The Arab World Sees The Threat Of Hamas More Clearly Than The West

In The New Backbone of the Sunni Resistance, Michael Totten writes:

...even the more hysterical residents of Arabic countries see clearly that the geopolitical tectonic plates in the region are shifting. The governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen came out strongly against Hamas and in favor of their Fatah rivals at a meeting in Abu Dhabi this week.

But if this shift really is seismic in proportion, it is not yet universal in reach.
The question is why. Emanuele Ottolenghi asks:

At a meeting in Abu Dhabi, Arab leaders made it abundantly clear who the sole representative of the Palestinian people is: PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah dominated PLO. So why is there so much insistence among Western diplomats and pundits alike on turning Hamas into a legitimate interlocutor? Granted, the PLO has not exactly delivered the goods in nearly two decades of “peace process,” but who’s to argue that Hamas would do better? Clearly, Arab leaders do not think so. Why should we undermine their efforts to sideline the Islamist organization that is a threat to their stability, and therefore, to our (Western) interests in the region? [emphasis added]

In an article in The Wall Street Journal, Judea Pearl, father of the murdered Daniel Pearl, sees examples of this inexplicable support for Hamas, where--unforeseen by anyone:

this ideology of barbarism would be celebrated in European and American universities, fueling rally after rally for Hamas, Hezbollah and other heroes of "the resistance."

...Some American pundits and TV anchors didn't seem much different from Al Jazeera in their analysis of the recent war in Gaza. Bill Moyers was quick to lend Hamas legitimacy as a "resistance" movement, together with honorary membership in PBS's imaginary "cycle of violence." In his Jan. 9 TV show, Mr. Moyers explained to his viewers that "each [side] greases the cycle of violence, as one man's terrorism becomes another's resistance to oppression."

...At my own university, UCLA, a symposium last week on human rights turned into a Hamas recruitment rally by a clever academic gimmick. The director of the Center for Near East Studies carefully selected only Israel bashers for the panel, each of whom concluded that the Jewish state is the greatest criminal in human history.

Why indeed is there this benevolent view of Hamas? Michael Yon doesn't understand it either:

It is amazing to me, as an American who travels the world on a near-constant basis, that there is so much confusion over who the terrorists are. Hamas is a terrorist organization that condones and facilitates suicide bombings and will kill every Jew on the planet if they have the chance. Meanwhile, Israel is an energetic democracy with a vibrant press. I could sit right here in Jerusalem and write bad things about Israel and Jews, and nothing would happen.

...By contrast, if a writer were to go to Gaza or Iran, for instance, and start writing bad words, he might wind up on the news, dead. Israel allows Christians and Arab Muslims to worship freely, while Hamas wants to see us all at the bottom of the sea.

Returning to Ottolenghi's question, So why is there so much insistence among Western diplomats and pundits alike on turning Hamas into a legitimate interlocutor--Norman Geras offers an answer:

i. "The outrage is based rather on a cynicism towards international law which I have posted about before and which consists of treating international law as a mere convenience, something to use rhetorically and polemically when it suits you to do so - but only then"

ii. "...there are always leftists ready to believe that if a movement has some justice to its cause, a progressive component in its programme or outlook, it is to be supported. And that means its crimes and deficiencies must be passed over, be silently ignored or at the very least played down. Today Hamas is the beneficiary of this complaisance and this complicity."

iii. "Not all of this hostility can be accounted anti-Semitic. But some of it is. Only the blindest can ignore the plain manifestations of anti-Semitism now evident both amongst Israel's regional adversaries and within the worldwide protests against Israel's actions in Gaza and disfiguring them. As worrying is the fact that the same liberal-left aforementioned that populates these protests and in doing so looks away from the crimes of Israel's opponents, a liberal-left that is, to a man and a woman, proud of its anti-racism, proud of its sensitivity to 'Islamophobia', is silent about this growth of anti-Semitism, shamefully silent, having forgotten in just the one case its avowed duty of solidarity with the victims of prejudice everywhere."

Who would have thought that the Arab world could be more clear-eyed about the threat of Hamas than liberals in the West?

Technorati Tag: Israel and Gaza and Hamas and Operation Cast Lead.