Hamas Improves on the Arafat Model

There was a time, when Arafat was in charge, that it was frowned upon for leaders of countries dependent on Western aid to come right out in public and say that their goal was to destroy Israel. Arafat's technique was to say one thing in public in English for international consumption and something else in Arabic for his Moslem audience. The West was so eager to believe in Oslo that even when Arafat's words in Arabic were translated into English, you could hear the creaking sound as people bent over backwards to justify and explain what Arafat really meant.

But today you don't even have to go to the trouble. Take Hamas for example. If you phrase things just right, then like looking at a Rorshach ink blog, the listener can hear what he wants to hear. The Jerusalem Post quotes a Hamas spokesman and even does us the favor of explaining what he's supposedly saying:

Sheikh Adnan Asfour, one of the political leaders of Hamas in the West Bank, said Hamas did not want to destroy Israel or remove it from the map.

"Hamas recognizes Israel as a fact on the ground," he said. "But we don't recognize the legitimacy of its occupation."

But Asfour didn't say that Hamas did not want to destroy Israel. All he said is that Israel's existence is a fact, but does not think its occupation of Palestinian land is legitimate. Does this imply that he--or Hamas--is ready to live with Israel or have given up on the idea of destroying it?

Further:

Asfour reiterated his movement's willingness to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 boundaries and to reach a long-term cease-fire with Israel.

"That way the Israelis would be able to guarantee their security and we would also be able to live in security," he said. "Let's leave the conflict to future generations to resolve."

Even assuming that the Hamas definition of a Palestinian state matches Israel's definition--including agreement on what the capital of this Palestinian state will be--how is leaving the issue to future generations anything more than a Hudna? How long is "long-term"--is it as long as it takes a child with a gun to be old enough to learn how to fire a rocket?

And Hamas has more than one spokeman:

Another Hamas representative, Anwar Zaboun, said negotiations with Israel were not haram (forbidden by religion).

"It's forbidden to make concessions on our rights," he said. "But negotiations and discussions are not sinful."

Anyone notice that Zaboun just said that it's OK to negotiate and discuss but not to concede anything? Just what does that leave to negotiate? Apparently Zaboun and Abbas went to the same school of negotiation.

Then there is Khalid Mish'al, whom The Guardian informs us is head of the political bureau of Hamas, but neglects to mention that he is one of Israel's most wanted terrorists (hat tip Conservajew). Mish'al assures us:

Our message to the Israelis is this: we do not fight you because you belong to a certain faith or culture. Jews have lived in the Muslim world for 13 centuries in peace and harmony; they are in our religion "the people of the book" who have a covenant from God and His Messenger Muhammad (peace be upon him) to be respected and protected. Our conflict with you is not religious but political. We have no problem with Jews who have not attacked us - our problem is with those who came to our land, imposed themselves on us by force, destroyed our society and banished our people. [emphasis added]

The nonsense about "peace and harmony" is easily disproved by the documentation at jewishvirtuallibrary.org that gives a history of the Moslem persecution of Jews.

As a side note: to minimize the history of Moslem persecution and murder of Jews by contrasting it to the Holocaust is like pointing to the murder of over 3,000 innocent people on 9/11 and ignoring the non-Moslems murdered and injured by Islamists in 2005 alone in Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Chechnya, Dagestan, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, India, Indonesia, Ingushetia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kabardino-Balk., Kosovo, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine (Jebaliya and Gaza City), Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, UK, and Yemen.

Numbers alone are not the issue--it is the persistant hatred, persecution and murder by Islamists.

(Actually, if we count only non-Moslems the number is less since we would have to exclude the Palestinian Arabs killed by Hamas in 2 "work accidents".)

In any case, while it is awfully nice of Mish'al to bring up how Jews are refered to as "the people of the book" in Islam, he does seem to have forgotten that based on the Koran, Moslem clerics teach that the Jews Are the descendants of apes, pigs, and other animals--as documented by MEMRI.

One last point made by Mish'al--that Jews are to be respected and protected. The typical reader of the article might assume that the protection Mish'al is refering to is from outsiders; actually it is protection from the Moslems themselves. The American Thinker points to an interview last year with yet another Hamas spokesman:

Interviewed by Wall Street Journal reporter Karby Legget (and published in the December 23-26 edition The Wall Street Journal), Hassam El-Masalmeh, who heads the Hamas contingent at the municipal council of Bethlehem, confirmed the organizations plan to re-institute the humiliating jizya, a blood ransom Qur’anic poll-tax (based on Qur’an sura [chapter] 9, verse 29), levied traditionally on non-Muslims vanquished by jihad, and forced to live under Islamic Law (the Shari’a). Under the Sharia’s regulations, either the non-Muslim infidels must convert to Islam, or they pay the jizya—classically, in a humiliating public ceremony which often involved blows to the head or neck—and their life and belongings are protected. The nature of such “protection” is clarified in this definition of jizya by the seminal Arabic lexicographer, E.W. Lane, based on a careful analysis of the etymology of the term:

The tax that is taken from the free non-Muslim subjects of a Muslim government whereby they ratify the compact that assures them protection, as though it were compensation for not being slain.

Mish'al is merely giving Jews an invitation to go back in time to classical Islam when non-Moslems, Jews and Christians, were treated as second-class citizens--dhimmis.

As long as there are Western leaders and journalists who are predisposed towards a positive or sympathetic view of Islamist terrorists in their guise as freedom-fighters or politicians, it becomes that much easier for Hamas to pursue their goals. After the obligatory expressions of shock and disapproval are done with, excuses can always be found by the West to pursue policies that ultimately will do no one but Hamas any good. Just watch.

Crossposted at Israpundit

Technorati Tag: Hamas and terrorists and Dhimmis.