AJC on the Hamas Win

The election of Hamas in the recent Palestine elections has opened up a situation in Ireland where none of the pro-Palestinian groups can hide any more. Well, they will of course try. I will deal with the Irish media and the Irish blogs and their response or non-response in a few days. In that regard please consider the statement by the American Jewish Congress of January 26, 2006-01-28

“Executive Director Neil B. Goldstein issued the following statement:

During the Palestinian election campaign, Hamas promised that, if elected, it would do better providing services to the Palestinian people than the corrupt Fatah leadership that, heretofore, had used available funds to line its own pockets. At the same time Hamas continued to call for the destruction of Israel and threatened to resume the Palestinian campaign of terrorism following the election. One half of the Hamas platform cannot be separated from the other; by choosing the party that, so to speak, promised to do a better job “making the trains run on time,” the Palestinian people also have acquiesced to Hamas’ campaign of evil.

By choosing Hamas, the Palestinians have punctured the myth that they have elected leaders who reject terrorism – a fundamental requirement of the Roadmap for Peace. Furthermore, by choosing Hamas, the Palestinians have ended the charade that there is a partner with the will and with the authority to negotiate a bona fide peace settlement with Israel. President Bush is absolutely correct in saying today, that Hamas is not a partner for peace.

There are some who retain the illusion that, now that Hamas is part of the political process, it will moderate and support peace with Israel – much in the same way that Fatah, the dominant party in the PLO, did so. Those who hold to this vain hope misread history and ignore the differences between the PLO and Hamas. First of all, in the end, Fatah and the PLO never fully supported peace. At the final hour Yassir Arafat was unwilling to conclude an end to hostilities and make peace with Israel. Today, while the leadership of Fatah is nominally in favor of peace, its President, Mahmoud Abbas, has refused to put an end to terrorism, and many of its factions (the Al-Aqsa Brigades and Fatah Hawks among them) are terrorist. Second, while the Fatah and PLO leadership benefited by moderating their stands and agreeing to be part of the Oslo peace process by being granted the right to return from exile in Tunisia, Hamas would derive no such benefit. To the contrary, the Hamas leadership is convinced that it is the tool of terrorism that has given them the capacity to throw Israel out of Gaza and that makes them a potent force.

The American Jewish Congress is a membership association of Jewish Americans, organized to defend Jewish interests at home and abroad, through public policy advocacy, in the courts, Congress, the executive branch and state and local governments. It also works overseas with others who are similarly engaged.”

When the above statement appeared on Israpundit Bill Levinson who is a regular there made the following comment:

“I have said for quite some time that most Palestinians are not capable of governing themselves and that an independent Palestinian state would be William Golding's "Lord of the Flies," starring adults instead of kids. The fact that a majority of the Palestinians voted for terrorists-- and Hamas is a Foreign Terrorist Organization as defined by the U.S. State Department-- simply proves that I was right.

"At the same time Hamas continued to call for the destruction of Israel and threatened to resume the Palestinian campaign of terrorism following the election" is a prima facie declaration of war on Israel that justifies Israel's instant termination of the phony peace process and outright annexation of all occupied territories. Any Palestinian, and a poll that shows about two-thirds approving of terrorism means most of them, who is unwilling or unable to behave like a civilized human being must then be expelled. To put matters in perspective, what the Palestinians have just done would have been like Israel, upon the day of its independence, declaring a war of annihilation against peaceful Arab neighbors instead of the other way around as it really happened.