Soccer Dad

Viewing hamas without blinders

Meryl Yourish and Media Backspin highlight an excellent editorial in the Washington Post, Hamas's War

. . . if Hamas wants to be equated with Hezbollah or define itself as at war with Israel, then Israel has every right to try to destroy the Islamic movement's military capacity, to capture its leaders (it has arrested more than 60 since Wednesday, including eight cabinet ministers) and to topple its government. Isn't that what happens in war?

(Vital Perspectives also gives a nice summary.)

By itself the editorial is excellent and it serves as a rebuke of much of what is reported and opined about the conflict between Israel and the PA.

Among those who stand rebuked are
1) The Post's own correspondent, Scott Wilson. Wilson has been whitewashing Hamas's culpability and parsing its statements to "prove" its moderation. (For more details read Maryland Conservatarian's excellent critiques of Wilson's reporting.)

In particular the editorial observed

It could behave like a civilized government -- and work to free the hostage -- or align itself with a terrorist operation. It chose the latter. Hamas government officials endorsed the militants' demand that Israel release Palestinian prisoners it has legally arrested in exchange for a soldier who was attacked while guarding Israeli territory.

And yet Wilson does all he can to whitewash Haniyeh and company

Washington, D.C.: Is a rift forming between the Gaza based leaders of Hamas and exiled leaders such as Khaled Mashal? Also, is Mashal a target for Israeli reprisals because of his involvement in ordering the kidnapping?

Scott Wilson: It's been forming for quite a while, since even before the January elections, but this prisoners' document and soldier issue has really exposed it. The split is fairly easy to understand: Hamas political leaders in Gaza have to deal with the burden of government, including economic sanctions, and the exiles do not have to compromise at all on their positions. Israelis believe Mashal may have ordered the Sunday attack that resulted in the soldier's capture in order to scuttle talks over the prisoners' document, which effectively commits Hamas for the first time to a two-state solution. . .

2) Other newspapers. The New York Times weighed in with "Hamas Provokes a Fight" which finds the arrest of members of the Hamas government, "unsettling." I guess the main point of praise for the NY Times editorial is that it criticized Hamas without really mentioning Israel too much.

In Deadlines and Demands the Baltimore Sun does much worse. It reduces the terror attacks against Israeli positions to political maneuvering.

Hamas leaders in Syria, the patrons of its suicide squads, are to blame for this latest confrontation, which began with a June 25 attack on an Israeli military outpost in which two soldiers were killed and a 19-year-old corporal captured. This provocation has served one real aim - to enhance the political standing of Hamas' exiled leaders while marginalizing elected Hamas moderates in Gaza who were left running for cover. Israel had to respond - it rightly recognized the June 25 strike and kidnapping as a resumption of Hamas' campaign of violence.

And Israel's attack not only played into the hands of Meshaal and company but hurt the wrong people.

And how would the Sun suggest that we combat the terrorists of Hamas more effectively?

The problem is that the United States and its European allies have isolated the new Palestinian leadership, politically and economically. Both have withheld aid to the Hamas-led government for its refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist or renounce violence. The Bush administration's demonization of Syria, a patron of the Hamas military leadership in Damascus, hasn't helped matters, either.

Implicitly, then, it would appear that the correct approach (according to the Sun) is to re-engage Hamas and work with Syria. So when nations and organization work against peace, it's a cry for help; they need to be coddled and then they'll learn to play nicely.

3) The Washington Post itself. Throughout the past 13 years the Post's editors (and the Post has not been alone) has advocated a position of ignoring or minimizing Palestinian terror in the name of making progress in the peace process. The Palestinians have learned that there are no real consequences to their war against Israel. That Hamas feels no pressure to change shows how well the lesson has been learned.

So the end of the editorial leaves me a bit deflated

The restraint reflects recognition by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that Israel stands only to lose if the Palestinian Authority is destroyed by force. Cpl. Shalit probably can be saved only by a Palestinian political decision, and Israeli forces will have trouble retiring from Gaza and stopping further rocket launchings and abductions, unless they can reach a truce with Hamas. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has been trying to draw Hamas's political wing into an alliance with his secular Fatah movement, could still play a role in brokering such an accord. But he needs more help than he is getting from Egypt, other Arab states and the United Nations. Instead of fulminating about supposed Israeli war crimes, these actors ought to be demanding that Hamas -- and its sponsors in Damascus and Tehran -- stop their own acts of terrorism and war.

The Palestinian Authority's existence has never been a force for peace. And for the Post's editors to play up the differences between the political wing of Hamas, who may, in their eyes, be capable of making peace with Israel and the militant/terrrorist wing of Hamas shows how little they have learned. And it shows a great disconnect from the beginning of the editorial that showed an understanding that Hamas is a terror organization through and through.

Technorati tags: Washington Post, New York Times, Media Bias, Israel, Hamas.

Posted by SoccerDad at July 7, 2006 11:39 AM | TrackBack