Pro-Hamas media bias and Gaza activists block peace (Ray Hanania)

[shira]

When Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas complained recently in Qatar that the media there was pro-Hamas, and that its bias was threatening the ability to achieve peace, he struck a chord that many Palestinians know is true.

It isn't just the mainstream Arab media that is pro-Hamas, branded a "terrorist organization" by many nations, but it's also the groups that support Hamas that slowly dominate the Middle East landscape unchallenged that are threatening peace. A good example of this is the issue of the Gaza Strip, where Palestinians complain they are under an oppressive military and economic Israeli siege and where Israelis counter that radical elements there continue to target their civilians with Katyushas and Kassam missiles.

Gaza is a very complicated issue, but not that hard to really understand. The area has been controlled by Hamas and radical Muslims since the 1970s. Although Hamas's parent organization, the Islamic Association, did provide health and social care to its citizens, that care was only given to those who embraced its hard-line religious ideology.

Hamas opposes genuine peace with Israel, and used the most pernicious form of violence - suicide bombings - throughout the 1990s to destroy the peace process and prevent compromise. Its mission is not to achieve peace based on compromise, but to pursue the impossible dream - more a nightmare for everyday Palestinians - of destroying Israel and returning Palestine to what it was in 1917, before it came under British colonialism.

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http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1263147876102&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[shira]

1. article cont'd...

THAT HAMAS desire is not only shared by the religious extremists who continue to grow, but by those who are secular fanatics yet also oppose peace based on compromise. Most of those activists are based in Western countries, where it is easy to chant for the destruction of not only Israel but of Abbas's secular Palestinian government which does support compromise based on two-states.

These are strange bedfellows in the Palestinian extremist camps, religious fanatics shoulder-to-shoulder with secular extremists like the Popular Front and the rejectionists led by the activists and fawned on by the Arab media that mistakenly believe "freedom" means embracing the most extremist activists.

The Arab media, which glorify religious extremism and even violent attacks, don't realize, of course, that under a Hamas-run government, it wouldn't just be Jews, Christians and secular Muslims who would be oppressed. The media in a Hamastan would be among the primary targets, stripped of the "freedoms" they enjoy today - of criticizing Abbas, two states and peace based on compromise.

THE ISSUE for the Free Gaza protesters is not about bringing freedom to the 1.3 million Palestinians there or lifting Israel's "oppressive military and economic siege." It's about their long-term goals. By "freeing" Gaza, they mean declaring Hamas the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people." But that's not their goal.

The purpose of many of the protesters is to strengthen Hamas. They know that Israel is forced to deal first with the threats rather than the compelling cases for peace. And Hamas is a threat not only to Israel but also to the Palestinians, secular Arab countries like Egypt and Jordan, to Christian and Jewish religious independence and, more importantly, to the goal of achieving a peace based on nonviolent compromise.

The activists continue to cling to the false and irrelevant claims that Hamas won one election in 2006 and ignore the fact that Hamas was ousted from political leadership in the same way it was installed. It was a corrupt election that was poorly constructed, allowing the divisions of the majority of Palestinians to be merged with Hamas's faith-based reticence. In Western nations with elections, they separate the two processes, allowing individual parties to select their candidates from internal battles before putting them up against candidates from the other parties.

Hamas and the activists have allowed the Gaza Strip to fester in economic squalor because it suits their purpose. They can't rally support based on their ideals because they have no realistic ideals. They call for the destruction of Israel and the destruction of a secular two-state Palestine, and also for the destruction of Egypt and pretty much anyone who doesn't agree with their extremist agendas.

Rather than help the besieged people of the Gaza Strip achieve freedom and build the first steps of a secular Palestinian state that would lead to the creation of full Palestinian statehood in the West Bank, the protesters have helped to encase the Palestinians there in continued suffering.

THE PROTESTERS seeking to enter Gaza have closed their eyes to the oppression and brutality that is the true Hamas. They have limited their criticism to Egypt.

More importantly, this bizarre alliance between the religious fanatics and the secular extremists which today is focused on the Gaza Strip is silent on the campaign of terror that Hamas continues to wage against secular Palestinians.

Hamas has made it easy for some to oppose Palestinian statehood, and is the main obstacle standing in the way of peace.

The Arab media are going through an internal struggle no different than the one now dominating Arab and Palestinian politics. It's one between extremists who see the media as an instrument of activism and those of us who believe the media must remain objective witnesses to the truth.

Truth means that not all of today's tragic events can be blamed on Israel, Egypt, Abbas or on the failure, so far, to achieve peace.

The writer is a Palestinian American columnist, satirist and founder of Yalla Peace.

[shira]

2. Ray Hanania VIDEO, announcing candidacy for President of Palestine

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/6544808/16990832

[Betsy Ross]

3. Good piece. Thanks for posting. n/t

[shira]

4. Ray Hanania slams Electronic Intifada - he writes that EI is driven by racism and hatred

http://palestinenote.com/cs/blogs/blogs/archive/2010/01/15/electronic-intifada-dominated-by-hypocrisy-and-selfish-politics.aspx?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[shira]

5. Ami Isseroff of ProgressiveZionism on Ray Hanania being best chance for peace

http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000778.htm

Excerpt...

<snip>

But the Palestinians would be the real beneficiaries. The Palestinians would have a state with a capital in Jerusalem, they would have freedom, self-respect and a chance for a new start. I Logically, every peace group, every Palestinian advocacy group, every politician that has the interests of the Palestinians and of peace at heart should rally to this plan, and so too, should the Palestinian public. Can we hope for any of this?

One can always hope, but the reality seems to be different. It isn't happening. So far, not a single organization has rallied to Hanania's call. His candidacy and his plan have not, to my knowledge been written up in Palestinian or other Arab media. Do "peace" organizations only support the causes of leaders with guns and bombs? Is it possible that all the organizations that support legitimizing Hamas in the name of "peace," ignore Ray Hanania because he has not blown anyone up? Is blowing people up the required qualification for leadership and recognition by "peace" groups? And what about those who insist on dialog with Iran? Are they deaf to Ray Hanania just because he is not refining lots of nice uranium?

Hanania's plan is not different in principle from that of Sari Nusseibeh and Ami Ayalon. Unlike the Geneva initiative and the Arab peace initiative, both Nusseibeh and Hananiah come right out and say there will be no return of refugees to Israel and no "right of return." It is not hidden behind the poisonous "creative ambiguity" of "international legitimacy" and "just solutions" and "Applicable UN Resolutions." And that is why Hanania, like Nusseibeh, is probably going to be vilified and ignored, both by Palestinians and by Zionist extremists. But their proposal is the only way to end the conflict, and the rejection of any proposal that does not include the "right" of return tells us how very far we are from peace.

Nonetheless, now is the time for everyone to decide, what the Palestinian cause and the Zionist cause, and what the peace organizations are really about. If they are really about peace and freedom and self-determination for the Palestinians and the Jews, they will adopt this plan as their own and make it happen.

And if not? Then at least Ray Hanania did his duty and said what had to be said. People will laugh at him now. But in five years, and if not in five years than in 50 years, they will understand that he is right.

[shira]

6. (Hanania, June 07) "Time to destroy Hamas"

http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3414264,00.html

Hamas is and always has been an organization premised on Islamic superiority, not on the goal of achieving nationalism for the Palestinian people.

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Since it was founded during the first Intifada as an armed Islamic movement, Hamas has never compromised on its two main goals, destroying the Jewish State and undermining the Palestinian secular existence.

In their extremist religious eyes, there is no difference between Israel and the Israeli people, and a secular Palestine and its secular leadership.

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Hamas does not want peace. It is a cancer in the Palestinian dream for statehood. They will trade off anything to survive as a movement driven by blind faith, not reasoned and free public choice.

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But their real goal is not the imposition of the Hijab on women, but the subjugation of women, Christian Palestinians and secular Muslims by denying them an equal voice in Palestinian society. Hamas terrorists firebombed symbols of secular lifestyle, including restaurants that have served alcohol, nightclubs that have permitted intermingling of young men with women and dancing.

Worse, though, Hamas has allowed their armed factions to act outside of the authority of the PA, firing Qassam rockets into Israel not as acts of defensive resistance but as a provocation to create increased conflict that allows their political counterparts to exploit the Palestinians who are then the victims of Israeli retaliation.

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Abbas and the true democratic representatives of Palestinian hope in the PA have a choice. Either they can continue to try to appease the unappeasable Hamas cancer, or they can act forcefully to destroy Hamas and remove it from all aspects of Palestinian leadership and society.