Hamas: Not Your Father's Resistance Group

Palestinian apologists get all warm and fuzzy at the thought of Hamas in Gaza, the common people resisting the occupational forces of Israel (which, oddly enough, are no longer in Gaza). But The London Times paints a different picture. David Hazony writes that this is not a popular resistance group; it is the proxy (puppet?) of Iran:

So let’s keep our eyes on the picture as it has emerged. The image of Hamas as just another Palestinian resistance group is simply wrong. Maybe that is what many of its followers are thinking when they launch those Kassam missiles at apartment buildings and kindergartens. But as I have said in the past, from a wider strategic perspective (and just like Hezbollah), Hamas functions as an arm of Iran. It exists so that there will be another front against Israel’s Western flank, to parallel the one up north. The group hides behind its statelessness, taking no responsibility and suffering little sanction in terms of international treaties. Hezbollah, at least, is part of an actual state. And even if Lebanon is not currently held accountable for the group’s actions at all, at least one can hope for some kind of Lebanese anti-Hezbollah effort in the future, maybe even through force of arms. But Hamas is a non-state inside another non-state, distancing it even further from international standards. The Palestinian Authority, even when it had the power to kill Hamas off, never showed much interest in doing so. Hamas lives and breathes in the lacunae of international law. And it does so at the behest of Iran.

Hamas as a democratically elected government?
Have standards dropped so low?

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