I previously posted about the latest rash of scandalous photos coming out of Afghanistan showing U.S. military atrocities under Obama’s command, and wondering if the media would pick up on it the way they did when it was Bush’s army… Well, here’s a twist I wasn’t expecting: yes, one of the U.S. media, Rolling Stone, [...]
Jeffrey Goldberg, a correspondent for the Atlantic, cast a spotlight on yet another disgustingly overt example of pure bias in the mainstream media, particularly at the anti-Semitic Reuters newswire. He points to a Reuters news item which contains the following despicable sentences: Police said it was a “terrorist attack” — Israel’s term for a Palestinian [...]
In the [sparse] reporting of the Palestinians’ massacre of the Fogel family, several newspapers stand out with their distorted sense of “balance”, i.e., where they feel overwhelmingly uncomfortable describing the barbarity of the Palestinians without at least taking a swipe or two at the Israelis, no matter how patently irrelevant or disgustingly disrespectful it comes [...]
Gazan Disillusionment
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The Christian Science Monitor reports that Gazans are growing increasingly frustrated with Hamas. A bit slow on the uptake, they are finally now realizing that electing terrorists to run your country might not ingratiate you with your neighbors nor gain any favor in the world’s eyes.
The report states:
According to recent polls, the majority of Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants believe they are worse off now than before the war and that the formation of a coalition between the Western-backed Fatah movement and Hamas Islamists is the best way to solve their crisis.
Sixty-five percent of Gazans now live under the poverty line, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) says.
“We know Israel is the source of the blockade, but the problems between the Palestinian factions are the primary reason it has been able to continue,” says Osman Shawa, a restaurant owner and mid-level leader of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in Gaza. “In Gaza, we are the ones that suffer from the inability to overcome these differences.”
The overwhelming support that Hamas had several years ago, empowering them to break away from Fatah and isolate Gaza under their control, is now dwindling. In fact, only 1 in 4 Gazans would supposedly vote for Hamas again. CSM reports that
while the parties squabble, Hamas’s popularity appears to be dropping.
According to a poll conducted by the West Bank-based Bir Zeit University in May, just 23 percent of Palestinians in Gaza would vote for Hamas in a new parliamentary election, as opposed to the 37 percent who said they would opt for the Abbas-led Fatah movement. Nearly two-thirds of Palestinians in both territories believe a Hamas victory in future elections would lead to a tightening of the blockade, says another survey published by the Palestinian Center for Survey and Policy Research (PCSR).
My favorite line, though, is this one:
“People who voted for Hamas did not know their real policies. And if they knew the consequences of these policies, they wouldn’t have voted for them,” says Abu Khaled, a Gaza City shop owner.
You mean to tell me that Hamas’s stated objective of the destuction of Israel at all costs wasn’t transparent enough to the voters? Were there not enough copies of the Hamas charter available at the time? Or was Hamas’s steady incendiary anti-Israel drumbeat just not noticeable enough for them?
In then end, they are reaping what they sow. Or, to use another idiom, they are dying by the sword by which they chose to live in choosing Hamas.
One can only hope that they can get out from under Hamas’s opressive thumb soon enough to save any peaceful ambitions before it’s too late.
The article is usefull for me. I’ll be coming back to your blog.
Thank you!