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Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Arabs understand Hamas better than the Left

An interesting editorial in Asharq Al-Awsat, in English, shows that even fanatical anti-Israel Arabs understand Hamas better than pseudo-intellectual European liberals:
We have witnessed Hamas's concept of democracy since it came to power, with its first order of business being the improvement of Palestinian television because its artistic value was not up to its standards! This is Hamas's concept of democracy!

Unfortunately, the kind of relationship Hamas and other groups such as Hezbollah and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood have with democracy is on the same par as someone sitting behind the wheel of the newest, top of the line automobile, whilst being unable to drive.

For these groups, democracy is slogans without accountability, and without its duties towards the nation and its citizens. Rather, it is the thwarting of all gains, while also deepening its steadfast backwardness and disrupting intellectual, political and economic life. Meanwhile, failure always has its ready excuse: America and the Zionist plot!

What Hamas is not aware of is that it has returned the Palestinian situation to its pre-Oslo days and in the process, it has lost all the gains, as few as they were, of the Palestinian people.
...

Hamas has become a source of suffering for the Palestinian people and a frustration of the democratic experience in the region, especially for the Islamist current. The problem with Hamas is that it has only adopted the slogans of democracy and in the process; it burns the candle from both ends, making it difficult to position, and burning he who attempts to hold it for too long. And here, Hamas burns itself.
Here we have two pieces from the UK today, and the Arab editorial makes much more sense than the one from the Independent. It goes to show how far off the deep end the Left has become in redefining the conflict and facts to conform to their pre-existing opinions.

It is a strange world indeed when one sees the "enlightened" Left praising Hamas as a bastion of democracy and peace while the Arabs themselves are criticizing it as the exact opposite.