Terrorists take 40% of the vote in Palestinian elections

There was looting after Katrina. I didnt see that after the Tsunami.

 

What is more interesting about this is that most Arabs considers any Israeli a military combatant.

 

MOST Arabs do not consider any Israeli a military combatant. If you find any statistics that say such a thing, please post them.

Otherwise we don't need that kind of ignorance being spread.

 

Isn't military service compulsory for all Israelis?

 

Technically speaking, it might be an accurate view that all Israelis are or will be future soldiers (it's compulsory), but that view is too broad and could easily justify, for instance, the bombing of civilian populations in any war because as we know, civilians are a part of the war effort, they supply it and support it either willingly or unwillingly; this was the line of thinking that led to the explicit targeting of civilians in Germany and Japan during WWII, and interestingly, there is a former CIA terrorism expert by the name of Michael Shuer who advocated that the USA goes back to that type of warfare, because "we haven't won a war since we stopped fighting that way", and he rejects calling Al-Qaeda's attacks or methodology "despicable", saying that they understand classic warfare "like we used to" -- it was a very intriguing interview with Tucker Carlson on MSNBC.

 

Relax hothead. Did I pee in your cereal?

I have quite a few Arabian friends and that is what they tell me. And the reason is similar to what others have posted in terms of required service of Israelis.

 

I agree and have argued with friends that it is despciabe to target civilians. They insist that until they have reclaimed the land that belongs to them the tactics employed by the terrorists are legitimate. Honestly I'm not making it up this is what people are telling me.

 

edit:
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I wasn't mad or uptight at all. Sorry if it seemed like that. But I did want to make sure that it was clear that there is valid basis for claiming that most Arabs believe all Israelis are military combatants. Yes at one time Israelis will be combatants. And settlers regardless of whether they are in the military currently or not, might be considered combatants.

 

If you're talking about lookint in general, there wasn't much looting in NY after 9/11.

I meant that our faith in our government is pretty stable. With the amount of screwage the libs think they have faced, politicians would be dead or in jail in other countries.

 

ANALYSIS
Hamas proving it's politically shrewd
- Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Sunday, January 29, 2006

Ramallah, West Bank -- In the days since their upset victory in the Palestinian elections, Hamas leaders have demonstrated the political deftness that earned them the right to form the next government, while the long-dominant Fatah party foundered in disarray.

And as details emerged of the electoral mobilization that led to their success in Gaza and the West Bank on Wednesday, it appeared that Hamas had been honing its pragmatic political skills for months.

The first sign of Hamas' political savvy in victory was its reluctance to name one of its leaders as the next prime minister -- the natural step for any party winning a clear majority in a parliamentary election. Instead, it invited Fatah to join a coalition.

When that was rejected, Hamas made overtures to Salam Fayyad, the widely respected former Palestinian Authority finance minister, to fill the top spot. Fayyad, who ran for election on the independent Third Way slate, is reportedly considering the offer.

"We want a government that is for the Palestinian people, and if we can't do that, then there are many options -- one of which is a government of technocrats," said Ghazi Hamad, a newly elected Hamas parliament member.

"Hamas has proven itself capable of recognizing and respecting certain red lines," said Hillel Frisch of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Israel's Bar-Ilan University. "Hamas has refrained from engaging in terror abroad, has not attacked Americans in the Palestinian Authority (territory) or openly identified with al Qaeda terrorism. It knows that red lines exist in the murky world of realpolitik."

There are still many obstacles along the path Hamas has chosen, both from within and beyond the Palestinian territories. The United States and the European Union continue to label Hamas a terrorist organization. Noted for its internal discipline, Hamas will need to exercise careful control over its many gunmen to avoid both continued fighting with rivals in the Palestinian territories and inciting Israeli military action against its new administration.

Meanwhile, as Fatah loyalists grappled Saturday with the extent of their loss, there were a number of violent clashes centered around Gaza City, Khan Younis and Ramallah as disgruntled Fatah gunmen attacked government buildings to protest the election result and demand the resignation of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is also Fatah chairman. In Hebron, protesters demanded the resignation of the entire party leadership. In Nablus, Fatah gunmen demanded that the party hold a long-postponed congress to elect new leaders and debate democratizing the party.

Marwan Barghouti, who headed the Fatah election list and leads the "Young Guard" faction trying to democratize Fatah, issued a plea from his Israeli prison cell urging a peaceful transfer of power. He called for a long-delayed Fatah conference on reform "to renew its institutions and leaders to preserve its historic role."

In Gaza, Fatah security chief Mohammed Dahlan said party leaders would meet today to discuss their next steps. Dahlan, another Young Guard activist and one of the few Fatah candidates elected to a district seat on Wednesday, is widely believed to have leadership ambitions, which has split the party between his supporters and opponents.

Comments by Hamad and other Hamas chiefs since Wednesday's victory suggest they are more interested in internal affairs for the moment, and intend to put relations with Israel on the back burner. Threats from President Bush and European Union leaders to cut off financial aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) if Hamas does not moderate its stance toward Israel and renounce the use of violence were brushed aside by party leaders, who said they would look elsewhere for the money.

"This aid cannot be a sword over the heads of the Palestinian people and will not be material to blackmail our people, to blackmail Hamas and the resistance," said Ismael Hanieya, who headed the Hamas election list.

"Hamas has many alternatives -- there is much good within our people. And we have the Arab world, and we also have all those who love the oppressed peoples in the world and who stand beside us," Hanieya said.

Hamas already runs a successful network of health clinics, kindergartens, soup kitchens and welfare services. It seems likely that party leaders will be able to leverage their impressive victory into more funds from their traditional backers in the Arab world and the West, and that Hamas bureaucrats will use international donations more efficiently than their corrupt Fatah predecessors.

Another key area will be the security forces. The Palestinian Authority's 68,000 officers have served under the control of Fatah's one-party administration. Now the officer ranks will be replaced with Hamas loyalists, Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader in Gaza, said.

The new Hamas-controlled government "would provide more job opportunities in the PA government ministries and even security institutions to many of Hamas members and the Palestinian people as a whole in many sectors -- especially the educational, security and health sectors, which in the past were off-limits to Hamas and many eligible citizens," Zahar said. "There is no doubt that results of Wednesday's elections will have its consequences in ending Fatah's monopoly of the political Palestinian decision-making, as we in Hamas will sincerely work to exterminate all seeds of corruption in the PA institutions for the best of our Palestinian people."

An analysis of voting patterns in Wednesday's ballot demonstrates Hamas' political acumen, drawing on strong organizational discipline and a loyal local activist base.

The electoral system, introduced last August by the Fatah-dominated parliament, was supposed to turn the existing moderate Fatah majority into a clean sweep for the party that has dominated Palestinian politics during the last half-century. But Hamas managed to turn Fatah's own voting system against the ruling party, transforming a slim Hamas majority into a landslide.

Under the Fatah-devised political structure, voters were asked to cast two ballots -- one for national party lists, in which seats are allocated according to the number of votes the party got, and the other for a number of local districts in which voters cast ballots for specific candidates.

On the national lists, Hamas' Change and Reform party secured 434,817 votes, while Fatah won 403,458. However, other secular parties swept up another 120,517 votes. In this section of the ballot, Hamas had a narrow majority, winning 30 seats to Fatah's 27, with nine seats going to the smaller parties.

If the whole election had been based on the national lists, it would have produced a parliament without a clear majority party. Fatah would likely have been able to form a new government in coalition with some of the smaller groups, which held the swing vote.

But Fatah lost big in the second ballot for district candidates. The party's supporters dissipated their votes among numerous candidates, while the strong discipline of Hamas voters swept their candidates into power, capturing all but 20 of the remaining 66 seats.

"In the Jerusalem district, Hamas nominated four candidates for the four Muslim seats while Fatah had 30 candidates. This spread and diluted the Fatah vote and led to the sound defeat in every district in the West Bank," said Hanna Siniora, a former Fatah official who ran as an independent in Jerusalem.

The Hamas voting discipline was honed over months of political campaigning at the municipal level, where once again Fatah maneuvers became their own undoing. Municipal elections were due to be held last summer, but they were repeatedly delayed by Fatah infighting and blatant attempts to influence the results. Rather than holding all municipal elections on a single day, staged elections were held region by region.

As a result, Hamas did unexpectedly well in the municipal elections, gaining the perfect base from which to launch its campaign for the parliament. Hamas leaders said they were rescued by the Fatah machinations, which allowed them to fine-tune their political acumen.

"If they had held all these municipal elections at once, as they were supposed to, we would never have been able to compete," said Dr. Mahmoud Ramahi, a newly elected Hamas lawmaker from Ramallah. "But first they held 10, then 20, and by dividing them up they allowed us to concentrate our efforts and organize ourselves, village by village."

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URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/01/29/MNGMHGVCEP1.DTL

 

Like when Louisiana had to chose between Edwards or David Duke

Rocket Rive

 

I had an interesting discussion with a friend over the weekend.

The friend is an American Jewish male, just like me. We've known each other since college.

His political ideology leans towards the liberal side, and he despises the policies of the GWB Administration.

He told me that Hamas winning the recent Palestinian election was the best possible thing that could have happened.

When I asked him why, he responded "Hamas will now have to choose between violence and peace. If they want to work within the world community, they will now have to disavow their charter premise of destroying Israel. And if another single suicide bomber strikes in Israeli territory, we now have an easily identifiable enemy, and the world will not care if they are destroyed".

Thoughts?

 

Seems to have worked with the IRA.

 

I agree. And it will be very interesting to see if Hamas has the ability to learn from the IRA. Step #1 is renouncing violence. Step #2 is recognizing Israel's right to exist.

 

your friend assumes that the palestinians are gunna be an easy people to "destroy"... Admitted that they dont have the firepower or the money backing them up, but the same blood that kept them struggling alive this long is whats gunna keep them clinging onto that land, no matter what.

 

I think (hope) you're understimating the influence leadership has on people, adeel.

If Hamas leadership, which had previously encouraged "direct action" decides it likes the power of a legit government, then there may be fewer willing to terrorize? Who knows? Mid east politics is very different than that of Europe.

But I don't thing the papists in Ireland suddenly gave up their ideals. Just that with political power...the terrorist element seems to have been almost eliminated.

 

Thoughts?

I don't think it changes much. Israel first supported Hamas against Fatah and now it is the reverse. Hamas will be harder to negotiate with than Fatah.



The Palestinians have no choice but to fight on, given that they are not allowed rights in occupied Palestine. Normally a conqueror would try to permanently attach conquered land and that was the initial goal of Israel till they wised up to the demographics of the venture and their desire for an ethnically based nation. Despite the superior weapons of the Israelis, the two sides are too evenly matched for the Palestinians to be permanently conquered like say the American Indians.

Can the Palesinians be "destroyed?". Short of genocide, which the world won't tolerate, there is not much more Israel can do to the Palestinians than they are doing now. There does seem to be a campaign to literally starve the Palestinians, but I think that will not succeed once the world sees more and more Palestinians starting to look like refugees in the Sudan.

Under Sharon who seems to be supported by most Israelis, the goal has been to put a wall around some more of the desireable land and to ethnically cleanse as much of the desireable parts of the West Bank as possible and then refuse any additional negotiations with the Palestinians of whatever party or group. Will this work? Certainly Israel can militarily maintain this position indefinitely , which is just the status quo, with a wall. This does not seem like it will lead to a very stable situation. Unfortuantely this guarantees many many years of terrorism and suicide bombers.

I do agree to the extent that Israel and the Palestinians have to have a negotiated settlment or Israel will have to exterminate most of the Palestinians.

 

I can see Hamas dropping the "Wipe Israel off the map" stance, but I don't think you're going to get them to "renounce violence" if their lands are still occupied and settlements are still expanding with every passing day...that's just not going to happen.

Here's what needs to happen (in this order): 1) Hamas recognizes the right of Israel to exist, and in return 2) Israelis agree to accept the 2002 Arab League offer to fully normalize diplomatic relations with Israel in exchange for returning to the pre-1967 borders (i.e. Israel must return the full West Bank and Gaza; the Gaza part is pretty much settled, but the West Bank part means dismantling all illegal settlements no matter how big or small they're), then the final step would be 3) Hamas and all Palestinian militant factions agree to renounce terrorism and disarm militias, instead proceeding to form their own security/police force to take over the security void the disbanding of the militias would create.

IMO, that just won't happen, status quo is most likely going to be the case...