events the Zionists killed eight hundred Palestinians, many of them women, many of them children, and nearly all of them non-combatants. That's 800.

 

[ymu]

Sssh - it's the remedial class, not the passably intermediate one.

 

[nino_savatte]

I think you made your point very murky.

You're being deliberately obtuse.

 

[ymu]

You're being deliberately obtuse.

I'm not entirely sure he has a choice in the matter.

Approximately the entire world population bar ~300 million know that they all have a better understanding of current events and their historical context than the average educationally-starved American. In 1993 a 7 year old Iraqi could have run rings around any one of them. Nowadays, Iraqi preschoolers would eat them for breakfast and still have plenty of room for more.

Palestinian pre-schoolers, of course, have long known better than to waste their time trying to edumacate the Americans. They realised long ago that the relentless media propaganda will wipe out any newly-discovered neural pathways that might threaten US global hegemony.

 

[nino_savatte]

I'm not entirely sure he has a choice in the matter.

Approximately the entire world population bar ~300 million know that they all have a better understanding of current events and their historical context than the average educationally-starved American. In 1993 a 7 year old Iraqi could have run rings around any one of them. Nowadays, Iraqi preschoolers would eat them for breakfast and still have plenty of room for more.

Palestinian pre-schoolers, of course, have long known better than to waste their time trying to edumacate the Americans. They realised long ago that the relentless media propaganda will wipe out any newly-discovered neural pathways that might threaten US global hegemony.

Aye, true. Iraq had more PhDs per capita than even the US (where many adults aren't functionally literate).

 

[ymu]

Key word had.

 

[nino_savatte]

Key word had.

I remember before the invasion how many yanks thought that the Iraqis were all living in mud huts and couldn't read or write. Talk about projection, eh?

 

[ymu]

I remember before the invasion how many yanks thought that the Iraqis were all living in mud huts and couldn't read of write. Talk about projection, eh?

Heh. I heard of a girl held up at ben Gurion because she claimed to have been living in Ramallah for a long time, without having re-entered Israel. She had an e-mail from her brother with her and they concluded that she had to be lying because Ramallah couldn't have teh internetz. There's a freaking internet cafe on every corner.

Classic colonial dehumanisation of the native inconvenience. It's really remarkable that they could be that ignorant - but then until recently Israelis only went to the OPT to kill people or commit suicide. Maybe apocryphal, but there are a few tales of unhappy Israeli teens wandering across the Green Line and screaming Zio-abuse in a random Palestinian village wanting to get shot ... and being given tea whilst waiting for the army to arrive to take them home.

 

[TAE]

I agree that the media make it sound like Hamas were the perpetrators of a coup. That could be because there is some truth in it. They took over Gaza through violence, not an election.

Hamas won the election, but Fatah (and the west) did not accept it.

Can't you see that?