Remember back in November, when Time’s Israel expert, Karl Vick, wrote these words? Pay attention to the words in boldface.
But what if Abbas is holding still, and Hamas is moving closer to Abbas? That’s what’s been happening, from nearly all appearances, for the last two or three years, and everything coming out of the Cairo meeting points in the same direction. The head of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, and Abbas spoke for two hours, Abbas in the big chair, Meshaal on the couch with two others. Afterwards both met the cameras smiling. “There are no differences between us now,” Abbas said. Mashaal went with: “We have opened a new page of partnership.” And on whose terms? Hamas stands for resistance, its formal name being the Islamic Resistance Movement. But in the Gaza Strip where it governs, Hamas has largely enforced a truce with Israel since January 2009. And in Cairo it signed a paper committing itself to “popular resistance” against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. That’s “popular” in contrast to “violent” or “military” resistance. We’re talking marches here. Chanting and signs, not booby traps or suicide bombs.
Hamas is now denying utterly that there was even a chance that they would stop trying to destroy Israel. In fact, they’re laughing at the thought.
Hamas on Thursday dismissed claims that its Damascus- based leader, Khaled Mashaal, had ordered the movement’s armed wing, Izzadin Kassam, to stop armed attacks against Israel.
The statement came in response to a report in Haaretz that Mashaal had instructed his men to cease attacks on Israeli targets.
The report claimed that Mashaal issued the order “based on understandings” he had reached with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during their recent talks in Cairo.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum described the report as “trivial,” saying it did not even merit a response.
And that’s not all. It’s pretty funny, actually, when terrorists quite plainly state that they’re not changing, they never changed, and they never will change, right on the heels of a major media piece insisting that that, indeed, is what is happening. Or at least, it would be funny, if only lives weren’t at stake here. The media promotes the narrative that terrorists don’t really want to destroy Israel, even while those same terrorists state their intent quite clearly.
Barhoum said that Palestinians had a “legitimate right” to engage in armed resistance against Israel in order to “defend themselves and their lands.”
According to Barhoum, claims that Hamas had abandoned the armed struggle “reflect the state of despair that the Israeli government is facing as a result of the firmness of the Palestinian resistance.”
Hamas’s Interior Minister Fathi Hammad told a visiting Tunisian delegation of supporters that the Palestinians would “pursue the path of resistance against Israeli occupation.”
There is also the reporting of the Hamas anniversary celebration, which Karl Vick didn’t seem to find interesting enough to mention. It must have had something to do with all those “Death to Israel” moments. In fact, Time seems only to portray one side of the issue as not caring about peace, and it isn’t Hamas.
No, you’ll never see a Time cover story declaring that the Palestinians really don’t care about peace. Because that would go against the narrative.
No, you’ll never see a Time cover story declaring that the Palestinians really don’t care about peace. Because that would go against the narrative.
It’s even more than that, they’ve been calling people who disagree with them stupid, evil, ignorant and Nazis for too long to ever admit they were wrong.
Or at least, it would be funny, if only lives weren’t at stake here.
Hey, in the Funniest End of Civilization Ever, you have to take the endy with the funny or you get no funny.