Centrerion Canadian Politics

Palestinians Chose Hamas: This Moderate's Analysis

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Moderates need to understand that Palestinians Chose Hamas. Your favourite moderate's moderate analysis shows that Palestinians picked Hamas, they didn't just reject Fatah.

Explaining the electoral victory of terrorist group Hamas, Adrien Wing has repeated something I keep hearing from all the 'experts': "Hamas won primarily because the Palestinian people were fed up with the 10-year leadership of the Fatah party."
I feel like this is more mainstream media repetition. I noticed this a lot during the Canadian election, too, where all the "experts" seem to agree and share the same analysis.
To date, however, I have yet to see anyone prove this claim that Hamas won because Fatah was being thrown out. I've only seen assertions, and as we all know, saying something is so, doesn't make it so.

What proves Palestinians voted for Hamas because they're sick of Fatah? Local polls can't prove it, because local polls were showing a Fatah victory.
The platform doesn't support the claim. that the election result was a rejection of Fatah. The Hamas election platform, from what I could tell, was principally that Hamas threw Israel out of Gaza through violent terrorism. Though that claim is unquestionably false (Ariel Sharon was defeated by terrorists... Yeah, uhuh, and Martians have really been fixing the World Series all these years.), it doesn't mean Palestinians didn't believe it. Furthermore, Hamas has never hid that it's an Islamist group dedicated to the destruction of Israel. In fact, it's been a lot more intellectually honest than Fatah, which calls for the destruction of Israel without recognizing it's existence. "Let's kill the invisible man!" kind of thing. The point is, Hamas had an election platform, and the main planks are not fighting corruption (though Hamas does have a reputation for providing social services and being uncorrupt, relative to Fatah). Their platform is violent struggle and radical Islam.

Another challenge to the experts' idea is to ask why people turned to Hamas if they were just turfing Fatah? I don't know for certain, but I imagine that amongst the apparent multitude of parties there must at least have been a few who weren't bent on destroying Israel and replacing it with an Islamist republic (notice I'm honest enough to say I don't know when I don't know, as opposed to the experts...). It's possible people were turfing Fatah, but the fact there were more than 2 parties means they also chose Hamas.

The experts are as worried as I am by Palestinian support for terrorists. That's the explanation for their analysis. They don't want to believe what has happened because it's worrisome.

posted by lecentre @ 7:03 p.m.