Thursday, February 02, 2006
Hamas Is Coming! Hamas Is Coming!
I have several things I would like to say on Hamas winning in the recent Palestinian parlimentary elections.
1. Why is everyone (in the media) so surprised that Hamas won in the elections? I had seen estimates that they would win a large percentage of the vote, and they did. It wasn't that unexpected, when they are not reveling in the killing of Jews they actually have been very successful in improving life and maintaining an educational structure, maintaining hospitals and, for the most part, not be quite as corrupt as Fatah.
2. My initial thought on hearing Hamas had won was that it was good for Israel that they did, Hamas is going to be hard pressed to retrain itself and will likely continue to reveal what it is doing. While I still feel that way I do have another thing to add. Hamas' victory I feel has, or at least should, weaken the left in Israel. The rise of the 'boogey-man' to power in the PA should strengthen the Center or Center-Right, and Right of the political spectrum.
3. Former President Jimmy Carter made the following statement "If you sponsor an election or promote democracy and freedom around the world, then when people make their own decision about their leaders, I think that all the governments should recognize that administration and let them form their government."
Unfortunately he did not stop their he also said "The people of Palestine -- who already suffer ... under Israeli occupation -- will not suffer because they are deprived of a right to pay their school teachers, policemen, welfare workers, health workers and provide food for people."
This is the line of his comments that, for me, takes apart all of what he was trying to say. Why add anything about 'suffering under Israeli occupation?" After all, haven't the Israeli's suffered under the constant threat of suicide attacks.
The final thing that President Carter said that really made me irate was "If there are prohibitions -- like, for instance, in the United States, against giving any money to a government that is controlled by Hamas -- then the United States could channel the same amount of money to the Palestinian people through the United Nations, through the refugee fund, through UNICEF, things of that kind." Why do I have a problem with this? Mainly because I feel that a lot of the problems in the region is that the UN has gone out of it's way to maintain the 'refuge camp' system for over an extended period of time and has continued to feed in to the problem by not trying to force some of the Arab countries to absorb a portion of the refugee population that has been seeking refuge in those countries.
// posted by Little Wolf @ Thursday, February 02, 2006 
