World Taken by Surprise by Hamas Victory
I don't know what planet these people have been on lately. Hamas winning the election was no surprise to me at all. They actually were pretty much in before it started. The pali people were tired of the corruption associated with the PA's Fatah and also bought into the "victory over the Zionist" nonsense from the evacuation of the Gaza Strip. They voted for reform. What they are getting is a slimy terrorist organization who will only bring more bloodshed to the region.
As foreign governments attempt to formulate their reactions to the Hamas victory, informal talks are underway for a joint Hamas-Fatah government. Fatah is not enthusiastic.
Amidst reports that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is considering resigning - Prime Minister Abu Ala already resigned this morning - initial contacts are being made for a future PA government. Leading Hamas official Khaled Meshal, who works from Damascus, has asked Abbas to stay on and agree to a unity Hamas-Fatah government. This would serve Hamas' interests, as its experience until now has added up only to waging terror attacks and running charity organizations - but not running a state government. Fatah, however, has not shown great enthusiasm in joining such a regime.
Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in one of his first decisions today following the Hamas victory, ordered the ministers in his government not to discuss publicly the developments in the PA. He plans to hold an emergency meeting this evening with Foreign Minister Tzippy Livny and Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz to discuss the developments in the Palestinian Authority.
The Hamas victory took the world by surprise. Reports about the elections all predicted a Fatah victory, acknowledging only that it might be narrower than thought. Analyses of the U.S. approach discussed whether the Administration would engage in dialogue with Hamas ministers of a Fatah-led government, but barely noted the possibility that they might have to consider talking with a government led by Hamas.
U.S. President George Bush told the Wall Street Journal this week, "And so you're getting a sense of how I'm going to deal with Hamas if they end up in positions of responsibility. And the answer is: not until you renounce your desire to destroy Israel will we deal with you.
"The Washington Post reported early this week that the U.S. had, relatively secretly, spent $2 million in recent weeks to promote Fatah.
Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yigal Pressler said today that he does not expect Israel to re-enter Gaza, even if Hamas continues its terrorist attacks, as long as it heads the Palestinian Authority. Pressler is a former advisor to Israeli Prime Ministers on terrorism.
Pressler predicted that Israel's refusal to talk with Hamas would last only as long as Hamas says it does not recognize Israel. "I don't see a big difference between Hamas and Fatah," he said. "Israel until now spoke with Fatah because Fatah recognized Israel after the Oslo Accords, but if Hamas decides to recognize Israel, Israel will negotiate with Hamas.
"Labor Party Chairman Amir Peretz said today that his party would never conduct negotiations with a terror organization that has set out to destroy the State of Israel. Observers said that this position is not so much hawkish as a declaration of intent to promote further unilateral withdrawals.
Former General Security Service director and current Labor Party Knesset candidate Ami Ayalon said, "We have to rely on ourselves; we must continue building the fence, something that is in total [sic] consensus in Israel... We absolutely must not talk with Hamas, unless they totally change their entire approach to Israel - not just if they call another hudna or the like..."
posted by Steve | 1/26/2006 07:24:00 AM
2 Comments:
Why should Hamas recognize Israel when they live under occupation? If we had lost WWII and had lived under Nazi occupation since then perhaps we would have similar bad feelings towards Germany. It is sad that the Christian Zionists are destroying our country by behaving in a very un-Christian way and never considering the Palestinian viewpoint. Check out dundeesblog.blogspot.com
Hello anonymous. Thank you for posting on my blog.
Let's give this situation a rational thought for a moment; put the emotion aside and try to think logically. Let's start by taking a look at history.
1917-1922: From 1517-1917 Turkey's Ottoman Empire controlled what is today Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. During World War I (1914-1918), Turkey supported Germany. When Germany was defeated, so were the Turks. In 1916 control of the southern portion of their Ottoman Empire was "mandated" to France and Britain under the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which divided the Arab region into zones of influence. Lebanon and Syria were assigned to France... and "Palestine" (today's Jordan, Israel and "West Bank") was assigned to Great Britain. It is important to mention that “Palestine” is a name that was coined by the Europeans. It did not exist before this point. Because no other group of people had ever established a national homeland here since the Jews had done it 2,000 years before, the British "looked favorably" upon the creation of a Jewish National Homeland throughout all of Palestine. The Jews had already begun mass immigration into Palestine in the 1880's in an effort to rid the land of swamps and malaria and prepare the rebirth of Israel. This Jewish effort to revitalize the land attracted an equally large immigration of Arabs from neighboring areas, who were drawn by employment opportunities and healthier living conditions.
1923-1947: In 1923, the British divided Palestine into two administrative districts. Jews would be permitted only west of the Jordan River. The British had allocated 75% of the originally proposed Jewish Palestinian homeland to lay the seeds of what would become in 1946 the Arab Palestinian Nation of "Trans-Jordan," meaning: "across the Jordan River." The Palestinian Arabs now had their "Arab Palestinian" homeland. The remaining 25% of Palestine (now WEST of the Jordan River) was to be the Jewish Palestinian homeland. However, the Arab population was determined to claim all of Palestine for itself, and wanted to “drive the Jews into the sea.”
Encouraged and incited by growing Arab nationalism throughout the Middle East, the Arabs of that small remaining Palestinian territory west of the Jordan River launched incessant terrorist attacks upon the Jewish Palestinians in an effort to drive them out. The British at first tried to maintain order but soon (due to the large oil deposits being discovered throughout the Arab Middle East) turned a blind eye. It became obvious to the Palestinian Jews that they must fight the Arabs AND drive out the British.
1947-1948: The Palestinian Jews, forced to form an organized defense against the Arabs, formed the Hagana, the beginnings of the Israeli Defense Forces [IDF]. There was also a Jewish underground called the Irgun, led by Menachem Begin (who later became Prime Minister of Israel). Besides fighting the Arabs, the Irgun was instrumental in driving out the pro-Arab British. Finally, in 1947 the British turned the Palestine matter over to the United Nations.
The U.N. Resolution 181 partition plan was to divide the remaining 25% of Palestine into a Jewish Palestinian State and a second Arab Palestinian State (Trans-Jordan being the first) based upon population concentration. The Jewish Palestinians accepted the proposal, but the Arab Palestinians rejected it. The Arabs still wanted ALL of Palestine - both east and west of the Jordan River. On May 14, 1948 the Palestinian Jews finally declared their own State of Israel and became "Israelis." On the next day, Israel was at war with seven neighboring Arab armies: Egypt, Trans-Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Yemen. Most of the Arabs living within the boundaries of the newly declared "ISRAEL" were encouraged to leave by the invading Arab armies to facilitate the slaughter of the Jews and were promised to be given all Jewish property after the victorious Arab armies won the war. When the 19-month war ended, however, Israel won and survived, despite a 1% loss of it's entire population. Those Arabs who did not run away became today's Israeli Arab citizens. Those who fled became the seeds of the first wave of "Palestinian Arab refugees."
1949-1967: The end result of the 1948-49 Israeli War of Independence was the creation of a Jewish state slightly larger than that which was proposed by the United Nations two years before. What remained of that almost-created second Arab Palestinian State was occupied by Egypt (occupying the Gaza Strip) and by Trans-Jordan (occupying Judea-Samaria (the "West Bank" of the Jordan River) and Jerusalem. In the next year (1950) Trans-Jordan formally merged this West Bank territory into itself and granted Jordanian citizenship to all those Arabs who lived there. Since Trans-Jordan was no longer confined to one side of the Jordan River, it renamed itself simply "JORDAN. In the final analysis, the Arabs of Palestine ended up with nearly 85% of the original territory of Palestine. But that was still not 100% and thus the conflict between Arab and Jew for "Palestine" would continue through four more wars and continuous Arab terrorist attacks upon the Israeli citizens. It continues to this very day.
From 1948-67 when all of Judea-Samaria (the West Bank, including Jerusalem) came under Arab [Jordanian] control, no effort was made to create a second Palestinian State for the Arabs living there. It seems ironic that Yassir Arafat and his Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), discovered their "ancient" identity and a need for "self-determination" on this very same West Bank ONLY AFTER Israel regained this territory (three years later in 1967) following Jordan's attempt to destroy Israel. Why was no request ever made upon King Hussein of Jordan when he "occupied" the West Bank? The PLO later went on to become the Palestinian Authority of today.
The 1967 War (Six-Day War): Throughout much of May 1967, the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian armies mobilized along Israel's narrow and seemingly indefensible borders in preparation for a massive invasion to eliminate the State of Israel. But the Israel planned and executed a perfect pre-emptive strike against Egypt. Within two hours, the Egyptian Air Force did not exist. Most of its planes were destroyed while still on the runways! Unaware that the Egyptians had no more air force, King Hussein of Jordan, launched his attack from the West Bank into Israel's belly while Syrian troops prepared to descend down the Golan Heights mountain range into northern Israel.
After ONLY six days grueling warfare, Israel defeated all three Arab armies along three separate fronts, taking control of the entire Sinai Desert from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem and its Old City) from Jordan. Most importantly was the return to Israel of its holy 3,000-year-old city of Jerusalem along the western edge of the West Bank.
Unfortunately, Israel then became an "occupier" of this "West Bank" and the Gaza Strip along with its 850,000 Palestinian Arabs who were living there. These Arabs would refer to themselves as "refugees" and joined the masses of refugees from the previous war of 1948-49.
The Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were packed and ready to leave following their defeat. Suddenly the victorious IDF General Moshe Dayan persuaded them to stay. Dayan's plan was to educate them, offer them modern medical treatment, provide them with employment both in the West Bank AND inside Israel Proper, and to live amongst them in hopes of building a bridge to the Arab world.
1982: Israel wanted to gain some international respect, and therefore returned the entire Sinai (oil fields, air bases and endless miles of security buffer) to Egypt.
Israel still occupies Syria's Golan Heights, which had been used solely for terrorist incursions into and artillery bombardment upon Israel's northern settlements. And of course, Israel still occupies the West Bank with its population of 1,200,000 "Palestinian" Arabs.
(courtesy of Contender Ministries)
You called me a “Christian Zionist”. Let’s look at that term and see how it may apply to me.
According to Wikipedia, “as a noun, Christian is an appellation and moniker deriving from the appellation "Christ", which many people associate exclusively with Jesus of Nazareth. The first known usage of this term can be found in the New Testament of the Bible, in Acts 11:26. The term was first used to derogate those known or perceived to be disciples of Christ. As an adjective, the term may describe an object associated with Christianity. For many this also means to be a member or adherent of one of the organized religious denominations of Christianity. The term Christian means "belonging to Christ" and is derived from the Greek noun Χριστός Khristós which means "anointed one," which is itself a translation of the Hebrew word Moshiach (Hebrew: משיח, also written "Messiah"), (and in Arabic it is pronounced Maseeh مسيح). According to the New Testament, those who followed Jesus as his disciples were first called Christians by those who did not share their faith, in the city of Antioch. Xian or Xtian is another word used to describe Christians and is similar to using Xmas in place of Christmas; the X or Xt used as a contraction for "Christ" ("X" resembles the Greek letter Χ (Chi), the first letter of "Christ" in Greek (Χριστός [Christos]).” Put more simply, according to “WordNet, a lexical database for the English language”, part of the Cognitive Science Laboratory at Princeton University, a Christian is “a religious person who believes Jesus is the Christ and who is a member of a Christian denomination.” So far so good. I do believe, without a doubt that Jesus is the Christ and I do belong to a Christian denomination.
A Zionist is part of Zionism and as ascribed by Wikipedia is “a political movement and an ideology that supports a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel, where the Jewish nation is believed to have originated and where Jewish kingdoms and self-governing states existed at various times in history. While Zionism is based heavily upon religious tradition linking the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, the modern movement was originally secular, beginning largely as a response to rampant anti-Semitism in late 19th century Europe.” Again, simplified by the folks at Princeton, a Zionist is “a Jewish supporter of Zionism.” Well, I’m not Jewish, but I do support a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel. Hummm…guess we’ll have to split hairs here and say that although I’m not a card carrying Zionist, I do support the main crux of their cause. If you are determined to assign me the title of Zionist, I guess that means you also lump the United States Government, the entire European Union, the entire United Nations and the majority of the Christian faith into this category? All of these entities have pronounced by law or declaration that they support a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel. Guess I’m in good Company.
You said “It is sad that the Christian Zionists are destroying our country by behaving in a very un-Christian way and never considering the Palestinian viewpoint.” I have to ask, in what way is supporting the chosen people of God and being a follower of Jesus “un-Christian”? What viewpoints about the palestinians not being considered? Is it the one where they walk into malls and restaurants and blow up innocent civilians, woman and children, just trying to live their lives, using explosive belts filled with nails to make sure they kill and maim as many civilians as they can? Or maybe the one where their leaders call for the complete destruction of every man, woman and child in Israel; complete genocide? You probably agonize when a palestinian gets their house destroyed, or a stray bullet finds one of them, while completely ignoring the fact that armed gunmen were using the house as a firing position and that the bullet could just as easily be from the pali side as much as from the return fire from the Israeli side.
I’ve tried to answer your comment from a complete secular view. Keep in mind that to Jews and Christians alike, the land belongs to the Jews, given to them by our God many thousands of years before a palestinian was ever heard of. The palis are the squatters, not the Jews.
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