A new training regimen for fighters in Hamas’s armed wing employs slide presentations and a whiteboard rather than Kalashnikov rifles and grenades. The young men wear polo shirts instead of fatigues and black masks. They do not chant anti-Israel slogans, but discuss how the Geneva Conventions governing armed conflict dovetail with Islamic principles.The three-day workshop, conducted last month by the International Committee of the Red Cross, followed numerous human-rights reports accusing both Israel and Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, of war crimes in their devastating battle last summer, and came as the International Criminal Court prosecutor conducts a preliminary inquiry into that conflict....Red Cross leaders say they have seen an increasing commitment from Hamas leaders and linemen alike, if only because they now consider their international image a critical component of their struggle.Mamadou Sow, who heads Red Cross operations in Gaza, said that in April he presented a critique of Hamas’s conduct during the 2014 hostilities to its top political and military leaders, and that they “welcomed it” and “indicated that they are a learning organization.” He said they also “challenged us to keep in mind the topology of the Gaza Strip,” one of the most densely populated patches on the planet.“For the first time,” said Jacques de Maio, director of the Red Cross delegation in Israel and the Palestinian territories, “Hamas is actually, in a private, protected space, expressing a readiness to look critically at a number of things that have an impact on their level of respect for international humanitarian law.”He added, “Whether this will translate into something concrete, time will tell.”Besides participating in the workshops, Hamas has altered its propaganda in the aftermath of the war. New talking points stress that tunnel attacks last summer targeted military positions, not civilian communities, and argue — dubiously — that rockets fly toward civilian areas because the Gaza groups lack guiding technology.Still, Hamas leaders routinely praise attacks on Israelis, and there are widespread reports that Qassam is rebuilding tunnels to infiltrate Israeli territory.Last week, in announcing the arrest of a Qassam fighter in July, Israel’s security service said that he had told interrogators “the organization’s fighters endanger many civilians by storing explosives in their homes, on the instructions of Hamas commanders.”
In 2011, the media reported that Hamas accepted a two state solution. In 2015, that Hamas accepts international law. In 2017, that Hamas replaced its charter with one that isn't antisemitic.
There is such a desire to judge a hateful, genocidal terror group as positively as possible. And, not coincidentally, to judge Israel as harshly as possible.
Because wishful thinking often trumps reality. Hamas has never moderated its rhetoric in Arabic. Its messaging has always been crystal clear. But Western media and Western politicians turn their desire for a moderate Hamas into a conviction that that know Hamas better than Palestinians do; and that Hamas cannot possibly be lying to them when they say what they want them to hear.
I have not seen one of these reporters or pundits or "experts" apologize after October 7 and say, sorry, we thought they really had changed and we were wrong. This is an unrepentant group of murderers and liars and we cannot trust a word they say. They manipulated us and played on our desire for peace. We were fooled.
On the contrary: Hamas statements are still accepted and published without caveats, as if they have somehow changed since October 7 from a murderous, rapist terror group into a respectable government. Maybe the masked fighters cannot be trusted, but surely their doctors wouldn't lie, wound they? Even when those doctors themselves praised the massacres?
The willingness to give Hamas every benefit of the doubt is part of the reason for the war today. And, yes, the government of Israel was fooled too. But surely, after October 7, the world should have learned their lesson, right?
If Hamas was fighting anyone but Jews, probably. But there is a layer of antisemitism that assumes that Jews are even less trustworthy than Hamas terrorists, and that is a big part of why the media is more tolerant of Hamas' obvious attempts to deceive them than Israel's mostly transparent explanations (within security requirements) of what they are doing.
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