Soccer Dad

Heard on the 'street'

John Murphy of the Baltimore Sun writes in Boys' killings raise tensions between Hamas, Fatah

Shunned by the West after its defeat of Fatah in elections this year, Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel or renounce violence, has fallen deeper into the arms of Syria and Iran. While the United States, the European Union and Israel have subjected the Hamas government to crippling sanctions, Iran and Syria have emerged as eager sponsors of the new Palestinian government.

In the same article he also writes

Abbas' cozy relationship with the U.S. makes him appear weak in the eyes of ordinary Palestinians, Fighel said, especially when his ties to the West fail to result in any tangible improvement in their lives, such as releasing prisoners or easing Israeli army checkpoints in the West Bank.

Now both can't be true can they? In the first instance Murphy's arguing that America's shunning of Hamas has driven Hamas further into the arms of Syria and Iran and has no negative effect on the credibility of Hamas. In the second, he's writing that American support for Abbas weakens him because he has failed to deliver.

Well, Hamas, by that measure, has failed to achieve those same tangible benefits. Does that mean that Iranian and Syrian support for Hamas, make Hamas appear weak?

The only way to resolve these contradictory implications is to conclude that the United States ought to be supporting the Hamas government, despite the fact that Hamas, as even Murphy ackowledges, refuses to recognize Israel or cease its terror.

This is illustrative of one of the problems underpinning reporting from the Middle East. There is an interest in giving special importance to the Arab (or in this case, specifically, the Palestinian,) street.

But the troubles plaguing the Palestinians aren't the result of Israeli intransigence or American indifference to the electoral process. They have everything to do with the political culture that was nurtured by Yasser Arafat. Dead two years, the thuggery that marked his leadership continues.

Arafat didn't create a national liberation movement, he created a criminal organization devoted to destroying Israel and accumulating wealth and power to its leaders.

Remember that once Hamas assumed power it was supposed to devote itself to the duties of governing. But instead of building factories and an economy Hamas devoted itself to building rockets and smuggling tunnels.

The violence we're seeing now between Fatah and Hamas is the violence of two crime families turning against each other.

This is Arafat's legacy.

Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Blogdigger tags: Hamas, Syria, Israel, Media Bias.