Soccer Dad

Encouraging terror

Bradly Burston may be a bit optimistic in arguing the terror is on its way out of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, but he's right about the forces that have fanned its spread and enhanced its effectiveness over the years.

Through it all, it must be said, a newly electronically enabled world media effectively spurred the bloodshed, offering monsters a magnifying mirror, and instant access to billions across the world.

As anti-Muslim intolerance mounted in much of the West, there was a tendency in the press, as in academia, to coddle Islamists, to sidestep thorny questions, to refrain from pursuing the kind of relentless probing that, locally for example, had for decades yielded reams of newsprint on "How Israel Has Lost Its Soul," or "How Jews Suffered at the Hands of Nazis, and Now Palestinians are Suffering at the Hands of Israelis."

Many journalists, steering clear of value judgments or words like terrorism, saw themselves as implementing a kind of affirmative action of the mind, telling the untold story of disadvantaged and despairing Muslims, the subtext being: this is the root problem, the World Trade Center and the 18 Jerusalem City Bus were but the symptoms.

So we must be concerned when Gerard Baker writes that Hamas won the Propaganda war this week

With Hamas, however, whose worldview and geopolitical ambitions are exactly the same as those fireball physicians, it’s all very different. Thanks to their efforts in the past few months, they are the stabilisers, the people who have brought peace to Gaza. Their transformation into popular heroes was completed this week when they pulled off the release of a kidnapped BBC man. The whole world now loves them.

What I especially admired about the choreography of the Alan Johnston release was the way Ismail Haniya and his friends had clearly learnt the lessons of Britain’s recent little hostage crisis in Iran; play the magnanimous saviour for the TV cameras and you’ll have them eating out of your hand. Unlike Tehran, Hamas made sure not to commit the mistake of crass overkill, and avoided sending Johnston off with a goody bag and a poly-cotton suit. We are left in awe of their magnanimity and a renewed respect for their role as pivotal players in the Middle East drama.

While I don't agree with everything he writes, his conclusion is apt.

But we need to be much less naive about Hamas. That is not its real goal. Its members want to destroy Israel and wage war on the West. Just as we buy into the Islamist propaganda on Iraq, so we risk signing up for the Hamas propaganda in Palestine. Do we really think our acceptance of their leadership will be treated by them as an act of magnanimity on our part? Or will they see it as another critical triumph on the path to their ultimate victory?

Let’s never lose sight of a simple chilling fact that unites the suicidal maniacs in Britain and the sweet reasonable hostage-saviours in Gaza. Hamas was the big winner this week. That makes us all, whether we’re sipping beers in pavement cafés in Israel, boarding planes in Glasgow or out for a ladies’ night in the Haymarket, much, much less safe.

Let's hope that Hamas's media, academic, political and diplomatic enablers are listening.

israel, terrorism, hamas.