Standing up to the Islamic State of Hamastan
Standing up to the Islamic State of Hamastan
East Jerusalem, Palestine/ — I would rather live under an Israeli occupation knowing that one day I will be able to live in peace and freedom and real Democracy through negotiations and peace, than to surrender to the Islamicist fanaticism that is driving the Hamas terrorist organization. I will never live under a Hamas government and I think that any Palestinian who believes in freedom, justice and tolerance will stand up and denounce these hoodlums, murderers and relugious fanatics who have bastardized Islam for their own morally corrupt religious cult of hatred and violence.
What Hamas has done in the Gaza Strip is disgraceful.
Here are some facts.
The parent organization of Hamas was the Islamic Association, founded by Sheikh Yassin. In the 1970s, Sheikh Yassin worked with the Israelis to be the official representatives of the Palestinian people. Israel’s Likud/Herut government at the time, led by Yitzhak Shamir and Ariel Sharon, two two Israeli terrorists, wanted to build up the Islamic Sheikh’s power in order to use him to undermine Yasir Arafat, whose revolution had undermined the Israeli onslaught to deny the existence of Palestinians. Arafat had addressed the United Nations, and was even hinting that he would negotiate a compromise with Israel — a compromise the Israeli extremists did not want because the Israelis extremists, though clever, want all of Palestine and hope that continued conflict will result in their eventual annexation of the entire West Bank devoid some day of its Christian and Muslim population.
Sheikh Yassin’s organization grew as he controlled the Village System that Israel helped set up to dominate and control Palestinians. The Islamic Association raised millions, with the approval of Israel, and used that money to buy the hearts and minds of the oppressed and brutalized Palestinians impatient for victory.
But it was during the first Intifada that Israel realized that it’s Shamir-Sharon strategy had failed. Hamas was born and launched attacks against Israeli targets. The purpose was not so much to defeat Israel, but to instead close the deal on the PLO, which had announced in 1988 it would recognize Israel’s right to exist in exchange for the return of the lands captured in 1967. Hamas fought to prevent the PLO from taking power, but Israel’s Yitzhak Rabin was persuaded less than six years later to negotiate with Arafat to end the conflict peacefully.
In 1995, a follower of Sharon and Benjanim Netanyahu, murdered Rabin and started the tailspin destruction of the peace process.
But an equal force complicit in the murder of the peace process was Hamas. Hamas has always refused to participate in Palestinian elections and as partners with the secular Arafat and PLO. Hamas did not view itself as a Palestinian movement, but as an Islamic movement intent on establishing an Islamic Nation in Palestine. Their American off-shoot of Hamas is called the Islamic Association for Palestine, which operated under the very noses of the naive American people to raise money for Hamas related groups.
Every time that Rabin and Arafat signed an agreement, Hamas struck not by attacking Israeli soldiers and military institutions, but by instead targeting Israeli women, children, old men and reservists who were returning home on buses. They didn’t even watse their time fighting the Israeli settler fanatics because the political goal was not to beat the Israelis, but to defeat and murder the peace process.
Hamas spent every possible opportunity to sabotage the peace process and they, more than anyone, help the Israel right continue their strategy from the 1970s of destroying the PLO and Arafat, now that Rabin was out of the way.
And every time Hamas would murder innocent Israeli civialians, Sharon’s government responded by attacking Arafat’s PLO and PNA offices. The years between 1995 and 2000, and the 2nd Intifada provoked by Ariel Sharon’s terrorist incursion to the Temple Mount/Haram al Ash Sharif, destroyed the infrastructure of the secular Palestinian government. When Arafat died and the accusations of PLO corruption always thrown in front of charges that Hamas was a terrorist organization, Hamas was poised to strike at the heart of Palestinian Democracy and destroy it. They never expected to do it in one election, but they did when the older and younger leaders of the Fatah split and battled for control. In fact, Hamas never won a majority of the vote, only a plurality. They never had a majority mandate to run the country, but they did have enough seats to dominate the new PNA government after the Jan. 2006 elections.
Here’s where Hamas continued its games.
As they fought for political control of the PNA, Hamas allowed its members to act as uncontrolled vigilantes, firing Qassam Missiles at Israeli civilian targets.
The point is here that if Hamas was really interested in participating in the PNA Government process, or even making it better, they would have controlled their terrorist off-shoots in the Gaza Strip. Instead, they played both sides of the fight, waging a battle to control the government, and allowing their terrorist militants to launch military strikes not in the name of the Palestinians or on the orders of the PNA Government, but on the orders of Hamas.
In reality, Hamas, by allowing its members to act with violence outside of the PNA government system, violated its own role as members of Palestinian Democracy. Hamas, not the secular Palestinians, broke the covenant that caused this war.
Now, Hamas is in control of that shithole called the Gaza Strip, a place that Hamas cleverly asserted they had turned green with health services, but that has been the butte of vicious Israeli military policies and an oppressive Israeli occupation caused by Hamas violence and immoral terrorist suicide bombing murders. It is one of the most pathetically poor, oppressed and devastated piece of land on the planet Earth.
I have been to Gaza several times. And I was in Ramallah this week. It seems that most Palestinians there, Muslim and Christian, oppose the religious extremism that Hamas represents. They watched as Hamas did exactly what the Israelis did, murder dozens of Palestinians in cold blood. Hamas destroyed all of the infrastructure of the secular Palestinians, replaced the Palestinian Flag with a Green Islamicist Flag of the new Hamastan Terrorist State, and demanded that PNA President Mahmoud Abbas end his opposition ot their actions. Abbas acted properly by firing Hamas puppet religious “leader” Ismail Haniyeh — the real leader of Hamas is the Grand Ayatollah of the Syrian Palestinian Diaspora, Khaled Meshaal, who is himself a pupper of the Syrian government which is suspected of destroying the independent leadership of Lebanon.
Ramallah will not become a Hamas State like thew Gaza Strip. Those who support Hamas are celebrating Hamas military coup, the Hamas destruction of the Democratically elected government through the only means that are natural to Hamas, armed violence.
Abbas must step up to the plate and become a leader. Either he fights back and destroys Hamas ansd returns Gaza to Democratic rule and secular freedom, or he should resign and make way for a Palestinian leader who respects the rights of everyone, rejects the Hamas religious fanaticism that would imprison not only Christian Palestinians but secular Muslims too. They have to destroy Hamas and possibly this civil war that Hamas has started will result in the secular Palestinians partnering with the Israelis to not only destroy the religious extremism that threatens them both, but that also works toward re-establishing the peace process to achieve a two-state solution with one Israel and one Palestine based roughly on the 1`967 borders, compensation for the Palestinian refugees, and a sharing of Jerusalem.
It’s not easy. But the threat from Hamas is so great, they have become the real enemy of Palestinian freedom. To destroy Hamas is to in fact pledge your loyalty to the dream of a free, Democrat and independent Palestinian State.
SOME MORE NOTES:
The stories about Hamas fanaticism are so unbelievable. Last week, they threatened to murder several women who work for the Palestine TV in Gaza Strip claiming they must wear Hijabs, the religious head covering of conservative Muslim women, usually forced to wear the Hijab by their husbands, brothers, fathers and male society. Wearing a Hijab does NOT make a Muslim woman more faithful than a secular Muslim woman who dresses in Western style and refuses to be subjugated by men.
Hamas has gone around using terrorism to destroy Palestinian businesses that offer alcohol, dancing and sheesha pipes (nargeela smoking). They have banned music festivals and all public displays of fun, singing, dancing and music, and they have fought to force all Muslims to subject themselves to their extreme interpretation of Islam, which they have bastardized just like al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
– Ray Hanania
Join the Conversation
I’m not sure I understand. Hamas is the elected government. Fatah seems to be attempting a coup. I appreciate your sentiments to your (parents?) homeland – but as someone in the US, surely you support a democratically elected government over a military coup?
“I would rather live under an Israeli occupation knowing that one day I will be able to live in peace and freedom and real Democracy through negotiations and peace”
You seem very confident. I wonder if that’s what people said in 1967: “I know that one day I will live in peace and freedom and real democracy through negotiations and peace.” You really expect this from…. from… Israel?
The only thing that you are right about is that there is not real democracy in Palestine, even though Hamas was elected with integrity. The reason there is not real democracy is because the PA does not have real authority. It is subservient to Israel. How else do you explain that half the parliament was arrested by Israel? Imagine if the Palestinians arrested half of the Knesset. Would you, if you were an Israeli citizen, then say “I accept living under Palestinian hegemony because I know that one day I will live in peace and freedom and real democracy,” even as they took your democracy apart?
Who knows what Hamas will do: but they do not have a track record of imposing their beliefs on the rest of Palestinian society, or of persecuting minorities. Fatah, on the other hand, has a long record of collaborating with the Israeli military and government, with the CIA, and of taking millions if not billions of dollars away from the Palestinian people.
See this article: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7030.shtml
Hamas was not elected. Hamas “members” were elected to participate in the government and they held a majority of the seats … they had to forged a coalition with the Hamas. The fact is that the PNA IS the Government, not Hamas, and Hamas has a majority voice in that government.
What Hamas does not have is the right to act outside of that government to 1) fire Qassam rockets at Israel, 2) attack any Fatah institutions.
It’s a lot like president Bush. He’s a Republican but the Republicans don’t control the government. They have votes. The Republican Party, though,a cts outside of the government but within the limitations imposed by the government.
Hamas is acting both as a government by itself which it is not — and as a political party outside of the government taking actions that are reserved for a government, not a political party.
As for getting peace from Israel, well, I am not sure. But I believe I have a better shot dealing with Israel than with Hamas. I’m not Muslim and therefore in their eyes I am not a citizen. They were not waving Palestinian Flags when they tookover the Gaza Strip and they were not calling for Secular, Democratic Palestinian State where Jews, Christians and Muslims can live together in peace. They declared an Islamic Republic and declared that Islamic Law would be the rule of the land …
Israel is a “Jewish” State but the secular aspect of Israel is what gives me hope for a compromise. There is no compromise with religious fanaticism of any stripe, Christian, Muslim or Jew.
Ray Hanania
Hamas was not elected. Hamas “members” were elected to participate in the government and they held a majority of the seats … they had to forged a coalition with the Hamas. The fact is that the PNA IS the Government, not Hamas, and Hamas has a majority voice in that government.
What Hamas does not have is the right to act outside of that government to 1) fire Qassam rockets at Israel, 2) attack any Fatah institutions.
It’s a lot like president Bush. He’s a Republican but the Republicans don’t control the government. They have votes. The Republican Party, though,a cts outside of the government but within the limitations imposed by the government.
Hamas is acting both as a government by itself which it is not — and as a political party outside of the government taking actions that are reserved for a government, not a political party.
As for getting peace from Israel, well, I am not sure. But I believe I have a better shot dealing with Israel than with Hamas. I’m not Muslim and therefore in their eyes I am not a citizen. They were not waving Palestinian Flags when they tookover the Gaza Strip and they were not calling for Secular, Democratic Palestinian State where Jews, Christians and Muslims can live together in peace. They declared an Islamic Republic and declared that Islamic Law would be the rule of the land …
Israel is a “Jewish” State but the secular aspect of Israel is what gives me hope for a compromise. There is no compromise with religious fanaticism of any stripe, Christian, Muslim or Jew.
The Electronic Intifada is a good source, but it is Jabha and very politically one-sided. They are basically anti-Fatah and they are not an objective source ont he topic. I am not a member of Fatah and never have been. I’ve always been indpendent. But my experience shows me that the Hamas and its supporters are very focused and they do impose their views on everyone. Ifd you are not a Hamas supporter, for example in Gaza, you do not get medical and health services. You have to go elsewhere. It forces people to be “pro-Hamas.”
Ray Hanania
Hey Ray,
I was wondering, since you were in the West Bank recently, what are the attitudes of folks there towards Fatah? Do people support them the same way Hamas is supported?
I’ve never been to Palestine, and the Palestinians I know are all very Westernized, so I’m wondering if theres a real split between support for Fatah and Hamas among Palestinians, and if people would turn against Fatah in the West Bank as well.
To add to the previous comment, I guess I’m asking how representative your opinion is among Palestinians, or from what you could tell while you were there.
Good post by the way!
Ray Hanania,
There were Christians who voted for Hamas. See http://www.sptimes.com/2006/01/28/Worldandnation/Hamas__yes__Islamic_l.shtml
Why do you leave out the role of Israel , the United States, and certain Arab countries, in fueling the violence in the Palestinian territories? See http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7030.shtml
Ray, while I have the chance to ask you a question, I would like know, why is it when you make jokes about religion it’s always about Islam and not about Christianity. Do you know Sirhan Sirhan, the man convicted of assassinating Rober F. Kennedy was a Palestinian Christian? Some people believe he did not act alone; if that’s true then Sirhan is the first Arab patsy in America’s war on terror. How about the Pope expressing concern about violence by Muslims? Are you aware that the region with the most number of killings is in the Congo, more than 4 million dead, its Christians killing Christians.
Ray, under the Notes, you mentioned that Hamas is responsible for those actions, but that’s not true.
The group The Army of Islam is making these threats, which have been condemned by Hamas.
Not that I’m supporting Hamas, but had to correct a couple of things.
Hey Randall … you haven’t heard my act I guess … I make jokes about being Christian all the time … nice try, though
Also, it is not a very good defense to say that someone else does worse. It’s a cop out actually, but it also means you acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist organization if you argue that they are not the only ones who engage in terrorism or violence …
Kareem, I spend a lot of time in Ramallah and travel all over the West Bank … my relatives live in Bethlehem, Beit Sahour, Beit Jala, Nazareth, East Jerusalem and in many other cities in the West Bank and in parts of Israel … no one is really representative of anyone, especially not the Palestinians … but I think my views reflect a large group who do believe that Islamicism is a threat …
Keep in mind the key difference is this: Fatah is a secular political movement. Maybe not very Democratic, but what political organization is? Hamas is a religious organization and is driven not by secular challenges like reason, compromise, rationalizing or understanding. It is about faith and faith means you do what you believe even if your mind tells you that it is wrong. That’s why suicide bombers violate the Qu’ran and murder innocent people because they don’t think, though the religious fanatics tell them that it is okay to kill innocent people — which is against, not for, the Islamic beliefs.
As a Christian Arab, I basically am a Secular Muslim and I am very proud of that fact.
Oh, and Daniel, I do believe Hamas has created the environment in the Gaza Strip that allows fanatics and terrorists to operate. Theya re the “government.” Why is it that we claim they have the power and authority but when someone breaks the law, we shrug our shoulders and say they are not responsible, it is someone else.
Haniyeh has the moral responsibility, for example, to hunt down the kidnappers of Alan Johnson, not negotiate with the kidnappers. He should arrest them, hunt them down, prosecute them. What right do they have to take any authority into their own hands outside of the elected government, unless someone authorized it or has turned its back on authority and the rule of law?
You can’t have it both ways.
Thanks
Ray Hanania
http://www.hanania.com
The decision of some to promote and support reactionary Islamist groups is
the cornerstone of the New Right in the world. There has been an ideological
promotion of gangsterism and terrorism to date that singles such groups out
for recognition. It is indeed noteworthy that such groups are characterized
by a core beyond which they have not expanded into any electoral base or
mass support. It is indeed worth noting that this is no reflection of the
Palestinian sentiment. The effort to justify Hamas’s tactics of
slash-and-burn tactics internally runs contrary to the interests of the
Palestinian people. The Palestinian people demonstrated at the risk of their
own lives for unity on Thursday morning throughout Gaza. The struggle is not just an internal struggle but it is a defining struggle as to whether or not
the Palestinian people are to wage the Revolution Until Victory or become
surrogates for the ayatollahs in Tehran. Abu Mazen, Mohammed Dahlen and
Yassir Arafat were together in the PLO and together in their vision.
It has only been Hamas that has always been separate from the PLO. They
promote these murders knowing that they present a new scenario in the region that excludes the possibility of Palestinian nationhood. There should be no surprise at the victory of Hamas in Gaza. This is indeed what they have promoted since their founding. They are NOT a Palestinian liberation
organization, and when they themselves always drew the distinction as
separate from the PLO and as an “Islamic resistance” organization they were
speaking honestly.
The refusal of some to define who represents the forces of liberation in
Palestine and other parts of South West Asia rests squarely on the
ideological shoulders of liberal guilt and identity politics. Clearly there
is no left in an organization that defines a social movement, any social
movement, of Third World peoples, as inherently revolutionary. Neither is
there any foundation for people to align or promote the actions and
demonstrations of such organizations whether ANSWER or any others. They have promoted theocratism today where once they supported liberation struggles simply because armed conflict by oppressed peoples provides them with a validation that their own people do not extend to them.
The years of “anti-racism” and “anti-fascism” has obscured any real politics
that they might have had at one time. The Hamas’s military coup of the PA
authorities indicate that Hamas now has gone from a dual authority to the
sole party in Gaza. The demonstrations on Thursday included the opposition
parties within the PA, the DFLP and the PFLP.
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=46066 There is no acceptable
proposal for unity with the Islamists. It would be like aligning with the
death squads of El Salvador.
The transformation of popular mass organizations waging a liberation
struggle into death squads takes place with their political shift. It is
we look first at the politics that controls the gun and make a decision that is not blinded simply by anti-Zionism or anti-US sentiment.. The effort to define
Hamas’s politics as a cumulative effect of US and Israeli politics obscures
the social character of political Islamism in the region. It was opposed by
Baathists, by Nasserites, by the PLO and by national organizations such as
the PKK, WCP-I and others. It was the victory of the Islamists in Iran in
1979 that presented the region with a new actor on the stage with politics
of their own. The social movement of political Islamism is not simply a
force that exists in the absence of any left, it is a force that actively
assaults any popular struggles or organizations.
Sorry to interrupt the flow. Loved this one (Ray’s): “As a Christian Arab, I basically am a Secular Muslim and I am very proud of that fact.” LOL!
Ray,
So because you don’t acknowledge that certain other groups have committed terrorist acts, that means they haven’t?
What group hasn’t committed terrorist acts? Palestinian or Israeli?
Isreal originally funded Hamas and allowed it to flourish, in order to build up a rival to the secular Yasser Arafat.
Don’t you see what is going ? Israel supports one groups, then when it looks like things might be settling down and Israel will have to make compromises, Israel will than say it will not make negotations. To stir things up, they then fuel the violence by supporting another group.
Did you agree with Israel, when after the elections, it arrested Hamas MPs and officials. Fatah has also committed terrorist acts.
Do you agree with the United States and Israel providing training and weapons to Fatah?
Regarding your jokes, actually I haven’t seen any of your shows, I have just heard radio interviews. You may do some Christian jokes, but they probably don’t cover the topics I have mentioned.
Did you know a Muslim, Wajeeh Nuseibeh, holds the key to Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, this is to keep the different sects of Christianity from fighting each other. THere are Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Ethiopians and Copts. Its a good thing Wajeeh Nuseibeh doesn’t think like the U.S. governmnet, otherwise you would have a civil war that would make Iraq look like a picnic.
Everyone makes mistakes. Fatah did commit terrorist attacks, but do they do that now? On the other hand, Hamas does and has a charter that asks for the destruction of Israel. There is a difference.
Jina,
At lest Hamas didn’t actually wipe a peoples off the map, the way the Zionists did.
Israel helped Hamas to flourish as a rival to the secular Yasser Arafat, now the Palestinians are suffering for Israel’s actions. This is not that much different from what’s going on in Iraq. The United States helped Saddam Hussein into power and supported him financially and strategically when he was committing his worst atrocties. The Iraqi people are paying the price for U.S. foreign policy.
oh Randall
your comments like:
of course there were – some people believe to belong to their religional folks some to the country & people who live arround them – you find Jews sitting ttogether with weird Ahmadinejad to deny the holocaust – you find people in any nation or religion for anything – you find Salmad Rushdie for Islamic religion etc. – it’s always a cheap excuse to qoute the exceptionalists, but not the responsible ones – you’ll alway find any fool of any nation for any quote & then may quote it as ‘their’ statement’ – by the way Hamas yesterday just burned a Christian church down in Gaza & destroyed parts of a Christian nuns monastery – maybe the guy you qouted has just changed his opinioan by recorgnizing that?
you don’t quite get it- Christianity has about no importance in the so-called Christian countries – in Congo it’s all about old tribes & clans & has nothing to do with Christianity or Christian religion, be they somehow christianized or baptized or whatever – it’s just one of the other stupid nationalist power wars – reason for war for the case of Christianity has since long almost died out , since it got it’s climax in the dark ages when crusaders, inquisiton & christianity tried to spread with force & conquer all nations of the the world with the sword of holy christendom – if Christian countries fight each other they do it for other reasons, for greed, for power, for survival in most cases for anything than just for Christianity cases – Kongo is not like Iraq where some dark-aged Muslims fight each other for religional cases or other kind of fighters in that region like Hizbollah, Hamas, claim to be God’s (Allah) fighters – religion wars are some kind out fashion in most of so-called -Christian countries meanwhile.. some of them have a lot of other reasons to kill each other..
in which fairytale book did you read that?
another word on Congo – it has about 200 different tribes – 4 big languages in the countries, about 8 other countries around them influencing it – the Hutus for Rwuanda fled to Congo, – there’s a fight for rescources by dictator power fights – it’s a country totally out of control – to divide it in about 10 different independent countries would be maybe make it more stabile, but now of course the richer regions (the ones with the diamond mines etc) try to build own states, while the poorer ones of course regret – in the start it’s been only an artificial colony built by the Belgians driving up the Congo – did they know what trouble their state-building would case – well colonists never cared about consequences – it was all theirs..
Yaman S, “Who knows what Hamas will do: but they do not have a track record of imposing their beliefs on the rest of Palestinian society, or of persecuting minorities.”
> Well, they’re building that record pretty quickly.
RandallJones, “Are you aware that the region with the most number of killings is in the Congo, more than 4 million dead, its Christians killing Christians.”
> Are you aware that some folks actually think a dead muslim kid is just as horrible as a dead Christian kid?
HeiGou, you wrote, “- in Congo it’s all about old tribes & clans & has nothing to do with Christianity or Christian religion, be they somehow christianized or baptized or whatever … – Kongo is not like Iraq where some dark-aged Muslims fight each other for religional cases or other kind of fighters in that region like Hizbollah, Hamas, claim to be God’s (Allah) fighters – religion wars are some kind out fashion in most of so-called -Christian countries meanwhile.. some of them have a lot of other reasons to kill each other..â€
SO here you say the violence in the Congo is due to tribalism while the fighting in the Middle East is due to religion. But under a different forum topic you said about Iraq “So they did not bother sending in 500,000 soldiers. They did not shoot looters on the streets. They took their time. Dysfunctional tribal societies are not something they have had a lot of experience with. But their intention was a good one.†See http://www.mideastyouth.com/2007/06/16/did-you-know-in-iran-killing-has-been-made-easy/#comment-49469
Clearly you really don’t know what you are talking about and you make up things as you go along; you say whatever fits to make your argument. To learn more about the conflict in the Congo see http://zmagsite.zmag.org/JulAug2006/snow0706.html
The violence in the Middle East is not due to religion, it is about controlling land and natural resources. Some may use religion to promote their cause, but that is no different than when the United States uses the cause of spreading human rights and democracy to bomb countries and control their natural resources.
Hi Randall,
when you just wanted to quoted me, but quoted instead someone called HeiGou – which is in fact not me – you probably mixed something heavily – only because the first letters of a name are the same – it doesn’t mean that it is the same person – so I really don’t know which parts of your last comment were meant for me or for that HeiGou
I declare that I’m also not identical with ‘Heidi’, ‘Heimat’, ‘Heilkraeuter’ or ‘Heidschibumbeidschi’ etc. – also not with any other person wordwide with first name starting with ‘H’
So please don’t refer ot HeiGou, when you want to refer to me & otherwise -
but in the ending of your last remark:
I think partly you are right here & partly also wrong – because of course in a conflict like in Iraq with so many interest’s groups there is also crave for controlling land & natural resources, but as with same weight or more there also is the religion war, blinded by religious fanatism who fight & kill & destroy each other just for the power influence of their religion – well what we had in Christianity with those crusaders, with-burnings. inquisition – religon wars once in Europe – when the countries here had been all God’s states (in Germany was a 30-year-long religion war between catholics & evangelic protestants)
Didn’t you read my next comment to my comment before? when I wrote “there’s a fight for rescources by dictator power fights -”
yes of course I know that its’ also about rescources & controlling land – be it by the internal tribes or the influencing governments trying to gain that recources – so I see, that you now agree, that it’s not a Christian against Christians fight, which of course is may true, but leads wrong & totally misleads about what these wars are about.
& your:
-
Here I totally disagree . of course not all but aa lot of it is – think about Khomeini declaring a God’s state, think about martyrs for Allah, think about the years-long war between Irak & Iran when Iran send 1000ds of soldiers to die on the deadly frontline, claiming it was for Allah , think about Taliban, Hizbollah, Hamas, Muslim brothership, the high goal of suicide-bombers (to reach paradize) & all those weird kind of God’s warriors – you really can’t be so naive to deny that a lot of violence in the midlle East is due to religion (you see- Kareem in Egypt got only 1 year for having written critical words about the government, but another 3 years for having been critical to religion – which is maybe a barometer to the state of mind Egypt is in
- to deny that “The violence in the Middle East is due to religion’ seems to me to be under their influence – it’s about the same like denying all the shit & mischief the catholic God’s warriors like above mentioned, brought about Europe (& more) to Jerusalem in the western dark ages
Heimo (not HeiGou – please don’t anybody here confuse me with him or him with me or otherwise etc.)
Heimo,
Sorry for the mix up. The Congo is not just about dicatators since Western democracies are involved in the violence, they often sell weapons to both sides, in order to perpetuate the violence, while they exploit the natural resources.
Regarding Iraq, why do you leave out President Bush and other Westerners using references to religion when discussing the invasion of Iraq? Saddam Hussein was secular.
Regarding the Iraq-Iran war, the UNIted Statees did the same thing in this war as it does in Africa; it fueled and sold weapons to both sides of the conflict.
THe UNited Staes helped Saddam HUsseuin into power and supported him when he was committing his worst atrocities. THe Iraqi people are scapegoats for U.S. foreign policy. The Iraqis have put Saddam Husein on trial, when will Western countries put his Western collaborators on trial?
THis still doesn’t explain why the Pope doesn’t mention the violence in the predominantly Christian Congo. Why hasn’t he spoken up about Rwanda. There were Catholic and Anglican priests and nuns who were involved in inciting and taking part in the massacres?
He has. “The Church … cannot be held responsible for the guilt of its members that have acted against the evangelic law; they will be called to render account of their own actions. All Church members that have sinned during the genocide must have the courage to assume the consequences of their deeds they have done against God and fellow men.” Pope John Paul, May 1996
You know, Randall, you’ve said you don’t try to defend Hamas by pointing out atrocities by the US and/or Israel, but whenever the subject comes up that’s all you do. Re-read your posts above; it’s all Congo, Christians, Iraq, US, UN, Israel.
Would you like to address Mr. Hanania’s conclusion that, “To destroy Hamas is to in fact pledge your loyalty to the dream of a free, Democrat and independent Palestinian State.” ?
Grumpy,
He’s just saying the Church is not guilty for the actions of the priests and nuns, but the media and politicians always want to paint all Muslims with the brush of the violent extremist. They always demand when will the Muslims condemn violent act done by Muslims. There are Muslims that condemn the violence, the problem is that they are hardly ever interviewed by the mainstream media.
My first mention of the Pope was as part of a political joke, just to convey that he needs to be concerned about violence amongst Christians as he is about Muslims.
Regarding Ray Hanania’s conclusion, I pointed out under one of his other articles, he has mentioned before that Hamas was supported by Israel and allowed to flourish as a rival to the secular Yasser Arafat. If we were to get rid of Hamas and replace it with a secular governmnet, Israel would help to create anouther political rival in order to perpetuate the infighting amongst the Palestinians.
Yes, I read that one, too. So you think it’s useless to oppose Hamas because Israel will just create another?
“the media and politicians always want to paint all Muslims with the brush of the violent extremist.” You must have missed President Bush repeatedly insisting that Islam is a religion of peace.