Hamas Election Victory Shocks World By RAVI NESSMAN Associated Press 27 Jan 06 RAMALLAH, West Bank - Islamic militant Hamas' landslide victory in Palestinian elections unnerved the world, darkening prospects for Mideast peace and ending four decades of rule by the corruption-riddled Fatah Party. The parliamentary victory Thursday stunned even Hamas leaders, who mounted a well-organized campaign but have no experience in government. They offered to share power with President Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah chief, who said he may go around the new government to talk peace with Israel. Underscoring the tensions between the secular Fatah and fundamentalist Hamas, some 3,000 supporters of the militant group marched through Ramallah and raised their party's green flag over the Palestinian parliament. Fatah supporters tried to lower the banner. The two sides fought for about 30 minutes, throwing stones and breaking windows in the building. Abbas, who was elected last year to a four-year term as president of the Palestinian Authority, has yet to decide how closely to work with a group that built its clout through suicide bombings. But his Fatah Party decided not to join a Hamas government, Fatah legislator Saab Erekat said. "We will be a loyal opposition and rebuild the party," Erekat said after meeting with Abbas. Hamas won a clear majority in Wednesday's vote, capturing 76 of the 132 seats in parliament, according to official, near-complete results released Thursday. The results of the popular vote were not announced. Four independent candidates backed by Hamas also won seats. Fatah, which has dominated Palestinian political life since the 1960s but alienated voters because of rampant corruption, got 43 seats. The remaining went to smaller parties. Palestinians across the Gaza Strip and West Bank greeted the election results with joy, setting off fireworks and firing rifles in the air. But leaders across the world demanded that Hamas, which is branded a terror group by the U.S. and European Union, renounce violence and recognize Israel. "If your platform is the destruction of Israel, it means you're not a partner in peace, and we're interested in peace," U.S. President George W. Bush said in Washington. Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas members, and senior Cabinet officials held an emergency meeting to discuss the repercussions of the vote. Acting Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni asked the EU not to deal with a "terror government." Hamas leaders immediately took to the international — and even Israeli — airwaves to send out a moderate message. "Don't be afraid," Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, told the BBC. Mahmoud Zahar, another Hamas leader, said the group would extend its year-old truce if Israel reciprocates. "If not, then I think we will have no option but to protect our people and our land," he said. At a victory news conference late Thursday, however, Haniyeh said Hamas will "complete the liberation of other parts of Palestine." He did not say which territories he was referring to or how he would go about it. Hamas has largely adhered to the cease-fire declared last February, while a smaller militant group, Islamic Jihad, carried out six suicide bombings against Israelis during that period. Abbas said he remained committed to peace talks and suggested they be conducted through the Palestine Liberation Organization rather than the Palestinian Authority. That could help him sidestep a Hamas-run government in peace talks. "I am committed to implementing the program on which you elected me a year ago," he said in a televised speech. "It is a program based on negotiations and peaceful settlement with Israel." Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and his Cabinet resigned to make room for a Hamas-led government. The Islamic group quickly reached out to Abbas to try to work out a partnership, Haniyeh said, adding that he did not expect the Palestinian leader to resign. Hamas leaders had said before the vote they would be content to be a junior partner in the next government. The group campaigned mainly on cleaning up the Palestinian Authority — downplaying the conflict with Israel — and Zahar said Thursday that Hamas planned to overhaul the government. "We are going to change every aspect, as regards the economy, as regards industry, as regards agriculture, as regards social aid, as regards health, administration, education," he said. Some experts believed the Hamas victory would force it to moderate. Others feared it would embolden the group to remake Palestinian life in keeping with its strict interpretation of Islam. "We don't want the Palestinian people and cause to be isolated. We don't want a theocracy," said independent lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi. "Hamas promises reform, sure they will do that, I would like to see reform. But what worries me is things like legislation on education, culture, social welfare, the ramifications for peace in the future." Hamas' victory was cheered in the Arab world, though many said they feared the group would become even more radical under pressure from its hard-line backers, Syria and Iran. The rise of Hamas was certain to be a key issue in Israel's March 28 election. "Today, Hamastan was formed, a representative of Iran and in the image of the Taliban," said Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the opposition Likud Party. Labor Party politician Ami Ayalon, a former head of the Shin Bet security service, said Israel might have to change the route of its West Bank security barrier because of the Hamas victory. Immediately upon taking power, Hamas will be confronted with an avalanche of issues, including what to do about the Palestinian security services, which are comprised of hard-core Fatah members, said Basem Ezbidi, a political science professor at the West Bank's Bir Zeit University. "It's not going to be easy for Hamas to govern these bodies," he said. Others expected Hamas to fold its own fighters into the security forces. Hamas' victory virtually ruled out a resumption of stalled peace efforts, and could push Israel to take further unilateral moves to set its permanent borders, following last year's Gaza pullout. It also could jeopardize hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign donations to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority. Speaking at a news conference, Bush did not directly answer a question about the fate of U.S. aid to the Palestinians, though he suggested Hamas' victory could have an impact. "I made it very clear that the United States does not support political parties that want to destroy our ally Israel, and that people must renounce that part of their platform," he said. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to meet in London on Monday with U.N., Russian and European leaders as the so-called "Quartet" of would-be international peacemakers evaluates the results and tries to decide how to proceed. "The Quartet reiterates its view that there is a fundamental contradiction between armed group and militia activities and the building of a democratic state," U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "A two-state solution to the conflict requires all participants in the democratic process to renounce violence and terror, accept Israel's right to exist, and disarm, as outlined in the 'road map.'" It will be almost impossible for Israel and the Palestinians to sever ties completely. Much of their infrastructure, including water and electricity networks, is intertwined, and the vast majority of Palestinian imports pass through Israeli-controlled borders. Hamas ministers would also need Israeli permission to travel between the West Bank and Gaza. Comment: Well, Dubya and everybody else say they want to "bring democracy" to the Middle East. The Palestinians voted in a Democratic election and Hamas won. Now Dubya sez: "If your platform is the destruction of Israel, it means you're not a partner in peace, and we're interested in peace." Indeed, Dubya is interested in "peace," the peace of the graveyard.

After the Hamas earthquake Leader Friday January 27, 2006 The Guardian Democrats will rightly applaud the 78% turnout in Wednesday's elections to the Palestinian parliament, which were remarkably fair, free and peaceful. George Bush and Tony Blair, who set such store by promoting democracy in Iraq and (selectively) elsewhere in the Middle East, should be delighted. The only problem is the result: preliminary figures show a stunning victory for the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, long shunned as a terrorist organisation not only by Israel but also by the US, Europe and Russia. This is a catastrophic defeat for Fatah, the natural party of liberation and government for Palestinians for 40 years and for half that period committed to a two-state solution to this most intractable of conflicts. Hamas is no ordinary political party. Until it participated in this election it was best known in Israel and abroad for the suicide attacks it used against its Israeli enemies. In Gaza and the West Bank it was admired for its network of social services and opposition to the corruption which became a byword for Fatah and the PLO, under Yasser Arafat and then Mahmoud Abbas. Ideologically, Hamas is close to where the PLO was 30 years ago, wedded to armed struggle and to the replacement of Israel by a Palestinian state. It was hardly a good sign when its leader in exile met recently with the Iranian president, who calls for the eradication of Israel. Rhetoric and reality may, however, be different: Hamas's election manifesto did not repeat the call of its charter for the destruction of the Jewish state. It has been disciplined enough to largely observe a year-long ceasefire and has hinted it may continue that indefinitely. Its electoral triumph probably owes less to its resistance to occupation - an unequal struggle against Israeli F16's, Hellfire missiles and targeted assassinations - than to its demand for clean hands and delivery. Paradoxically, a victory whose scale was unanticipated even by expert local pollsters, might - just - turn out to be better news that it looks. Had Hamas won just a few ministerial seats in a powersharing cabinet dominated by Fatah, the tension between politics and resistance could have been hard to resolve. If its parliamentary majority - 76 out of 132 seats, to Fatah's 43 - is to mean total responsibility, the Kalashnikovs and explosive belts will have to go. It is hard to imagine Hamas running an effective government without dealing with Israelis. It is even harder to see the Israelis dealing with it except through the barrel of a gun if bombs start going off on buses in Tel Aviv. That is why the right response to this result is to insist that Hamas make clear that it is committed to negotiations with Israel. The new parliament should pass and implement a draft political parties law requiring armed militias to disband. By the same token Israel must meet its obligations under the internationally backed "road map" for peace, including the cessation of all settlement activity. Israel will be deeply sceptical both of Hamas's intentions and outside advice and will be tempted to go for more unilateral moves on the model of the Gaza pullout pushed through by Ariel Sharon last summer. It will be hard to argue with Ehud Olmert, Mr Sharon's successor, facing a testing election in March, when he says Israel has "no partner" for peace. Mr Olmert will only weaken his new centrist Kadima party if he is seen making any concessions to what the Likud leader, Binyamin Netanyahu, yesterday ominously but predictably dubbed "Hamasistan". Outsiders such as the EU and US should watch to see if conditional engagement will increase their leverage and encourage Hamas to take the gun and the bomb out of Palestinian politics. Victory for Hamas is a Middle Eastern earthquake that may bring new opportunities to the immense task of building peace between two peoples who have been fighting for far too long in the same small country. But for the moment it is the dangers that are far more obvious.

Israel decides not to negotiate with Hamas Xinhua 27 Jan 06 Israeli emergency cabinet meeting decided Thursday night that Israel would not negotiate with Hamas until it renounced violence and recognized Israel's right to exist. Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert convened the meeting to discuss the government's plans for dealing with the Hamas's surprising victory in Wednesday's Palestinian legislative elections. Cabinet members also urged the United States and European Union to support Israel and apply pressure on Hamas, according to Israeli Channel 10 TV. Earlier in the day Olmert instructed the ministers not to make any public statements concerning the Hamas win. Comment: Regarding Israel's demand that Hamas renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist, we recently read an op-ed piece by Justin Keating, first published in The Dubliner in November of 2005 that says, in part: I have reached the conclusion that the Zionists have absolutely no right in what they call Israel, that they have built their state not beside but on top of the Palestinian people, and that there can be no peace as long as contemporary Israel retains its present form. I hasten to make clear that none of this gives me any pleasure, but in the great scheme of things my personal wishes do not weigh heavily in the scale pans of history. I wish I did not think what I do, I hope I am wrong. My conclusions are based on the answers to five questions. 1. Did the Jews of the Old Testament come from what is now Israel? The answer is No. 2. Are the Jews of the world today simply the descendants of the people of the Diaspora two thousand years ago? The answer is, only in part. 3. Does the right of return apply to people who occupied some land two thousand years ago for a historically brief period, to the detriment of those who have been there since? Obviously no. Imagine a world where every people claimed that right. 4. Did the Balfour Declaration give the Zionists the right to establish a state in Israel? The answer is no. At the time the British Government had no right to give. 5. Did the United Nations Resolution of November 1947 give Zionists the right to establish the present state of Israel? The answer is no, and they have continuously and relentlessly violated that resolution for more than half a century, so that any tatters that now remain are void, by their action. [T]he Hebrew Tribes came out of Mesopotamia. They moved from Ur in southwest Mesopotamia to Haran, in northwest Mesopotamia. It was here that Abraham was told, by the God that the Jews had invented to leave his land and kinsmen for a new country. Obedient to the divine voice, he moved into western Palestine, the land of the Canaanites. The above is loosely but accurately quoted from Eban. It follows that the Jews came from far away, that they claimed the land of Canaan because their God gave it to them, and there were Canaanites there already. Israel's Declaration of Independence in 1948 states, "The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people." This was a self serving and untruthful Zionist myth. [T]he assumption that the Jews of the world (all of whom claim the right of return) are descendants of the Diaspora takes no account of the Kingdom of the Khazars, about whom Arthur Koestler wrote a book arguing that he and other Ashkanazi Jews were their descendents. Also, it assumes that no Jewish girl ever got pregnant (over 2,000 years) by a non-Jew, and brought the child home to her parents, and it also forgets that the converted wives or husbands who were born non-Jewish can, on conversion, claim the right of return. At the time of the Balfour Declaration, the Ottoman Empire, which was the ruling power in Palestine, was falling apart, but the British Government had no rights in the area. The Declaration was made to a private person, the head of the Rothschild family, and while Balfour was promising the Jews a nation home in Palestine, T.E. Lawrence was promising the same thing to Palestinian Arabs. In law and in equity it has no validity. Finally, when the United Nations passed its historic resolution (with Britain abstaining) it was a plan for partition. What was new and crucial was that it recognized Jewish sovereignty. The flight of the ignorant Palestinian peasants was founded on such atrocities as the massacre at Deir Yasin where Zionist terrorists filled the well with slaughtered peasants, and went to adjoining villages saying, "Look what happened over there." In addition, there were bogus broadcasts purporting to come from Palestinian leaders, advising flight. The Jewish-Arab partnership, pleaded for so eloquently by David Ben Gurion -"based on equality and mutual assistance," to quote his words - was from the beginning a lie which Zionist fundamentalists did not believe. Those same fundamentalists, who are in the ascendant now, can only say, "We are here because our God gave it to us." That is too weak for me I'm afraid. All of this is a huge tragedy for ordinary Zionist people, who have been led up a blind alley by fanatics. But it is more. Jews have made an immense contribution to civilization, developing as they were between the great empires of Mesopotamia and the Nile, with both of which they had intimate contact, and by which they wanted to avoid being swallowed. They developed a religion and an ethos based on independence, liberty and democracy to which we all owe a debt. That religion is based on the twin concepts of Law and Righteousness, which inspired over the millennia extraordinary contributions to culture and morality. All admirable. In Israel/Palestine, where are they now? Zionists have betrayed all of this, and that is a tragedy not just for Jews, but for all of us.

The Palestinians' democratic choice must be respected Jonathan Steele Friday January 27, 2006 The Guardian The excuses given for refusing to deal with Hamas will not wash. This is a chance for Europe to have an independent role Hamas's triumph in Wednesday's Palestinian elections is the best news from the Middle East for a long time. The poll was a more impressive display of democracy than any other in the region, outstripping last year's votes in Lebanon and Iraq both in turnout and the range of views that candidates represented. Whereas in Iraq parties that opposed the occupation had to downplay or even obscure their views, Palestinian supporters of armed resistance to Israel's expansionist strategies were able to run openly. It is true that Hamas candidates did not make relations with Israel the centrepiece of their campaign. They focused on reform in the Palestinian Authority. But few voters were unaware of Hamas's uncompromising hostility to occupation and its record in fighting it. Wednesday's election was remarkable also in owing nothing to Washington's (selective) efforts to promote democracy in the Arab world. Instead, it was further proof that civil society in Palestine is more vibrant than anywhere else in the region and that Palestinian politics has its own dynamics, dictated not by outside pressure but the social and economic demands of ordinary people in appalling conditions. Providing a forum to freely express hopes and fears, debate policy and seek agreed solutions is, after all, what democracy is about. In Israel and Washington reaction to Hamas's victory has been predictably negative. European governments should take a more sensitive view. The first watchword is caution. Applaud the process but don't take issue with the result. While the dust settles and Hamas works out its own priorities for government, Europeans should calmly analyse why Hamas got so much support. Among several Hamas leaders I met in Gaza last summer, Mahmoud Zahar, one of its last surviving founders, exuded the clearest sense of inner steel. Trained as a medical doctor in Cairo, and now a short middle-aged figure with combed-over grey hair, he left several impressions. This is no mosque-driven revolutionary or wealthy jihadi of the Osama bin Laden type, motivated by ideology or a desire for adventure. Like other Gazans, he has felt the occupation on his skin. His wife was paralysed and his eldest son killed by an Israeli F-16 attack on his house in 2003. Zahar was in the garden and lucky to survive. In spite of that, he took the lead last year in persuading colleagues that Hamas should declare a truce or period of "calm" with Israel. For 11 months no Hamas member has gone on a suicide bombing mission. That is no mean achievement, which foreign diplomats rarely credit. Zahar's reasons were not just tactical - a desire to deny Sharon a pretext for abandoning his retreat from Gaza. His strategy is to de-escalate the confrontation with Israel for a long period so that Palestinian society can build a new sense of unity, revive its inner moral strength and clean up its institutions. He feels western governments give aid and use the issue of negotiations with Israel only as a device for conditionality and pressure, not in the interests of justice. So he wants Palestinians to have a broad-based coalition government that will look to the Arab and Islamic worlds for economic partners and diplomatic support. It's a kind of "parallel unilateralism", matching the mood in Israel where the peace camp clearly has lost all real purchase. "Israeli attitudes show they don't intend to make any agreement. They're going to take many unilateral steps," Zahar told me. "In this bad unbalanced situation and with the interference of the west in the affairs of every Arab country, especially Syria and Lebanon, we can live without any agreement and have a 'calm' for a long time. We're in favour of a long-term truce without recognition of Israel, provided Sharon is also looking for a truce. Everything will change in 10 or 20 years." Zahar also left me with no sense of embarrassment about the imminence of power. He pointed out that Mahmoud Abbas would remain president for three more years, as though implying he could be a convenient front for inevitably unproductive talks with Washington and Israel while Hamas acted as a watchdog on the main issues. "There will be no contradiction between the Palestine legislative council and the president," he said. "We will be the safeguard, and the safety valve, against any betrayal." Along with caution in reacting to the Hamas victory, Europe's second priority should be to maintain continuity. Any cut-off in EU aid would only be a gift to Israel's hardliners. The EU is the largest international donor to the Palestinian Authority, and Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, blundered last month when he told a Gaza press conference that "it would be very difficult for the help and the money that goes to the Palestinian Authority to continue to flow" if Hamas were in government. Yesterday's EU statements were more measured. If Europe, weak though its power may currently be, wants to have an independent role in the Middle East, clearly different from the manipulative US approach, it is vital to go on funding the PA regardless of the Hamas presence in government. Nor should the EU fall back on the cynical hope that Hamas will be as corrupt as Fatah, and so lose support. You cannot use European taxpayers' money to strengthen Palestinian institutions while privately wanting reforms to fail. Hamas should be encouraged in aiming to be more honest than its predecessors. Above all, Europe should not get hung up on the wrong issues, like armed resistance and the "war on terror". Murdering a Palestinian politician by a long-range attack that is bound also to kill innocent civilians is morally and legally no better than a suicide bomb on a bus. Hamas's refusal to give formal recognition of Israel's right to exist should also not be seen by Europe as an urgent problem. History and international politics do not march in tidy simultaneous steps. For decades Israel refused even to recognise the existence of the Palestinian people, just as Turkey did not recognise the Kurds. Until 15 years ago Palestinians had to be smuggled to international summits as part of Jordan's delegation. It is less than that since the Israeli government accepted the goal of a Palestinian state. Hamas may eventually disarm itself and recognise Israel. That will be the end of the process of establishing a just modus vivendi for Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East. It cannot be the first step. Today's priority is to accept that Palestinians have spoken freely. They deserve respect and support.

Arabs see US and Israel changing stance on Hamas Daily Times reuters January 27, 2006 CAIRO: Israel and the United States will eventually adapt to the reality of an electoral victory by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, opening new opportunities for Middle East peace talks, Arab commentators said on Thursday. The upset result, which has not been officially confirmed, could also lead Hamas to alter its hardline position, which now advocates an Islamic state embracing all of Israel and the Palestinian territories, they added. Hamas’s victory over the long-established Fatah movement in the parliamentary elections was a victory for democracy in practice in the Arab world, even if it was not what the United States wants when it calls for political change, they said. Arab governments, many of which face domestic opposition from popular Islamist movements sympathetic to Hamas, had no immediate comment on the election results. But in the face of widespread admiration for Hamas and a decline in support for Fatah in the Arab world, Arab leaders too are likely soon to start treating Hamas with more respect. The Egyptian government already has a good working relationship with Hamas despite the historic ties and strategic alliance between Hamas and the opposition Muslim Brotherhood. Mohamed Habib, deputy leader of the Egyptian Islamist movement, told Reuters that the vote for Hamas meant that Palestinians had opted for the choice of “resistance”. “(Israel and the United States) will have no alternative but to deal with Hamas ... The Americans will submit to this, especially as Hamas does not want to monopolise power,” he said. “The Americans will start secret contacts with Hamas and in fact they have already started. But in the first moments they will exert public pressure to try to make Hamas change some of its ideas,” added Diaa Rashwan, an Egyptian specialist on Islamist movements in the Middle East. Israeli pragmatism: Mohamed el-Sayed Said, deputy director of the Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, said Israelis would probably be more pragmatic about Hamas than the Bush administration, which has locked itself into an ideological position of hostility towards a group it calls terrorist. Jawad al-Anani, a former Jordanian minister and now an analyst based in Dubai, said recent comments by US officials setting conditions for dealing with Hamas showed that a negotiating process had already started. While many in Israel and the West saw the Hamas victory as an obstacle to peace, many Arabs took the opposite view. “The (Palestinian) voters have answered Israeli extremism with a Palestinian counterpart and I believe only those more extreme sides will produce peace,” said Anani. “We want hardline politicians in the face of the Israeli hardliners. We need that in order to deal with Israel, which gave nothing in return for ... concessions. We need an Arab Sharon,” added political analyst Dawoud Sharayan, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. No early peace talks: Abdulaziz al-Mahmoud, a Qatari columnist and political writer, said Hamas was in a strong political position after winning elections while retaining its armed wing. “But they are also humans who want to live in peace, so I believe they will start negotiations with Israel, but as equals, not like the Palestinian Authority that gave so many concessions which were not returned by the Israeli side,” he added. A Jordanian official said: “The Hamas victory could have enormous implications for the peace process and Hamas must now act responsibly to ensure the Palestinians don’t lose more.” In practice, none of the commentators expected a formal resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks any time soon and certainly no early breakthroughs on substance. Israel has been taking unilateral steps without consulting the Palestinians. The United States has not shown signs it is about to push for Middle East peace talks. “What is being said - that a Hamas victory is a blow to the so-called peace process - is not true. There is nothing on offer to the Palestinians other than (living in) large prisons - Gaza and the West Bank,” Sateh Noureddine, columnist at the Lebanese daily newspaper as-Safir, told Reuters. Rashwan interpreted the Hamas victory as part of the Arab backlash against the Bush administration’s “war on terror”, seen in the Arab world as a war on political Islam. Comment: In fact, if there is wide-spread popular support for Hamas among the peoples of other Muslim countries, the election of Hamas in Palestine may very well be the first dominoe to fall that will ultimately create a coalition of Islamic countries that is capable and motivated to stand against Israel and the U.S.; certainly not a pleasant thought for either of them.

Rice says Hamas must renounce determination to see destruction of Israel 11:57:47 EST Jan 26, 2006 WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday the U.S. position on Hamas as a terrorist organization has not changed despite the militant group's stunning victory in Palestinian elections. "You cannot have one foot in politics and another in terror," Rice told the World Economic Conference in Davos, Switzerland, via telephone hookup to the State Department. "Our position on Hamas has therefore not changed." Rice spoke shortly after Palestinian voters rejected the longtime rule of the Fatah party, throwing the future of Mideast peacemaking into question. "Palestinian people have apparently voted for change, but we believe their aspirations for peace and a peaceful life remain unchanged," she said. Rice said those goals will require renunciation of violence and terrorism and acceptance of Israel's right to exist side-by-side with a Palestinian state. "You can't have a peace process if you're not committed to the right of your partner to exist," she said. She urged the international community to "speak clearly and truly to its principles" and urge Palestinians to renounce violence. Rice is to meet in London on Monday with UN, Russian and European leaders as the so-called "Quartet" of nations evaluates the results and tries to decide how to proceed with peacemaking efforts. On Wednesday, the Bush administration had said in advance of the balloting that it would not deal with Hamas. Comment: South Africa was a racist state, founded upon apartheid. Today, that has changed. Do we say that South Africa was "destroyed"? Certainly, racist Afrikaners might phrase it that way. Would the transformation of Israel into one state, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan river, where Palestinians and Jews lived together without one religion having dominance, be the "destruction" of Israel? What type of person would see it that way, would see the giving of equal rights to all citizens as "destruction" and a step backwards rather than a step forward to true peace?

Flashback: Hamas history tied to Israel By Richard Sale UPI Terrorism Correspondent 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. In the wake of a suicide bomb attack Tuesday on a crowded Jerusalem city bus that killed 19 people and wounded at least 70 more, the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, took credit for the blast. Israeli officials called it the deadliest attack in Jerusalem in six years. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon immediately vowed to fight "Palestinian terror" and summoned his cabinet to decide on a military response to the organization that Sharon had once described as "the deadliest terrorist group that we have ever had to face." Active in Gaza and the West Bank, Hamas wants to liberate all of Palestine and establish a radical Islamic state in place of Israel. It is has gained notoriety with its assassinations, car bombs and other acts of terrorism. But Sharon left something out. 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. According to documents United Press International obtained from the Israel-based Institute for Counter Terrorism, Hamas evolved from cells of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928. Islamic movements in Israel and Palestine were "weak and dormant" until after the 1967 Six Day War in which Israel scored a stunning victory over its Arab enemies. After 1967, a great part of the success of the Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood was due to their activities among the refugees of the Gaza Strip. The cornerstone of the Islamic movements success was an impressive social, religious, educational and cultural infrastructure, called Da'wah, that worked to ease the hardship of large numbers of Palestinian refugees, confined to camps, and many who were living on the edge. "Social influence grew into political influence," first in the Gaza Strip, then on the West Bank, said an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity. According to ICT papers, Hamas was legally registered in Israel in 1978 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the movement's spiritual leader, as an Islamic Association by the name Al-Mujamma al Islami, which widened its base of supporters and sympathizers by religious propaganda and social work. According to U.S. administration officials, funds for the movement came from the oil-producing states and directly and indirectly from Israel. The PLO was secular and leftist and promoted Palestinian nationalism. Hamas wanted to set up a transnational state under the rule of Islam, much like Khomeini's Iran. What took Israeli leaders by surprise was the way the Islamic movements began to surge after the Iranian revolution, after armed resistance to Israel sprang up in southern Lebanon vis-�-vis the Hezbollah, backed by Iran, these sources said. "Nothing provides the energy for imitation as much as success," commented one administration expert. A further factor of Hamas' growth was the fact the PLO moved its base of operations to Beirut in the '80s, leaving the Islamic organization to grow in influence in the Occupied Territories "as the court of last resort," he said. When the intifada began, Israeli leadership was surprised when Islamic groups began to surge in membership and strength. Hamas immediately grew in numbers and violence. The group had always embraced the doctrine of armed struggle, but the doctrine had not been practiced and Islamic groups had not been subjected to suppression the way groups like Fatah had been, according to U.S. government officials. But with the triumph of the Khomeini revolution in Iran, with the birth of Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorism in Lebanon, Hamas began to gain in strength in Gaza and then in the West Bank, relying on terror to resist the Israeli occupation. Israel was certainly funding the group at that time. One U.S. intelligence source who asked not to be named said that not only was Hamas being funded as a "counterweight" to the PLO, Israeli aid had another purpose: "To help identify and channel towards Israeli agents Hamas members who were dangerous terrorists." In addition, by infiltrating Hamas, Israeli informers could only listen to debates on policy and identify Hamas members who "were dangerous hard-liners," the official said. In the end, as Hamas set up a very comprehensive counterintelligence system, many collaborators with Israel were weeded out and shot. Violent acts of terrorism became the central tenet, and Hamas, unlike the PLO, was unwilling to compromise in any way with Israel, refusing to acquiesce in its very existence. But even then, some in Israel saw some benefits to be had in trying to continue to give Hamas support: "The thinking on the part of some of the right-wing Israeli establishment was that Hamas and the others, if they gained control, would refuse to have any part of the peace process and would torpedo any agreements put in place," said a U.S. government official who asked not to be named. "Israel would still be the only democracy in the region for the United States to deal with," he said. All of which disgusts some former U.S. intelligence officials. "The thing wrong with so many Israeli operations is that they try to be too sexy," said former CIA official Vincent Cannestraro. According to former State Department counter-terrorism official Larry Johnson, "the Israelis are their own worst enemies when it comes to fighting terrorism." "The Israelis are like a guy who sets fire to his hair and then tries to put it out by hitting it with a hammer." "They do more to incite and sustain terrorism than curb it," he said. Aid to Hamas may have looked clever, "but it was hardly designed to help smooth the waters," he said. "An operation like that gives weight to President George Bush's remark about there being a crisis in education." Cordesman said that a similar attempt by Egyptian intelligence to fund Egypt's fundamentalists had also come to grief because of "misreading of the complexities." An Israeli defense official was asked if Israel had given aid to Hamas said, "I am not able to answer that question. I was in Lebanon commanding a unit at the time, besides it is not my field of interest." Asked to confirm a report by U.S. officials that Brig. Gen. Yithaq Segev, the military governor of Gaza, had told U.S. officials he had helped fund "Islamic movements as a counterweight to the PLO and communists," the official said he could confirm only that he believed Segev had served back in 1986. The Israeli Embassy press office referred UPI to its Web site when asked to comment. Copyright © 2001-2004 United Press International

Where to now, Palestine? Some reflections Thursday, January 26, 2006 Gilad Atzmon The consequences of today’s Hamas victory aren’t yet clear, however the election results have revealed beyond doubt some fundamental information about Palestine and the Arab world: *Democracy = Islam. Once again the West and especially the Anglo-Americans must acknowledge the obvious fact: democracy in the Arab world means Islam. Unless one is severely Islamophobic this shouldn’t raise a problem. But apparently, we have too many Islam haters both in the left and in the right who happen to be horrified by the success of Islam among the masses. Anyhow, yesterday’s election in Palestine should serve as the last warning for those who now insist upon ‘democratising’ Syria. *‘One Democratic and Secular Palestine’ - may be a dated concept and had better be dropped right away. The overwhelmingly repeated leftist call for ‘one democratic and secular Palestine’, has apparently very little to do with the Palestinian reality. Apparently, the majority of the Palestinian people in Palestine prefer to live in an Islamic state rather than in a secular and democratic one, with democracy not meaning ‘voice of the people’, but rather a limited and restricted Western definition of it. It is now evident that the call for a secular Palestinian state was there to serve the interests of some left-wing Zionist schools à la Yossi Beilin who outrageously denounced the Hamas just days before the election. Surprisingly enough, this very call against the Hamas and in favour of a democratic secular state is rather popular amongst different factions of Jewish Anti-Zionist and Palestinian solidarity groups. Let’s all face it; the Palestinian people have chosen to live in a Muslim state rather than in a secular one. If we are as democratic as we claim to be, it is down to us to respect and welcome the Palestinian people’s choice. I would suggest that to support Palestine is to support the Palestinian people and their right of return regardless of their political, theological or cultural choices. However, we have to remember that almost half of the Palestinian people voted for the Fatah movement, in other words, very many Palestinians may prefer to live in a secular state. It is necessary to add as well that the vote today represents the choice of the Palestinian people who live in Palestine. It is rather possible that an election that would include Diaspora Palestinians in the region and overseas might well lead to different results altogether. Dealing with the Palestinian cause, we must take such a possibility into consideration. At the end of the day, the majority of Palestinians live outside of Palestine, they were ethnically cleansed in 1948 and ever since then. * The Left discourse has lost its relevancy; it desperately craves an immediate face-lift. For more than a while it is rather clear that left ideology struggles to find its way within the emerging battle between the West and the Near East. The parameters of the so-called ‘cultural clash’ are so cleverly set that the ‘rational’ and ‘atheist’ leftist is always doomed to find oneself closer to Donald Rumsfeld than to a Muslim cleric. As long as left ideology is entangled with rational and anti-religious thinking parameters, it will be a struggle for it to ally itself with today’s oppressed, i.e. Arabs. If the European left insists upon maintaining its relevance, it must reassess its worldviews regarding rationality, religion and especially Islam. If the left insists upon maintaining its relevancy it must re-evaluate the entire idea of working class politics. Apparently, the oppressed Iraqis have very little in common with the 19th century European working class. The left must engage in a new terminology of ethnicity and cultural differentiation. Rather than imposing our beliefs upon others, we better learn to understand what others believe in. A scrutiny of the notions of Jihad and Shahid are no doubt a good place to start. *While the Israeli street is showing some real signs of mental fatigue, the Palestinians happen to be as resilient as ever. As it happens, the Israelis are now drifting en mass towards Kadima, the new political agenda founded two months ago by the gravely ill Sharon. In fact, there is nothing new or innovative about Kadima, it was created to re-launch the old left Zionist fantasy of a Jewish, racist, national state with an overwhelmingly Jewish majority and dominance. Apparently, The Israelis love this option. They love the idea of the resurrection of the East European ghetto, right in the heart of the Middle East. Seemingly, the Fatah was willing to negotiate with this Israeli agenda. Rationally speaking, it is impossible to blame them. The Fatah did realise a while ago that it is quite impossible to militarily defeat American-backed Israeli might. Moreover, it is crucial to mention that almost half of the Palestinian people in Palestine agree with the Fatah. They just couldn’t bear the Israeli occupation anymore. The Hamas, on the other hand, said NO to Israel and as we happen to learn this morning, the majority of the Palestinian people followed the Hamas. They said NO to Zionist segregation, they said NO to Israeli occupation, they said NO to shredding Palestine into Bantustans. Moreover, they say NO to the idea of a Jewish state in the midst of Palestine. They say NO to the idea of a political settlement imposed by America. They say YES to an Islamic Palestine. In short, while the Israelis are showing some clear signs of defeatism, the majority of the Palestinians insist upon claiming their legitimate rights. I have no doubt that justice for the Palestinian people will prevail. Whether the Hamas has the power to move things forward for the Palestinians in the short term is hard to say. Moreover, the Hamas is a large movement with more than just a single voice. For instance, for more than a while I am aware of some leaders within the Hamas who believe that the two state solution may guarantee separation from the Israelis and their Western liberal lifestyle. In other words, even within the Hamas there are those who believe in two state solution, though for very different reasons. However, it will be interesting to watch what a pragmatic Hamas’s agenda is going to be. Today more than any other day, it is rather clear that supporting Palestine and the Palestinian people must be grounded on listening to the many voices of Palestine. Rather than imposing our worldviews on the Palestinian people, we better let the Palestinians be. We should listen to them and try to find our way within their complicated cause.