Shame on WaPo for publishing Hamas propaganda

I have no proof—just a feeling—but I’d love to know whether Jimmy Carter had any input into this WaPo op-ed ostensibly written by Mahmoud al-Zahar, one of the chief terrorists of Hamas. And shame on the WaPo for posting this. Their editorial labeling him a terrorist does not excuse them for publishing this execrable Hamas propaganda. And of course, this isn’t the first time the WaPo gave room to terrorists on its op-ed page, and I suspect it won’t be the last.

This is simply disgusting. Disgusting. The language of Hamas is used on the pages of the WaPo as if it has legitimacy.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acts as if a few alterations here and there would make the hideous straitjacket of apartheid fit better. While Rice persuades Israeli occupation forces to cut a few dozen meaningless roadblocks from among the more than 500 West Bank control points, these forces simultaneously choke off fuel supplies to Gaza; blockade its 1.5 million people; approve illegal housing projects on West Bank land; and attack Gaza City with F-16s, killing men, women and children. Sadly, this is “business as usual” for the Palestinians.

Why, exactly, are those F-16s attacking Gaza?

Ten rockets were fired from Gaza at southern Israel since Wednesday night, landing in open fields in the western Negev.

And this is “business as usual” for the Palestinians. Listen to this disgusting defense of the terrorist attack on Nahal Oz. Remember that Gaza terrorists fired mortars to keep the IDF distracted while their gunmen then fired on defenseless civilians whose only crime was that they were working at the fuel depot so Gazans could have enough diesel fuel to run their hospitals. Remember that the attack was an attempt to kidnap more Israelis to use as bargaining chips during Hamas “negotiations” for a cease-fire.

Last week’s attack on the Nahal Oz fuel depot should not surprise critics in the West. Palestinians are fighting (1) a total war waged on us by a nation that mobilizes against our people with every means at its disposal — from its high-tech military to its economic stranglehold, from (2) its falsified history to its judiciary that “legalizes” the (3) infrastructure of apartheid. (4) Resistance remains (5) our only option.

Five lies in two sentences. 1: Israel is not waging a “total war,” but Hamas is doing so. If Hamas were to stop attacking Israel, there would be no attacks on Gaza. 2: Holocaust denial in the WaPo op-ed section, as well as the denial of Israel’s origins and history. 3. The apartheid lie, easily disproven by the fact that Arabs vote, hold office, etc., etc. If he means Gaza and the West Bank, you cannot have apartheid with a people that are not a part of your nation. Gaza and the West Bank citizens are effectively enemies. 4. The lie of “resistance,” the terrorist’s pseudonym for “terror attacks.” 5. Peace is an option. Living with Israel is an option. Not firing rockets and mortars on a daily basis is an option.

And here is the worst, the absolutely most disgusting comparison ever, and shame on the WaPo for letting this stand:

Sixty-five years ago, the courageous Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose in defense of their people. We Gazans, living in the world’s largest open-air prison, can do no less.

Sixty-five years ago, the Germans were trying to eradicate the Jews from the face of the earth. Today, Hamas seeks to eradicate Jews from the Middle East, while denying that the Holocaust ever happened. This is the most perfect example of the simultaneous Holocaust denial and attempt to co-opt its imagery that the Palestinians have been using for years. I am amazed that God did not strike down dead the man that wrote the sentences above.

And oh, here we go again—the open-air prison lie. Talk to Egypt about your other border. You tore it down. They built it back up. Why is that, again? What is it that keeps your neighbors building walls to keep the Palestinians out of their territory? Could it be all the terror attacks Hamas is responsible for?

Here we have the call for sympathy. Al-Zahar wants you to feel sorry for his family of terrorists.

Only three months ago I buried my son Hussam, who studied finance at college and wanted to be an accountant; he was killed by an Israeli airstrike. In 2003, I buried Khaled — my first-born — after an Israeli F-16 targeting me wounded my daughter and my wife and flattened the apartment building where we lived, injuring and killing many of our neighbors. Last year, my son-in-law was killed.

Last month, Israel buried seven teenagers and a 26-year-old man, all of whom were studying Torah. They died because of the Palestinian insistence on “resistance”—that we know as terrorism. Al-Zahar’s sons were terrorists. His son-in-law was a terrorist. You make choices and you live by them—or die by them, if you happen to be fighting a war of terrorism against Israel.

Hussam was only 21, but like most young men in Gaza he had grown up fast out of necessity. When I was his age, I wanted to be a surgeon; in the 1960s, we were already refugees, but there was no humiliating blockade then.

Yes, they blow up so fast these days. In the 1960s, Egypt was the occupying nation, and yet, there was no world outcry for independence for the Palestinians under Egyptian control.

Next, we have the new language that Carter is pushing among his terrorist buddies—the language that makes me wonder how much input he had into writing this op-ed, and getting it published by the WaPo.

But now, after decades of imprisonment, killing, statelessness and impoverishment, we ask: What peace can there be if there is no dignity first? And where does dignity come from if not from justice?

It won’t be long before you have protests in the Gaza Strip with Palestinians holding signs and chanting “No justice, no peace!” Watch for it.

And now, the statement of pride in terrorism:

I am eternally proud of my sons and miss them every day. I think of them as fathers everywhere, even in Israel, think of their sons — as innocent boys, as curious students, as young men with limitless potential — not as “gunmen” or “militants.” But better that they were defenders of their people than parties to their ultimate dispossession; better that they were active in the Palestinian struggle for survival than passive witnesses to our subjugation.

And yet, they were “gunmen” and “militants.” They were involved in attacks on Israeli civilians. They would, had they lived, gone on to murder Israelis for the rest of their lives. And al-Zahar is proud of this.

Lastly, there is the demand for Israel’s total and complete surrender to Hamas: Return all the territories won in 1967, including the Temple Mount, allow the “refugees” to return, etc., etc.—the end of Israel as a nation, in other words.

A “peace process” with Palestinians cannot take even its first tiny step until Israel first withdraws to the borders of 1967; dismantles all settlements; removes all soldiers from Gaza and the West Bank; repudiates its illegal annexation of Jerusalem; releases all prisoners; and ends its blockade of our international borders, our coastline and our airspace permanently. This would provide the starting point for just negotiations and would lay the groundwork for the return of millions of refugees. Given what we have lost, it is the only basis by which we can start to be whole again.

Al-Zahar uses air quotes throughout whenever referring to the peace process. Throughout. It’s a small thing, but deeply meaningful. It implies that Hamas does not believe there is a peace process which, we already know, is true. Hamas is using Jimmy Carter, and the Washington Post, to spread its propaganda and to distract the world from the real issues. Those issues are written in their charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel and its replacement with an Islamic caliphate, which quotes the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and which even says that Jews control the Rotary clubs of America.

I don’t buy the WaPo editors’ reasoning behind publishing the op-ed.

ON THE OPPOSITE page today we publish an article by the “foreign minister” of Hamas, Mahmoud al-Zahar, that drips with hatred for Israel, and with praise for former president Jimmy Carter. We believe Mr. Zahar’s words are worth publishing because they provide some clarity about the group he helps to lead, a group that Mr. Carter contends is worthy of being included in the Middle East peace process.

[…] These facts would hardly need restating were it not for actors such as Mr. Carter, who portray Hamas as rational and reasonable.

Funny, but in 2006, these words went utterly unanswered by the WaPo editorial staff:

The “kidnapped” Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit is only a pretext for a job scheduled months ago.

[…] We present this clear message: If Israel will not allow Palestinians to live in peace, dignity and national integrity, Israelis themselves will not be able to enjoy those same rights. Meanwhile, our right to defend ourselves from occupying soldiers and aggression is a matter of law, as settled in the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Note Haniyeh’s lies are almost exactly what Al-Zahar wrote today, but couched in gentler tones. Perhaps it wasn’t nasty enough to get the WaPo’s editorial board’s dander up. I fail to see the distinction between Haniyeh’s lies and al-Zahar’s, but then, I’m not a professional journalist. They must teach that in J-School or something. The editors conclude:

But it is one thing to communicate pragmatically, and quite another to publicly and unconditionally grant recognition and political sanction to a leader or a group that advocates terrorism, mass murder or the extinction of another state. That is what Mr. Carter is doing by lending what is left of his prestige to an avowed terrorist such as Khaled Meshal — or Mahmoud al-Zahar.

Or publishing op-eds by Ismail Haniyeh without the same caveats given about al-Zahar’s op-ed.

Shame on the Washington Post. Shame on Jimmy Carter.