29 Comments

1. David Thomson:

ìThe big winners: stockholders in the various comapnies building the wall.î

Yup, thatís for sure. Ariel Sharonís decision to close down the Gaza settlements has been vindicated. The Palestinians are doomed. Nihilism underpins their overall culture and leaves them with little hope. Jews and other normal people need to stay away from them as much as possible.

Jan 26, 2006 - 7:33 am 2. ajveros:

Via Atlas:

Vital Perspective will be blogging the entire day – without exception – on Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Breaking news, analysis, and updates from the internal Palestinian situation, the U.S. positions, Israel and the rest of the region. They will be using all of their contacts throughout the region extensively today.

Jan 26, 2006 - 7:57 am 3. Old Dad:

The election certainly sharpens focus on a critical question.

Can Hamas (radical Islam)reform itself?

I suppose it’s not surprising that a slim majority of Palestinians rejected Fatah with its history of gangsterism.

Jan 26, 2006 - 8:06 am 4. David Thomson:

“Can Hamas (radical Islam)reform itself?”

Allow me to be blunt: the answer is a resounding no! Nihilists are indifferent about improving the secular lives of the common people. They are existentially committed to death and destruction. It’s as simple as that.

Jan 26, 2006 - 8:23 am 5. Sandy P:

Once they take care of the Jews, then they’ll head for US.

Jan 26, 2006 - 9:01 am 6. Knucklehead:

Israel has done what it can to position itself for a static defense. The Palis will spend some time killing one another to sort out who will lead the resumed attack on Israel.

In the meantime some of those few “anti-Zionists” who actually believed all the Palis ever really wanted was a homeland and self-determination will have their faith shaken. The combination of the bloody images of inter-Pali violence and sluggish economy will subtract just a little from the money the EU and other ME nations send to the Palis and when they resume the attack they will be weakened and the Israelis will, yet again, resoundingly thump them.

Hopefully, but not likely, by the end of all that (2-3 years?) there will be some significat portion of the Pali population who will start to wonder, “What’s it take to get a meal, a job, and a school around here?” and then begin looking for answers and electing people other than jihadi loons.

Jan 26, 2006 - 9:06 am 7. Cynic:

Old Dad,

“Can Hamas (radical Islam)reform itself?”

In reality no! But they will continue to pull the wool over the eyes of those willing to permit it.

They will start saying the correct things diplomatically and the EU will ooze with pleasure.

Just as in the last several bombings Hamas passed on funds from Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibilty while an Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade member actually detonated the bomb.

Don’t forget that all the leaders of the groups Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFPLP etc., are congregated in Syria where they coordinate all activity.

Jan 26, 2006 - 9:21 am 8. jedrury:

Arafat’s legacy was violence and deceit, first and foremost, while playing games with the peace loving simpletons in the West. He never built
up Fatah to be anything other than his personal playtoy to line his pockets. As a political movement, it was a thoroughly corrupt and dessicated institution. His added legacy is
Hamas who was able to combine an outreach to the Palistinians along with a rabid and deadly anti Semitism.

Jan 26, 2006 - 9:27 am 9. Charlie (Colorado):

Actually, I suspect the net outcome will be that Egypt and Jordan will take back Gaza and the West Bank respectively, and will handle them with the calm reflection and compromise for which the Arab world is famous.

Jan 26, 2006 - 9:33 am 10. Cynic:

Thereis an article in NRO that I just came by Emanuele Ottolenghi that is worth the read

“Hamas Without Veils
No more hiding behind the PA.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/ottolenghi200601261002.asp

“They will have to show their true face now: No more masks, no more veils, no more double-speak. If the cooptation theory ó favored by the International Crisis Group and by the former British MI-6 turned talking head, Alistair Crooke ó were true, this is the time for Hamas to show what hides behind its veil.”

Jan 26, 2006 - 9:35 am 11. Always right:

Palis have chosen freely their way of life, now they can reap the consequences.

Waiting to see new round(s) of “donor conference” to help the newly elected Hamas, and the helpless Palis. (And they may actually get some real money! Not like the donor pledge for the Iraqis)

Epecting Hamas to impose more sharia law, back towards more fundamentalist islam than actually moving Palis towards more recent centuries. Expecting to see more “hate” towards the US and the zionists, because EU and UN will pledge more help but not US.

I hope Condi’s “work with them” still mean the same treatment as that of the old ara-fat got.

Jan 26, 2006 - 10:06 am 12. Knucklehead:

Charlie,

Some seem to think that this somehow makes the Israeli position worse. It changes nothing, in the short term, from the Isreali perspective. Hamas was out to kill them yesterday and today – surprise! – Hamas is out to kill them.

You’ve pointed to one possible outcome. Egypt and Jordan can’t have this lunacy on their border unless it is happening on “Zionist Occupied Territory” and move in to stop it. No harm to Israel there – they’ve made their peace with Egypt and Jordan. Or at least something approximating peace.

Or the Palis can come to their senses over time and start building a sane little country. No harm to Isreal there, they’d welcome it.

Or the Palis can kill themselves in civil war. At least the Israeli’s can say, “Heh, it ain’t our territory, what can we do?” That’s actually a marginal improvement for Israel.

Or Hamas will gain full control and resume their war against Israel. That’s no different than what was except that now Israel is a slightly better defensive posture and doesn’t have to attack people it occupies but, instead, the enemy next door. Again a marginal improvement.

Where’s the downside in this for Israel?

Jan 26, 2006 - 10:09 am 13. Old Dad:

David T, and Cynic:

I’m also deeply skeptical about the potential to reform radical islam, but I think it’s an open question, especially when one considers the alternative–one helluva war.

I wonder if the Palestinian people, at the grass roots level, might not someday grow sick of their horrific poverty and all the carnage, but it seems that they will remain slaves to their despots and their religion.

Jan 26, 2006 - 10:48 am 14. Knucklehead:

Old Dad,

Yuppers. The alternative, one hell of a war, remains the alternative. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is that now we’re wondering not if we can somehow manage the entire gang of lunatic dictatorships to avoid the “alternative” we’re wondering if nascent democracies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine will take and become better or if they’ll all snap back to insanity, if Libya is really out of the terrorism game (looks good), just how far the Paki Islamobomb plot actually got before we discovered it and shut it down, and whether or not all this can be poked, prodded, shepherded, and cojoled enough to avoid the “alternative”.

The entire situation was misery with no hope of doing anything other than someday leading to the “alternative. Now the situation is more like: the “alternative” is still a somewhat likely outcome but at least we tried before we went there and at least we’ve achieved some small decrease in the likelihood that we’ll have to go to the “alternative”.

There’s still a big mess out there but it ain’t as big a mess as it was five short years ago. It ain’t paradise but it never was. And we may yet have to turn it into so much molten glass at least we tried something else.

Jan 26, 2006 - 11:15 am 15. Doug S.:

Gotta agree with Roger and Knucklehead on this one. Hamas can no longer hide behind Fatah’s skirts now; it’s their government and their options are limited unless they change their ways. They are now solely responsible for the mess that is the PA.

Sharon is looking smarter and smarter for pulling out of Gaza. Hamas’ hard-core members and supporters will hanker for open warfare against Israel, but when Israel strikes back, they’ll be hitting at a sovereign nation that consciously decided to make war on them, not an “occupied” people fighting for “liberation.”

Consider two possibilities;

1) Fatah and Hamas will bleed each other dry now, mitigating the actual threat to Israel from a Hamas-led government.

2) This is an opportunity to lance the boil that is Hamas by giving them the chance to discredit themselves. Think they can run the PA any better than Fatah did? I’ll believe it when I see it.

Jan 26, 2006 - 11:22 am 16. Terrye:

I think Knucklehead is right.

I mean come on, is Fatah a hell of a lot better? The choice is one bunch of crazy jihadis running against another bunch of crazy jihadis…the biggest difference being Hamas has not stolen as much money from the people….yet, give them time.

There is an old saying, beware your heart’s desire for surely you will get it.

Now the Palis can get their hearts desire.

Jan 26, 2006 - 11:22 am 17. Knucklehead:

Re: Netanyahu…

That’s interesting. Wish I knew more about Israeli politicians. The knock against Netanyahu, IIRC, was that he was too hard line about not “trading land for peace”. Well, the land has been traded and we’re all impatiently waiting for the peace. If the peace doesn’t come what little I know of Bebe suggests he’s not a bad guy to have running the show.

Jan 26, 2006 - 11:57 am 18. Sandy P:

Iran’s the not-so-wild card.

Jan 26, 2006 - 11:58 am 19. Plainslow:

At least Israel now has a target when sucide bombing’s occur. A state to attack.

Jan 26, 2006 - 12:02 pm 20. Alexandra von Maltzan:

All Things Beautiful TrackBack A Dark Victory

Jan 26, 2006 - 12:18 pm 21. Steven E. Ehrbar:

The election outcome makes things absolutely clear; the Palestinian people utterly reject the two-state solution. At this point, the only choices are no Palestinian state, or one that rules in a Judenrein Tel Aviv.

Jan 26, 2006 - 1:03 pm 22. Bruce Wechsler:

I think it was Bernard Lewis who said that for Israel aggression was the tactic with peace the ultimate goal, whereas for Arafat and his followers, peace-making was the strategy with aggression the ultimate goal.

Hamas, without political power, had no need to worry about appearances. My biggest concern now is that I they will walk in their predecessors steps and do just the same…feign moderation (while helping others do the killing without their fingerprints on it). Old Europe and the Left will swallow it whole, and cry “please, may I have some more!” Making it harder for Israel to hold the Islanimals accountable, as usual.

Jan 26, 2006 - 3:26 pm 23. Charlie (Colorado):

The thing I left off my ealier post (because it stepped on the punchline) was to wonder how the UN would react to Egypt kicking Hamas’s ass in Gaza. I’m very suspicious that they’ll tut-tut, but not even pass a resolution.

I think this (vide sup what Knuck said) is more or less no-lose for Israel and the USA. Either Hamas has to grow up and act like a government, in which case Israel can treat them like a hostile foreign power, or the Palistinian areas will collapse into civil war and we’ll see the same thing that happened in the Palestinian areas in Jordan.

Jan 26, 2006 - 3:46 pm 24. RogerA:

I think Knuck has it pretty well nailed down (as long as we consider SandyP’s caveat about Iran as a real wild card in this.)

Everything I know about Hamas suggests it is a direct decendent of the muslim brotherhood–devout (no pun intended) terrorists and jihadists who gave OBL, Zahawiri and the like. I think it will also be very interesting to see if they turn into a taliban, imposing sharia and strict Islam–recall the taliban was welcomed for a while as an order-bring group into the warlordism of Afghanistan after the Soviet defeat there.

I do think there is a fundamental difference, however–the Pals are much more secular and I while they have their little foibles such as honor killings and tribalism, I suspect attempts to enforce strict Islam will backfire big time. During my stay in Saudia Arabia, the ex-patriot pals who worked there were regarded with great suspicion by the Saudis as not being very good moslems and troublemakers to boot.

We do live in interesting times.

Jan 26, 2006 - 3:55 pm 25. Sandy P:

Reality might be sinking in, via Bros. Judd:

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,397493,00.html

…Some Hamas leaders are already signalling that rather than running the government on their own, they would prefer to create a national unity government that would include representatives of all Palestinian parties. Otherwise, it would prefer to govern together with the Fatah Party….

The bright side is, the black turbans and the Magic Kingdom fund them and more money for that, less for other adventures and their people.

Jan 26, 2006 - 9:21 pm 26. Kevin Peters:

Roger:

The fun part of this whole sorry situation is going to be watching the “give peace a chance” crowd try to parse statements like “we want all the Jews in the middle east dead” for signs that the Palistinians want a two state solution. Arafat and his heirs were always clever in playing on the naivete of the west with their peace talk in English while calling for war in Arabic. it is going to be quite a site watching them turn handstands saying “while it is true that the Palistinian government is calling for the extermination of the Jews in Israel we still think that if Israel would just stop construction of the security fence everything would turn around.” or ” look at the free breakfast programs Hamas has created, this shows it is the Jews fault that these kind gents want to finish what Hitler started.”

Jan 26, 2006 - 11:10 pm 27. Knucklehead:

Sandy P,

Now they have to come out into the open and govern. They can’t just hide and blame everything on the Jews and the occupation. Its like the Romulans being forced to decloak.

Jan 27, 2006 - 7:26 am 28. markus:

Wait, I thought bringing democracy to the Arabs was the key to electing peaceful, pro-western Arab governments? Or was that another Straussian noble lie?

In any case, I also happen agree that this is good news. Perhaps this moves the region just a bit closer to shitting or getting off its collective pot. Hamas has to figure out how to keep water running and streets clean. And delivering these things means dealing with the reality of the Jewish state, instead of preaching irredentist fantasies on the sidelines.

Also, I wonder — when is the wall scheduled to be finished? And when does the Israeli right (and its US allies) begin the push to get the Bush Administration to tacitly agree to accept Israeli annexation of all territory outside the wall?

Jan 27, 2006 - 10:30 am 29. vegetius:

Markus, Palestine is same kind of democracy that Zimbabwe is.
The real problem for Hammas is seizing control of all the numbered Swiss bank accounts that Fatah/Arafat have. They may rule but not govern.
(or is that vice versa??)

Jan 27, 2006 - 11:06 am

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