Mark wrote: > It was recently stated here that the Hamas Charter > > Hamas Charter, articles 1-21: > http://middleeast.about.com/od/palestinepalestinians/a/me080106b.htm > Hamas Charter, articles 22-36: > http://middleeast.about.com/od/palestinepalestinians/a/me080106c.htm > (Love that article 31!) > > was written as a bargaining chip, to be jettisoned later, as Fatah did. > The Hamasians, it is argued, don't even believe their own charter. > It is meant as a provocation to be abandoned later in favor of peace. > > Question: Is there any historical precedent for such a document > that is written with the intent of renouncing it later? >
Answer: Your question makes an assumption that was not implicit in my earlier statement about Hamas' charter, namely, I make no assumptions about the intentions of those who wrote it. I would even bet that the intentions of the people who wrote the PLO charter were in fact to destroy Israel. So what? Look at the PLO, or the IRA, or any one of dozens of other national resistance groups. Whatever their original platforms might be, when such groups cannot be exterminated and cannot exterminate the other side, the only realistic alternative is to work out a modus vivendi between the parties. And Hamas was not destroyed in this recent attack, and will have to be a part of any peaace settlement. (As for Hezbollah, it is now reported that it has twice the weaponry and far more political power than it did before the war in 2006.) And Hamas explicitly defines itself as a national resistance group, which is fighting against an occupation that is illegal under international law. And national resistance is legitimate under such conditions, whatever you and Alan might say about it (It appears that you think the Palestinians should just lie down under the Zionist boot, right?) Frankly, all this garbage about Hamas' charter is just a smoke screen to distract attention from the reality that Israel has turned both Gaza and the West Bank into prisons for the Palestinian populations there. I have already cited Sarah Roy's work about social and economic conditions in Gaza (including a significant rate of malnutrition), the response to which here from the other side has been deafening silence, either out of ignorance or a refusal to acknowledge the ultimate sources of fighting in Gaza, which are of course the occupation and blockade. And the fighting will continue until the occupation and blockade end, and ending them will involve negotiations, presumably along the lines indicated by Tom Friedman on "Meet the Press" yesterday, that is, bilateral negotiations between Israel and a Palestinian unity government with both Fatah and the Hamas represented. As for Fatah and the West Bank: I do not know if anyone on this list watched the "60 Minutes" segment about the West Bank last night, but it left little doubt about several things: (1) There are now around 280,000 Jewish settlers on the West Bank; (2) Some of these people are serious religious nut cases (though "60 Minutes" did not show the fact that their settlements are heavily armed, or relate any of the many incidents where these weapons have been used against the Palestinian population); and (3) The Palestinians live essentially under an apartheid regime, where the Jewish settlers have access to better land, more water (a major issue in this part of the world), better roads and so on, while the Palestinians do not even have the most basic rights of movement and security in their own homes. And that is "60 Minutes", hardly the most critical source when it comes to Israel. Anyone who actually cares about Israel would see that these policies of allowing settlements, some by religious lunatics, in heavily Palestinian areas are ultimately the source of much of the fighting between the two peoples. This is a point that Mearsheimer and Walt make over and over again in their book "The Israel Lobby", namely that uncritical support of Israel may ultimately result in policies that are not in the best interest of that country's long-term survival. The bottom line is that without the occupation, and without the settlements in Gaza (now removed), and without the current blockade, there would be no Hamas, or it would be a minor irritant. If you think things are bad now, wait 10 or 20 years, until when the continuation of current Israeli policies has managed to make Islamic fundamentalism the majority position on the West Bank and in the refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan. The the Hamas charter will be the least of our worries. John Marchioro --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Persons posting messages to not_honyaku assume all responsibility for their messages. The list owner does not review messages prior to posting, and accepts no responsibility for the content of messages posted. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
