Let’s get the facts straight on Hamas

The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York and five NY Congressional representatives have called a press conference for this morning to press the State Dept. "to investigate any and all passengers on the Mavi Marmara and other ships from Turkey's IHH flotilla who apply for visas to enter the United States."

Part of their demand is for the State Dept. to investigate whether visa applicants who were on the Turkish ship intended "to fund or to give things of value to support terrorist activity or a terrorist organization, namely Hamas."

The standard line is that Hamas is a “terrorist” organization “committed to Israel’s destruction” and this same line is repeated by Israel, it's supporters and many people on this forum as well.

As the article puts it:

There are lots of legitimate criticisms of Hamas to be made, for instance of their policy of executing “collaborators” and destroying Palestinian homes that they say were built on public land.

The article did not mention another thing for which Hamas should be criticised which is using children's as soldiers but "repeating the standard line that Hamas rejects peace and is opposed to a two-state solution is simply not a legitimate criticism when you look at the factual record" and I tend to agree with this.

Hamas is not waging “total war” against Israel. Before the Gaza massacres of 2008-09, “Hamas was ‘careful to maintain the ceasefire’ it entered into with Israel in June 2008

. It has been proved the ceasefire was broken by Israel.


UN official says Israel responsible for breaking truce with
Gaza
and Israel itself admitting that Hamas did not fire any rockets


Even after the war as the article states

After the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in January 2009, leaving Gaza in ruins, Hamas still didn’t wage “total war” against Israel. Rockets have sporadically been fired into Israeli territory since then, but they have been claimed by other groups within Gaza and have killed one person, a Thai foreign worker.

Now we come to Two State issue on Hamas.

Charlie Rose recently interviewed Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas’ political bureau. An excerpt:

KHALED MESHAAL: So when the occupation comes to an end, the resistance will end. As simple as that. If Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, so that will be the end of the Palestinian resistance.

CHARLIE ROSE: You are saying if the Israelis withdraw to the ‘67 borders, give or take this place or that place, right of return, Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, what else?

KHALED MESHAAL: If Israel withdraws to the borders of 1967, and from East Jerusalem, that will become the capital of the Palestinian state with the right of self -- with the right of return for the refugees and with a Palestinian state with real sovereignty on the land and on the borders and on the checkpoints. Then we -- the Palestinian state will decide the future of the relationship with Israel. And we will respect the decision that will reflect the viewpoint of the majority of the Palestinian people both inside and outside Palestine.

Where as the Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu's party and the ruling government of Israel reject a Palestinian state.

S

[edit on 17-6-2010 by I AM LEGION]

On reasons why Hamas is not a terrorist organisation, as is posted in the above post their goal is clear to resist the occupation and end the blockade. On another note under Hague convention Hamas falls in the group of rebel forces/ resistance fighters or belligerents.

Under Hague Convention:

Annex to the Convention
REGULATIONS RESPECTING THE LAWS AND CUSTOMS
OF WAR ON LAND
SECTION I ON BELLIGERENTS
CHAPTER I
The Qualifications of Belligerents

Article 1.

*The laws, rights, and duties of war apply not only to armies, but also to militia and volunteer corps fulfilling the following conditions:

*To be commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

*To have a fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance;

*To carry arms openly; and

*To conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

*In countries where militia or volunteer corps constitute the army, or form part of it, they are included under the denomination "army."

Art. 2.
The inhabitants of a territory which has not been occupied, who, on the approach of the enemy, spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading troops without having had time to organize themselves in accordance with

Article 1, shall be regarded as belligerents if they carry arms openly and if they respect the laws and customs of war.

A lot of people don't realize this but Hamas was created in response to Israeli aggression and oppression. They later came to power in Gaza for that very same reason. Another thing that is widely unknown to western populations is that 90% of Hamas' revenues go to schools, cultural centers, health care and social services.

Is Hamas an "angel" organization? Absolutely not but neither are their opponents, the entities that are the reason for their existence. Sometimes you need to meet violence with violence, fight fire with fire. Sadly, here in America, we only hear about the Palestinian violence, while the media seems to ignore the initiators of that violence or even the Israel violence to begin with. Instead, everything is blamed on Hamas or the Palestinian people.

Again, Hamas was created in 1987 during the beginning of the first Intifada by leaders in the Palestinian wing of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, as a response to Israeli aggression, oppression and general terrorism. If Israeli oppression and aggression didn't exist, their would be no need for Hamas at all.

Thanks for your thread. It is always good to hear intelligent arguments with facts that see through the propaganda and biased political spin. All too often, people fail to see through the lies propagated throughout the west, for whatever reasons. Unfortunately, a lot of people refuse to see reality and ignore the facts. It's good to see another member denying ignorance.

S&F

--airspoon

Are some members of Hamas criminals. You bet. All conflict attracts some criminal and unlawful behavior. Indeed it is a good place for someone with violent tendencies to be held in high esteem where normally they would just be a thug. Also some have become so extreme I do not believe they want peace. Without it they might have to get a job or become a real crim.

No different than some members of the IRA really. Some were just gangsters in freedom fighter disguise.

But overwhelmingly their cause is just. So they will win.



On the other hand every IDF solder goes to bed at night knowing they are not doing the "right" thing. Not in the eyes of God or anybody with a sense of justice. And it will destroy them. History has shown us it is inevitable.

reply to post by airspoon


Thank you for the response. I accept criticising Hamas where its due as in the case of child soldiers but do not agree that they are terrorist organisation. Hamas has limited it's resistance within Israel/ Palestinian (the conflict zone) boundaries..they do not go operate outside these (conflict zone) territories unlike Al-Qaeda which is a terrorist organisation. Here is a excellent view I would like to share

If the leaders of Hamas were only concerned with killing Israelis, with training suicide-bombers and sending them out to destroy shopping centers, then they'd dedicate the majority of their funding to that purpose. Instead, they build and operate hospitals, schools, soup kitchens, car pools, cell services, and all the other goods, public and private, that organizations without an explicit military arm would provide for the Palestinians if any building was allowed to stay standing long enough to house them. All those doctors and teachers and cooks and bureaucrats who are part of Hamas must be pretty poor members, failing to murder Israelis everyday as they do; one wonders how some of them ever managed to rise to positions of authority without ever having killed an Israeli at all in an organization only dedicated to military objectives.

Extreme? Yes. Intransigent? Yes. Far too violent and stubborn for their own good, or their people's good? Yes. But willing to watch the Palestinian people destroyed utterly to achieve the destruction of Israel? Indifferent to Palestinian suffering? Hardly. If that were the case, why negotiate cease-fire agreements? Why capture Israeli soldiers explicitly to extract concessions and revenues that they cannot extract from the Israelis at the negotiating table? That organization exists precisely because of Palestinian suffering; it fights specifically to alleviate that suffering, as wrong-headed as that is, but desperation and rage are not known for instilling logic.

And as for the "right to live" line, one could just as easily say that Israel could have peace tomorrow if they recognized a Palestinian right to return. That position is not more politically viable than it would be for Hamas, as the duly elected government of the Palestinian authority, to lay down the gun without a settlement freeze or the territorial concessions needed to make a Palestinian state viable. If Israel cannot even bring itself to give these concessions to the generally peaceful Palestinians of the West Bank; if Israel cannot even bring itself to stop settlements from being built in the West Bank, then what reason could Hamas possibly have for thinking that unilaterally forsaking the fight would lead to a real, respected sovereignty in Gaza?

This claim that Israel's enemies are irrational, blood-thirsty, slavering man-beasts, unable to contain their lust for spilling Jewish blood in the name of Allah is, quite simply, not supported by the behavior of either regime, or of Syria, for that matter, which has always coolly and calmly steered for that course most likely to insure its continued existence and indispensability. If either were indifferent to destruction, so long as Israel were destroyed, then they would have risked global wrath and war striking at Israel and illegal Israeli settlements long ago. Instead of spending decades jockeying for internal or regional supremacy they would have made the deals necessary to press genocide with heedless fanaticism, and would be throwing themselves on the walls of Jerusalem, right this very minute, with hatred in their eyes and paradise on their lips.

Of course this never has, and never will, happen. Israel's enemies aren't monsters anymore than they are caricatures; they are men, despicable men largely, but still men, and with all the concerns and desire to live that comes with that.

And Israel, it should be pointed out, has its own fair share of despicable men, just as intractable, just as hateful of peace as any Hamas bomber or Revolutionary Guard thug. Perhaps it would be easier for Israel if they WERE beasts and the IDF could simply sit atop their walls with flame-throwers and machine guns slaughtering them as they threw themselves at the interloper in a blind rage. But men are patient, and men plan, and in the end, you have to sit down and deal with them or they'll never go away. The longer Israel and the defenders of her most fanatical citizens put that off, the heavier the toll of that final squaring will be.

Source

If the 19ii67 borders were satisfactory to the Palestinians and related Arab nations, why did they NOT create such a nation and government prior to the 1967 war? After all, Jordan controlled the "West Bank" and only had to turn it over to the Palestinian authorities. The same was true for Gaza. It was owned by Egypt, and they could have created a Palestinian state at ANY TIME between the 1956 war and the 1967 war. However, neither Arab nation saw fit to give that territory to the Palestinians, even though Israel had no ability to hinder such an action.

If that is all that is required to obtain Middle Eastern peace, both Jordan and Egypt easily could have met these requirements between 1956 and 1967. Why did this not happen? Why did Egypt and Jordan fail to create this source of peace? Then, according to the statement above, there would be no reason for armed resistance, right?

reply to post by Truth1000


How can they when uptill 1956 Israel was continuing its policy of uprooting Palestinians from Israeli controlled areas which is known as Palestinian exodus? After displacing thousands of people how do you suppose within a year someone create a nation?

I think we should take American money out of the equation. When you take away this bribe money from the US what would happen in this situation? I think Israel will abandon this expansionist vision without these fat free money checks from the US. Why do we care about this anyway? Someone told us to care that's why. American citizens barely care about their neighbors to the South and North so why do we care about a nation founded on stolen land in the 50's. How do they directly impact us? How does Israel benefit us? What value do we gain from our association to this marginal state with few natural resources?

This must be some religious crap that I would not understand being fairly secular but spiritual in nature. That is all that explains our association with this rouge nuclear armed state. I have heard that it is due to them being a democracy. I think that there are a lot of democracies in that region now and they have far more resources for us to be concerned about.

It must be religious fanaticism that drives our continued support IMHO.
What other real benefit does the US derive from this one sided relationship?

reply to post by wayouttheredude


I have no doubt it is not because of democracy...if US had democracy in mind it wouldn't be ally with Saudi Arabia or wouldn't have uprooted Iran's democratic government.

Our (US) concept of democracy is different from Israel. For us democracy means equality and equal rights irrespective of other racial and religious divisions whereas Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship.

Here's an article I found that helps explain why the Palestinians dislike the Israel so much;

Top 10 Myths of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Spoiler Alert: Zionists stole the Arabs land, haven't stopped stealing Arabs land and have been oppressing Arabs ever since.