The Washington Post has had two recent commentaries with contrasting portraits of Hamas. The first was a Q&A with Hamas’ new prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh (in photo). Here is a sample:
Q: Does a peace in stages means the ultimate obliteration of the Jewish people?
A: We do not have any feelings of animosity toward Jews. We do not wish to throw them into the sea. All we seek is to be given our land back, not to harm anybody.
Q: Do you recognize Israel’s right to exist?
A: The answer is to let Israel say it will recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, release the prisoners and recognize the rights of the refugees to return to Israel. Hamas will have a position if this occurs.
The other commentary was by Henry Kissinger. Here’s his take:
“Hamas represents the mind-set that prevented the full recognition of Israel’s legitimacy by the PLO for all these decades, kept Yasser Arafat from accepting partition of Palestine at Camp David in 2000, produced two intifadas and consistently supported terrorism. Far too much of the debate within the Palestinian camp has been over whether Israel should be destroyed immediately by permanent confrontation or in stages in which occasional negotiations serve as periodic armistices.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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28 Comments
On the one hand, you have a Hamas leader saying what he stands for. On the other hand, you have an Israeli partisan (Kissinger) saying what Hamas stands for.
The point is that the Palestinians had a choice and they went overwhelmingly with Hamas.
Democracy is a great thing. Let’s respect it.
The democracy that we let the Palestinians have is gonna have adverse effects on joint American-Israeli interests. The way we choose to act will determine if the U.S. still believes in democracy or has become an empire of the 21st century.
The choice the Palestinians had was very similar to that which the Lebanese had several years ago: vote for continued brutal occupation or vote to resist that occupation. Hizbollah and Hamas represent resistence to that brutal occupation.
Hezbollah and Hamas are both a den of murdering pigs.
Just ask the family of Robert Stethem.
You are right Proudlib. Just like the people elected Hitler too. We should have respected them and their take over of Europe.
Just because people voted for something still doesn’t make it right.
“Just because people voted for something still doesn’t make it right.”
Then what does, Nathan?
Actually, the notion that Hitler was popularly elected is a commonly repeated falsehood.
He never gained more than a sizable minority of the popular vote when free elections were held. He manipulated the system to get himself appointed Chancellor, and the rest is unfortunate history.
But you have a point in that Bush finessed our system. And those of us who respect democracy had to abide with that outcome despite his constant abuse of his office . . .
One trick Hitler used was to have his minions burn the Reischtagg and blame it on Commies. Interesting …
pl
from teh timeline below it appears to me that both side availed themselves to the system in ways to make the outcome more favorable to them. according to the report by cnn bush never trailed in florida. he did not win the popular vote, that is true, but he won teh electoral college, which i favor because being from less populous state i don’t believe the coast can understand our issues here and thus we would be subjected to their wants and desires , both good and bad. soem day the coast may represent things you don’t believe in and if we go to a popular vote i believe our votes will not count.anyway i’m tired of hearing how bush finessed the system or stole the election. it was what it was a very close call in florida, with all kinds of issues that was settled by the supreme court. a fairly split court in my view liberal and conservative
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/12/13/got.here/index.html
for all you grammar freaks, forgive my typos, would fix them but the edit on this blog is poor
scott – “i don’t believe the coast can understand our issues here and thus we would be subjected to their wants and desires , both good and bad. ”
Do you understand the issues effecting the majority of Americans who live in more populous areas? Should they be subjected to your wants and desires?
If the issue is about the fairness of the electoral college then we can discuss that.
If the issue is about how Bush “finessed our system” then you are ignoring the truth for the sake of your hate all things Bush rhetoric.
Bush won the Florida electoral votes fair. The only thing the Supreme Court did was intervene to keep the State Supreme court from breaking their own law.
I believe that almost every major paper and independent sources have counted those stupid ballots again and again. Bush won.
Get over it.
Nathan – my issue with the electoral college is fundamental and has nothing to do with Bush. Ironically, during the waning days of the 2000 election there was a great deal of speculation of the exact opposite result: Bush winning popular and Gore winning Electoral. Also, with a fairly small shift in OH we might have had a similar ‘flip-flop’ result in 2004.
In my opinion the EC is obsolete. Anyone here but me ever actually met an Elector?
I don’t think it is obsolete at all.
The premise behind it still stands. To provide equal representation to all people.
Equal? Then why do residents of small states get greater proportionate clout? Direct election will give equal representation.
When the EC was originally established the idea was that the people could not be informed about the candidates. Therefore they would elect “Electors” who would then vote for candidates after they deliberated. That is no longer the case. Electors are nameless faceless automatons. They exercise zero delibeartive activity.
The premise behind the EC was that the people could not vote directly for a candidate but needed to delegate that task to someone who would study the candidates. When was the last time we did that.
Can you name the Electors you voted for in 2004? Ever met one?
“Just because people voted for something still doesn’t make it right.”
Nathan, funny thing, that is what we say in the gay community about the hate amendment!
With the advent of the information age, the electoral college became obsolete. There is no excuse for people to NOT be informed about any candidate, local, state or federal.
The computer is in virtually every home in the united stated, or is available at schools, librarys, etc. The internet contains an overabundane of information. The problem is sifting through it to glean the facts. I think intelligent people can do that with no problem. And that make the EC a white eliphant.
JM,
How many Americans are “well informed” about anything? People wishing to vote should have to score a minimum of 90 on a standardised IQ test. We also have filthy illegals votin so proof of citizenship should be produced and English only should be the rule at all polling places!
V.L.R.B!!
Getting back on topic here:
Hamas is legitimately the choice of the majority of the Palestinian people. I for one do not advocate for military operations or any form of economic or political sanctions on Palestinians to force them to vote in another party. You can not coerce a people into voting in a different political party simply because you don’t like who they elected. That would in effect: 1.prove to the world that America & Israel does not believe in free elections anymore.2. prove to the outside world that we only recognize the puppet governments we set up ourselves for the sole purpose of achieving our own interests.
Oh, wait a minute, yeah too is already clearly evident to the international community.Sorry, Captain America. :(
“two”
Dammit! need coffee!
ben
i understand their issues a lot better than you think. don’t attack just because you don’t agree. teh questionis will teh coast understand our issue sin kansas and how will a popular vote affect our equality. i believe negatively.
i think its a democratic issue because the coasts subscribe to that philosophy so lets have a popular vote. problem is, things have a habit of changing over time and what and that is why the ec is the fairest system oevr time to me
i also believe at this time only about 40 % of the population has a computer or access to one, so an informed public is really far from it
my fingers and the are struggling please forgive
Scott – with terminals everywhere from the public library to the waiting room where my car is serviced I think the penetration % is MUCH higher than 40. But, as to my comments about the ORIGINAL reason for the EC we don’t do that anyway. Who did you vote for AS ELECTORS in 2004? Bet you don’t know.
You never answered my question about why you should have a disproportionate clout (relative to population) compared to people in more populous states. Because of the formula used in determining the number of electors per state residents of the smallest states have more representation than those in larger states.
“One man one vote” – I favor that; some do not. Apparently scott is among those who do not believe in that concept.
I think I agree with Ben. But, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t good reasons for the Electoral College.
Maybe a baseball example will help. There was a 7 game world series where team #1 scored 19 runs, team #2 scored 7 runs. Team #2 won the world series. How did this happen? Team #1 won the first game 19 to 1, but Team #2 won the remaining games by a score of 1 to zero. There actually was such a world series with a similar distribution of runs — I do not know which one. Would we cry that the outcome was unfair? — likley not.
Two things that the electoral college requires of a presidental candidate is that they get a sufficient number of votes and that these are _distributed_ across the states (hence, the above example).
Read this .pdf for a history and explanation of the electoral college. I came away after reading this thinking the founding fathers were pretty damn smart.
http://www.fec.gov/pdf/eleccoll.pdf
I believe the Kansas legislature appoints our electors. I feel ashamed that I don’t know for sure. In Nebraska they elect them directly and I would favor that approach over legislative appointment.
Oops, my example is screwed. The total score of the above world series would have been 19 to 5. It would have ended after four straight victories by Team #2. But the point still stands and is made more forcefully by Team #2’s lower number of runs. Sorry, for the brain freeze.
Scott, it sounds to me what you are saying here is that you dont want the rights of midwesterners, a minority in the U.S. population, to have their rights trampled on by the majority of voters on the coast.
Even a minority of voters should be protected from the tyranny of the majority mob?
Gosh, that is what we say in the gay community about the hate amendment. Even a minority of voters like us should be protected from the mob rule of the tyranny of the majority.
Where the hell is that fainting couch? Scott and Nathan are both posting aruments that are made every day by the gay community!
The devil must be ice skating today, because I thought hell would freeze over before I saw those two agreeing with the “quiers”.
ROFLMQAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ya know, the fact that hamas was elected in spite of bushco just tells me that diebold did not have the contract to run the elections there. Musta used those pesky paper ballots.
I mean, bushco can rig elections in the u.s. but not with the palestinians? Somebody in the republican machine is slipping….badly!