Non-violent terrorism: It’s the new pundit thing

I’m starting to think that there’s a mirror image of the Zionist conspiracy theorists. For every nutjob and Jew-hater that thinks Jews are secretly controlling the world and responsible for all of its ills, there is a corresponding person–usually on the left, but not always–that thinks that terrorists and Jew-haters who announce quite clearly that their goal is to destroy the state of Israel, and then get going on the rest of the world’s Jews, don’t really mean it. And they find proof everywhere, even in an article that clearly states the opposite and shows proof that is more recent than the one that says the terrorists are moderating.

Confused? You should be.

Peter Goodspeed, writing in the Israel-friendly National Post, says that Hamas may be publicly calling for an end to the Jewish state, but hey, Jane’s Defence says they don’t really mean it.

In the Middle East what happens in the shadows is frequently more important than what occurs in bright daylight and Wednesday’s 24th anniversary celebrations in Gaza of the founding of Hamas were no exception.

The dusty Palestinian enclave by the sea was an ocean of green flags as more than 300,000 people attended a Hamas rally in the centre of Gaza City.

Masked men, armed with AK-47s, formed a ceremonial guard for Gaza’s de facto prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, who mounted a stage shaped like a ship and decorated with a model of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, as a 10-man vocal group led the crowd in chanting, “We will not recognize Israel.”

Beneath the surface, however, something else may be going on.

The same day as Hamas’s Gaza celebration, IHS Jane’s, the well-respected defence and security intelligence analysis agency, published an exclusive report claiming Hamas was on the brink of renouncing armed resistance and moving to a policy of non-violent resistance to Israel.

So esssentially, don’t believe your eyes and ears. Forget that Imail Haniyeh led 300,000 Palestinians in calls for Israel utter destruction. Believe this instead:

“The move is part of a general realignment of Hamas’s strategy and allies in the wake of the Arab Spring, especially the impending electoral success of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood,” said David Hartwell, Jane’s senior Middle East and North Africa analyst.

“Sources in the movement told Jane’s in December that Hamas is downgrading its ties with Syria and Iran, forging new relationships with Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, and perhaps most significantly of all, renouncing armed resistance to Israel and moving to a policy of non-violent resistance.

It astonishes me that people actually believe this bullshit. Jane’s evidently doesn’t keep up with the Israeli intelligence community, which knows that Hamas is now setting up rocket production in the Sinai because they think Israel won’t dare risk a war with Egypt by bombing them there. No, Jane’s is totally buying the line that Khaled Mashaal has been feeding to the gullible media about reconciliation with Fatah. On what evidence does Jane’s base this assumption?

As people power revolutions swept the Arab world, Hamas found itself being forced to change by governments in Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, who want the Palestinian Islamist group to abandon armed resistance in favour of reconciliation with its rival Fatah.

Palestinian reconciliation was the focus of negotiations between Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas political chief, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority President, in Cairo Nov. 24.

That’s a false statement. The Islamists don’t want Hamas to give up “armed resistance” and reconcile with Fatah. They want Hamas to reconcile with Fatah, period.

The Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists in Egypt are salivating over a united Arab world’s ability to go to war with Israel again. They’re holding rallies in mosques where they chant about killing all the Jews. The Jane’s article about the reconciliation meeting on November 24th was out of date less than a week later, when Mahmoud Zahar said the deal was off.

So why this naive insistence that a terrorist group that holds regular anti-Israel rallies, that speaks the language of war, that sends rockets on a regular basis into “the Zionist entity,” that refuses to acknowledge the millennia-old ties of Jews to the land of Israel, is suddenly going to become non-violent and start chanting slogans and holding signs instead of firing rockets and setting bombs? The only explanation is the grand conspiracy theory about moderating terrorists. There’s no evidence, but they say they’re moderating, so it must be so. Just like Yasser Arafat kept saying he had no control over the suicide bombings carried out by Hamas, but every time he chose to stop them, they miraculously stopped.

“Although no public announcement has been made, senior security sources within Hamas have confirmed to IHS Jane’s that the group has accepted for the first time since its establishment in 1987 to move from armed to non-violent resistance,” the Jane’s report says.

Mr. Meshaal is said to have agreed to end armed resistance at the Cairo meeting and signed an agreement with Fatah to that effect.

Here’s a hint: Meshaal is lying, and the “well-respected defence and security intelligence analysis agency” is so gullible as to believe the lies. And Peter Goodspeed falls into the appeal to authority logical fallacy, and believes Jane’s must be right because they’re so well-respected. I don’t care how well-respected you are. If you continually deny the evidence of violence over the promise–in words, not deeds–of non-violence, then the respect is misplaced.

The fact that Ismail Haniyeh declared this during the celebration that Goodspeed writes about apparently about falls on deaf media ears. Hell, he even quoted the anti-Israel speech.

Judging from Wednesday’s celebrations, it looks as if little has changed during Hamas’s quarter-century of existence.

“We affirm that armed resistance is our strategic option and the only way to liberate our land, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the River [Jordan],” Mr. Haniyeh told the crowd.

“God willing, Hamas will lead the people … to the uprising until we liberate Palestine, all of Palestine,” the Hamas leader added.

And still, Goodspeed writes this:

In fact, Hamas may have had little choice in moving to abandon violence — at least temporarily. The Arab Spring, with its popular uprisings, has transformed the political dynamics of the Middle East and led to a breach between Hamas and former sponsors Syria and Iran.

I just don’t get it. Why are so many pundits so willing to believe so many lies when there is so much evidence to the contrary on a daily basis coming out of Gaza? It’s the same principle at work when you read the stories about the Islamist takeover of the Middle East. In spite of evidence to the contrary, willingly gullible pundits insist that the Muslim Brotherhood is not going to implement a harsh version of sharia law.

The only explanation is that there’s a mirror image of the conspiracy theorists about Jews. The pundit class is run by people who can only believe good things about Islamists and Islamist groups.

It fits. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. That explains why so many people are so willing to believe that when killers and murderers say they’re renouncing killing and murdering, they really mean it, this time. Who are you going to believe? Jane’s Defence or your lying eyes?