Former CBS News president Richard Salant (1961 - 64 and 1966 - 79) explained the major media's role: "Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have." ...and to this very day most Americans haven't noticed they're being brained washed! ~ N. Hooben
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Another (D) Caught On Camera
Sources say video shows Sen. Hiram Monserrate dragging lover, who looks 'scared out of her mind'
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
A Queens state senator who denies beating his girlfriend was caught on security cameras dragging the scared, bleeding woman from his apartment, law enforcement sources told the Daily News.
Newly elected Sen. Hiram Monserrate "will be convicted by the security video" taken in the hallway and outside his Jackson Heights apartment after he allegedly slashed Karla Giraldo in a jealous rage, sources said.
"No one can look at the security video and think that this was an accident," said a law enforcement source who saw the footage. "The woman looks scared out of her mind and trying to get away from this guy."
The video shows Giraldo grabbing the apartment's front door as Monserrate tried to drag her out of the building, sources said.
Other video clips show Giraldo clutching a towel to her injured left eye and banging on the door of a neighbor's apartment for help, sources said.
That neighbor, Carolyn Loudon, 46, said Tuesday she heard Giraldo banging on her door but was too scared to open it.
She said she is used to noise coming from Monserrate's unit, but the ruckus was worse than usual on Dec. 19.
"It was frightening," Loudon said. "I heard screaming and then banging on the door."
Then, later "at 3 a.m. I looked out the door and saw a bloody towel," she said. "About an hour later, I heard a noise and looked out again and the towel was gone.
"I know I should have called 911. That was a mistake."
Monserrate said he tripped and accidentally cut Giraldo with a broken drinking glass, requiring more than 20 stitches over her left eye, in the incident.
Monserrate told The News on Monday that "any videotapes the police obtained from my building will back me up."
An individual familiar with the Democrat's defense said the senator has maintained that Giraldo never wanted to go to the hospital and nothing in the video contradicts that account, despite "creative interpretation by self-proclaimed law enforcement sources."
Giraldo at first told a doctor at Long Island Jewish Medical Center that Monserrate beat her, but then changed her story. She wants prosecutors to drop assault charges.
Emergency room doctor Dawne Kort told Queens prosecutors on Tuesday that Giraldo accused Monserrate of bashing her in the face, sources said.
"The doctor's testimony cements what you see in the video - a terrified woman, begging for help," said a second source who was briefed on the content of the video sequence.
A camera on the second floor records Monserrate in the hallway screaming at someone inside his apartment, sources said. There is no audio in the security video.
Monserrate is then seen throwing something down the building's garbage chute - believed to be a card belonging to another man, which cops say enraged Monserrate when he found it in Giraldo's possession.
Another camera captured Giraldo holding a towel to her injured eye. Monserrate is screaming at her and pulling her by the shoulder, sources said.
In the most damning clip, a camera recorded Giraldo crying and banging on Loudon's door, sources said.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Europe is falling...I pray America is not next - From this morning's mail.
H-T to Ulrike from Köln and Ulli from parts unknown...
"In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: who lost Europe?"
--
Ulli
Get ready for more intrusions into your daily life...
Obama Makes Four Justice Department Appointments
Include media and new media law practice veterans as well as staff from Clinton years
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/5/2009 1:26:00 PM
President-elect Barack Obama has made four Justice Department appointments, including veterans of media and new media law practice and a bunch of familiar faces from the Clinton years.David Ogden, partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr, who has been heading up the Justice review team for the transition, has been named deputy attorney general. He served in the Justice Department during the Clinton administration and since joining WilmerHale has represented several media clients, including defending a U.S. Media company employee from prosecution by the U.S. and Iraqi governments and successfully injoining a state statute regulating Internet speech.
Elena Kagan, dean of Harvard Law School (Obama's alma mater), will become solicitor general, the office that handles government arguments before the Supreme Court and other federal appeals courts. The office has gotten a lot of media work lately with the appeals of the FCC's indecency enforcement crackdown.
Tom Perrelli, managing partner of Jenner & Block in Washington and co-chair of its entertainment and new media practice, has been named associate attorney general. Like Ogden, he served in the Clinton Justice Department under Attorney General Janet Reno.
Perrelli focuses on copyright and media issues and has represented recording companies in piracy and intellectual property cases, among others.
Dawn Johnsen, a law professor at Indiana University, has been named assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel. If her past writings are any gauge, she will be a friend to journalists seeking more access to government information. Among her recent publications, cited by the Obama transition team, was: "Interpreting the Constitution in the Wake of the Bush Administration's Abuses."
Johnsen was acting assistant attorney general in charge of the office of legal counsel under President Clinton. She was also with the American Civil Liberties Union.
Wanted: 850 new FBI agents
- Story Highlights
- FBI goes on biggest hiring blitz since 9/11
- Postings on www.fbijobs.gov seek 850 agents, 2,100 support staffers
- Retirements, attrition responsible for openings, FBI says
CNN Justice Producer
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Despite a bleak economic environment featuring wide-ranging layoffs and rising unemployment, the nation's premier law enforcement agency is touting "one of the largest hiring blitzes in our 100-year history."
The FBI posted openings for 850 special agents and more than 2,100 professional support personnel. Officials say it's the largest FBI job posting since immediately after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The FBI's unexpectedly large number of job openings results more from attrition and a wave of retirements than from growing government appropriations, Bureau officials told CNN.
The FBI routinely advertises openings for individuals with critical skills in computer science and language fluency. But John Raucci, assistant director of the FBI's Human Resources Division, says current needs are much more wide-ranging.
"We're also looking for professionals in a wide variety of fields who have a deep desire to help protect our nation from terrorists, spies and others who wish us harm," Raucci said.
The lengthy list of openings includes positions in finance and accounting, security, intelligence analysis, training and education, nursing and counseling, physical surveillance, electrical engineering, physical and social sciences, and auto mechanics.
Procedures for applying and a full listing of available positions are posted on the Web site fbijobs.gov.
"This is a great time to apply for a great job in the FBI," said the bureau's chief spokesman, Richard Kolko.
Officials note at least a few jobs are currently available in every one of the FBI's 56 field offices across the nation.
The FBI lists openings throughout the year, but seldom has anything close to the current number of available positions.
The present job postings expire on January 16, but a new, possibly smaller set of openings will be posted shortly thereafter, the agency said.
| Key Justice nominees rooted in academia |
Elena Kagan, who would be the government's top lawyer before the Supreme Court, worked on domestic policy in the Clinton administration and has won respect from often dueling factions at Harvard since she became dean in 2003. Kagan, 48, is a possible high-court nominee because of her credentials and connections to Obama and his top advisers.
As solicitor general, she would handle cases related to the administration's position on terrorism suspects, health regulations and other controversies. She has never argued before the Supreme Court, and her selection recalls an era when presidents looked to lawyers rooted more in academia than private practice.
Obama also named Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen, 47, to be assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel. The office advises the president on the scope of executive power under the Constitution and federal law and has played an important role on national security legal dilemmas. It was at the center of a controversy in recent years for memos providing the rationale for coercive interrogation of foreign detainees.
Johnsen, who was an acting chief of the office from 1997-98, criticized its support for Bush's policy on terrorism. She argued the "administration's abuses threaten to distort presidential authority and the federal balance of powers for years."
The solicitor general, who argues before the court in gray morning coat, holds one of the most prestigious posts at the Justice Department. It would give Kagan a national platform at a time when many lawyers, including Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, say they hope Obama would choose another woman for the court. Yet the post has political risks.
Former solicitor general Drew Days, appointed by Clinton and now at Yale, says solicitors general often have to take unpopular positions, negotiating government interests and at times irking outside advocates. "One of the things that happens is that you have to say 'no' a lot of times," Days says. "You don't make a lot of friends."
Harvard University law professor Laurence Tribe contends Kagan's experience as dean of "many prima donnas is good preparation for … navigating the difficult waters of the Supreme Court."
Johnsen, now a professor at Indiana University, testified before Congress last year about problems at OLC and recommended 10 principles for the office. Among them: an honest appraisal of the law even if it constrains the president and timely release of opinions that might conflict with federal law.
Sen. Arlen Specter, Pa., the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would vet Justice nominees, had no comment on Obama's choices.
Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., praised Kagan and Johnsen and two other Justice Department choices: former Clinton aides David Ogden, to be deputy attorney general, and Tom Perrelli, to be associate attorney general.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Let's see now...You're Democrat and you're proud...Is that right? Of this guy?
Question?
How do morons get to be where there at?
Watch this video before answering...
Scroll down for answer to above question.
Moronic politicians get to be where they're at because they are voted into office by people that conform to the views of the politician...in other words, "Morons vote for morons."
'nough said!
Operation Cowboy
 | October 16, 1995 Operation Cowboy
In 1945 a group of U.S. soldiers liberated 375 Lipizzans from Nazi captivity |
It was late April, 1945. U.S. troops were sweeping across southern Germany and storming Philippine beaches. Roosevelt had just died. The Soviets had captured Berlin. Allied troops had just liberated Auschwitz and Buchenwald. The Japanese were fighting desperately at Okinawa. The end of World War II seemed imminent, yet the world was still in turmoil. Amid this storm of attacks, losses, hope and horror, an odd thing happened. A group of U.S. soldiers from the Third Army, Second Cavalry, discovered the Germans were keeping some 675 prize European horses in a tiny village in Czechoslovakia, where they hoped to create an equine master race. Included in the herd was the entire Lipizzan breeding stock of Vienna's centuries-old Spanish Riding School, one of only a few places in the world where haute �cole, the highest level of classical dressage, was taught.
The Germans were about to surrender. But the American officers, as well as the Lipizzans' German caretakers, many of them cavalrymen, feared that the advancing Soviets would capture and perhaps destroy these beautiful white horses. So U.S. soldiers rescued them and herded them to safety, thus saving a breed and a tradition for generations to come.
It sounds like a fairy tale, but Operation Cowboy truly occurred. The rescue has been glamorized, of course—especially in the Disney film Miracle of the White Stallions—for who can resist a story of greed, heroism and dancing horses? But in all the hoopla surrounding the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, this mission has been all but forgotten. Most accounts of the war don't mention Operation Cowboy; one researcher at the U.S. Army's Center for Military History thought it had something to do with The Sound of Music.
Few of the 350 soldiers who took part in Operation Cowboy are alive today. Yet those who know about the mission agree that it was one humane episode in what had been a horrible war and that it preserved an art form. "We thought we had a chance to save a sliver of culture for the rest of the world," says Louis Holz, 71, who was a lieutenant in the Second Cavalry at the time. "We sensed the end [of the war] was in sight, and we were in a frame of mind to give credence to beauty once again."
The Spanish Riding School and the Lipizzan breed had been based in Vienna since 1572, when Archduke Charles II of Austria founded the school to continue the classical dressage tradition developed by the Greek general and historian Xenophon around 400 B.C. By World War II the school was a national treasure and the only place in the world where the elegant white Lipizzan stallions still exhibited haute �cole. This tradition's "airs above the ground," as they are called, look like equine ballet, but some people say that Xenophon developed them as cavalry maneuvers. For instance, a rider might use the levade, in which the horse crouches on its hind legs before standing up, to give the rider's sword greater thrust. And the capriole, in which the horse leaps into the air and kicks out its hind legs, could be used to extricate horse and rider from nasty combat situations.
The school's commandant, Col. Alois Podhajsky, stayed in Vienna until the bombing began to get close in January 1945. Then he moved his performing stallions to St. Martins, Austria. In 1943, however, German soldiers had taken the school's entire herd of breeding stallions and mares, and most of the Lipizzans in Europe, to Hostau, Czechoslovakia. There the Germans hoped to "attain the ultimate horse," says Mary Lightstone of the U.S. Lipizzan Registry. Podhajsky wanted his breeding herd back, for without it the entire Lipizzan breed could be lost.
That U.S. troops discovered the stolen Lipizzans at all was a fluke. The Second Cavalry, which by then rode trucks and tanks, not horses, was holed up in the Bohemian forest. On April 26 the regiment offered to accept the surrender of a German staff intelligence officer who wanted to escape the advancing Soviets. He surrendered, and over breakfast the next morning United States Col. Charles Reed and a German general whose name appears to have been lost began discussing horses. The general, it turned out, was a former cavalryman and horse breeder, and he pulled out photographs of the prize Arabian and Lipizzan horses being held nearby at Hostau. He also told the colonel that 400 Allied prisoners of war were there, plus about 25 Red Army deserters.
The general suggested that the Americans take the horses for safekeeping, for the Red Army "marched on its stomach," as Holz says, and its lack of food might cause it to make the Lipizzans into "horseburgers." Reed agreed. After negotiating through a local forester, U.S. envoy Capt. Thomas Stewart and one of the Hostau veterinarians returned to Hostau to arrange the surrender. "Colonel Hargis, who was helping organize the mission, said to me, 'You don't have to go in if you don't want to,' " Stewart recalls. "I would have preferred something more encouraging. But you know, people ask me all the time why I did it, and after all these years I still don't know."
Hostau's German commandant, Col. Alois Rudofsky, was not as enthusiastic about the mission as the Americans were, for his orders were to stay and fight. "I knew Rudofsky was going to shoot us if he saw us and that I was better off meeting with a different commander, General Schultze," Stewart says. "So I went into hiding until that could be arranged." The final meeting was cordial if somewhat tense. But the men struck a deal, and Stewart went back to the American lines riding one of the captured horses.
On April 28, 350 American cavalrymen moved into Hostau. Although the area was sprinkled with German snipers, the men had only one firefight on the way. When they arrived, they found more than 1,200 horses stabled in the village, including 375 Lipizzans, 100 Arabians, 200 thoroughbreds and 600 Russian horses. The soldiers freed the Allied prisoners and began counting and caring for the captured horses.
At this point Podhajsky still didn't know his Lipizzans were under U.S. protection. But on May 7, eight days after Hitler committed suicide and the same day the Germans surrendered, Podhajsky put on a performance in St. Martins for U.S. troops. Gen. George S. Patton just happened to be there, visiting Maj. Gen. Walton Walker.
Many accounts, including Disney's, credit Patton with ordering and even leading the evacuation. But Patton actually hadn't heard about the stolen horses yet, and his recollection of that day's performance, in his autobiography War As I Knew It, reveals that he was less than thrilled. "It struck me as rather strange," he wrote, "that, in the midst of a world at war, some 20 young and middle-aged men in great physical condition...had spent their entire time teaching a group of horses to wiggle their butts and raise their feet.... Much as I like horses, this seemed to me wasted energy."
Still, Patton was a horseman—he had competed, after all, in the 1912 Olympic modern pentathlon—and he did find some merit in the display. "It is probably wrong to permit any highly developed art, no matter how fatuous, to perish from the earth," he wrote. "To me, the high schooling of horses is certainly more interesting than either painting or music."
When Podhajsky asked Patton to put the horses under U.S. protection, Patton asked an aide to investigate. "That's probably how Patton got all the credit for the mission," says Holz, now a retired economist and chairman of the Second Cavalry Association. "He's the one who eventually got to say, 'Everything's going to be O.K.' But it really was Colonel Reed, a sub-field commander, who took the initiative and showed the compassion and intelligence to complete this mission."
On May 12 the U.S. soldiers began trucking, riding and herding the horses 35 miles over the border to Kotztinz, Germany. The Army sent a plane so that Podhajsky could come see the Lipizzans, and he then took all of them to St. Martins, where he kept his and sent the rest back to their owners. The other horses, and some of the soldiers, went on to Mansbach, Germany, where they spent the summer.
As a gift from Podhajsky, Col. Fred Hamilton, chief of the Army's Remount, chose about 200 horses, worth an estimated $1 million, to take back to the U.S., including three Lipizzan stallions and six Lipizzan mares. The ship on which they traveled nearly capsized in a winter storm—the horses were literally busting out of their stalls—but nary a sailor nor horse was lost. Several years later, when the Department of Agriculture disbanded the Remount, the horses went to private owners.
Since then many other private owners in the U.S. have imported Lipizzans from Europe and have even begun breeding them. It couldn't have been done, however, without the help of the Second Cavalry. "People risked their lives to get those horses out," Lightstone says. It wasn't the most dangerous mission in the war, but there were snipers around Hostau. We should be thankful the breed is still here."
The veterans themselves are rather modest. Holz even calls the rescue an "evacuation." Still, he says, "I have spent two thirds of my life trying to get the story right. I have a passion for it."
Friday, January 2, 2009
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Interview With History - A Book Review By Shane Borgess (Golda Meir: War And Wisdom ...and wisdom she had)
I'm reading a book containing 14 of Oriana Fallaci's interviews with the world's most powerful people as of 1974 (it's an out of print book titled "Interview With History"). It's astounding for its raw glimpse into leaders that during the 1970's were headlining newspapers and affecting nearly every family in the world in one way or another. With the current battle in the Gaza Strip raging right now in Israel, I thought it would be interesting to let you read a little of what Golda Meir said about Israel's prospects for peace in November of 1972. She had been prime minister of Israel for over three years by then. (Note: I've edited some of her answers for brevity, always keeping in mind the power of the scalpel)
Oriana Fallaci: Mrs. Meir, when will there be peace in the Middle East? Will we be able to see this peace in our lifetimes?
Golda Meir: You will, I think. Maybe...I certainly won't. I think the war in the Middle East will go on for many, many years. And I'll tell you why. Because of the indifference with which the Arab leaders send their people off to die, because of the low estimate in which they hold human life, because of the inability of the Arab people to rebel and say enough.
Do you remember when Khrushchev denounced Stalin's crimes during the Twentieth Communist Congress? A voice was raised at the back of the hall, saying, "And where were you, Comrade Khrushchev?" Khrushchev scrutinized the faces before him, found no one, and said, "Who spoke up?" No one answered. "Who spoke up?" Khrushchev exclaimed. And again no one answered. Then Khrushchev exclaimed "Comrade, I was where you are now." Well, the Arab people are just where Khrushchev was, where the man was who reproached him without having the courage to show his face.
We can only arrive at peace with the Arabs through an evolution on their part that includes democracy. But wherever I turn by eyes to look, I don't see a shadow of democracy. I see only dictatorial regimes. And a dictator doesn't have to account to his people for a peace he doesn't make. He doesn't even have to account for the dead. Who's ever found out how many Egyptian soldiers died in the last two wars? Only the mothers, sisters, wives, relatives who didn't see them come back.Their leaders aren't even concerned to know where they're buried, if they're buried. While we...
Fallaci: While you?...
Meir: Look at these five volumes. they contain the photograph and biography of every man and woman solider who died in the war. For us, every single death is a tragedy. We don't like to make war, even when we win. After the last one, there was no joy in our streets. No dancing, no songs, no festivities. And you should have seen our soldiers coming back victorious. Each one was a picture of sadness. Not only because they had seen their brothers die, but because they had had to kill their enemies. Many locked themselves in their rooms and wouldn't speak. Or when they opened their mouths, it was to repeat a refrain: "I had to shoot, I killed." Just the opposite of the Arabs. After the war we offered the Egyptians an exchange of prisoners. Seventy of theirs for ten of ours, The answered, "but yours are officers, ours are fellahin! It's impossible." Fellahin, peasants. I'm afraid...
Fallaci: Will you ever give up Jerusalem, Mrs. Meir?
Meir: No. Never. No. Jerusalem no. Jerusalem never. Inadmissible. Jerusalem is out of the question. We won't even agree to discuss Jerusalem.
Fallaci: Would you give up the West Bank of the Jordan?
Meir: On this point there are differences of opinion in Israel. So it's possible that we'd be ready to negotiate about the West Bank. Let me make myself clearer. I believe the majority of Israelis would never ask the Knesset to give up the West Back completely. However, if we should come to negotiate with Hussein, the majority of Israelis would be ready to hand back part of the West Bank...
Fallaci: And Gaza? Would you give up Gaza, Mrs. Meir?
Meir: I say that Gaza must, should be part of Israel. Yes, that's my opinion. Our opinion, in fact. However, to start negotiating, I don't ask Hussein or Sadat to agree with me on any point...
Fallaci: And the Golan Heights?
Meir: It's more or less the same idea. The Syrians would like us to come down from the Golan Heights so that they can shoot down at us as they did before. Needless to say, we have not intention of doing so, we'll never come down from the plateau. Nevertheless, we're ready to negotiate with the Syrians too.
Fallaci: And the Sinai?
Meir: We've never said that we wanted the whole Sinai or most of the Sinai. We don't want the whole Sinai. We want control of Sharm El Sheikh and part of the desert, let's say a strip of the desert, connecting Israel with Sharm El Sheikh. Is that clear? Must I repeat it?...
Fallaci: And so it's obvious you'll never go back to your old borders.
Meir: Never. And when I say never, it's not because we mean to annex new territory. It's because we mean to ensure our defense, our survival. If there's any possibility of reaching the peace you spoke of in the beginning, this is the only way. There'd never be peace if the Syrians were to return to the Golan Heights, if the Egyptians were to take back the whole Sinai, if we were to re-establish our 1967 borders with Hussein. In 1967, the distance to Natanya and the sea was barely ten miles, fifteen kilometers, IF we give Hussein the possibility of covering those fifteen kilometers, Israel risks being cut in two and...They accuse us of being expansionist, but believe me, we're not interested in expanding. We're only interested in new borders. And look, these Arabs want to go back to the 1967 borders. IF those borders were the right ones, why did they destroy them?
Fallaci: But since the 1967 cease-fire, the war in the Middle East has taken on a new face: the face of terror, of terrorism. What do you think of this war and the men who are conducting it? OF Arafat, for instance, of Habash, of the Black September leaders?
Meir: I simply think they're not men. I don't even consider them human beings, and the worst thing you can say of a man is that he's not a human being. It's like saying he's an animal, isn't it? But how can you call what they're doing "a war"? Don't you remember what Habash said when he had a bus full of Israeli children blown up? "It's best to kill the Iseaelis while they're still children." Come on, what they're doing isn;t a war. It's not even a revolutionary movement because a movement that only wants to kill can't be called revolutionary. Look, at the beginning of the century in Russia, in the revolutionary movement that rose up to overthrow the czar, there was one party that considered terror the only means of struggle. One day a man from this party was sent with a bomb to a street corner where the carriage of one of the czar's high officials was supposed to pass. The carriage went by at the expected time, but the official was not alone, he was accompanied by his wife and children. So what did this true revolutionary do? He didn't throw the bomb. He let it go off in his hand and was blown to pieces. Look, we too had our terrorist groups during the War of Independence: the Stern, the Irgun. And I was opposed to them, I was always opposed to them. But neither of them ever covered itself with such infamy as the Arabs have done with us. Neither of them ever put bombs in supermarkets or dynamite in school buses. Neither of them ever provoked tragedies like Munich or Lod airport.
Fallaci: And how can one fight such terrorism, Mrs. Meir? Do you really think it helps to bomb Lebanese villages?
Meir: ...Maybe more than any other Arab country, Lebanon is offering hospitality to the terrorists. The Japanese who carried out the Lod massacre came from Lebanon, The girls who tried to hijack the Sabena plane in Tel Aviv had been trained in Lebanon. Are we supposed to sit here with our hands folded, praying and murmuring, "Let's hope that nothing happens"? Praying doesn't help. What helps is to counterattack. With all possible means, including means that we don't necessarily like. Certainly we'd rather fight them in the open, but since that's not possible...
Hamas, Hamas Whoever You Are - Two for you but mostly the same...
From http://www.marxist.com/MiddleEast/hamas_0803.html
Palestine - The origins of Hamas and its role today
Hamas has emerged as a force in the Palestinian Territories and has recently hit the headlines because of a spate of suicide bombings. This article looks at the origins of this movement. It recalls how in the past, when it suited them, the Israeli authorities tried to use Hamas as a counterbalance to the influence of the PLO. Now it has become a source of further instability.
By Yossi Schwartz (In Defence of Marxism circle in Israel)
The strength of the Islamic movements in the Middle East has manifested itself at least since the Iranian revolution of 1978-9. Islamic fundamentalism that operates in 70 countries has become a major force in Iran, the Sudan, Egypt, Algeria and Tajikistan, Afghanistan, the occupied West Bank and Gaza, Pakistan and most recently Turkey where an Islamic Party has taken control. Contrary to a common assumption that this movement was born in the late 1970s, the Marxist movement has had to struggle against it since the time of the Russian revolution.
In the Middle East this movement was born in Egypt in 1928 and its founder was Hassan Bana. The Russian revolution had limited its influence for many years because it was able to pose a clear class alternative before the masses. Even the expansion of Stalinism following the Second World War put restraints on it, as it was still a system that was developing the productive forces in spite of its terrible bureaucratic deformations.
The rise of these Islamic movements came as an enormous shock to the liberals and the left wing leaning middle class elements who believed that so-called "modernisation", following on from the victory of the anti-colonial struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, would inevitably lead to more progressive societies.
Instead they witnessed the growth of forces which seem to look backwards to a barbaric past, to a society which imposes the burkah on women, uses terror to crush any free thought and threatens the most barbaric punishment on those who defy its will.
What they do not understand is that the growth of this movement is the result of the crisis of Stalinism which led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and at the same time to the total capitulation of the secular local bourgeois in the underdeveloped so-called "Third World".
In the 1950s and 1960s the struggles against colonialism and imperialism led by petit bourgeois elements inspired a section of the middle classes in the underdeveloped ex-colonial countries, who supported the demand for the nationalisation of some sections of the economy as a measure of protection against imperialist control. These secular left currents, or at least their Stalinist or left nationalist mainstream, were seen as a movement that offered a real solution to the misery of the masses. At the same time they exercised a degree of control over the masses.
In the late 1970s and 1980s with the signs of the coming collapse of the Soviet Union under the bureaucratic strangulation of the productive forces, the mood began to change and to turn into despair. It was this despair that laid the basis for the Islamic movement to begin to grow once again.
Real nature of Islamic fundamentalism
There is a general lack of understanding on the left about the real nature of Islamic fundamentalism. Thus we see two quite opposite reactions to the growth of the fundamentalists.
The first sees Islamic fundamentalism as a form of fascism. Such a view easily leads some leftists to political alliances to stop the fascists at all costs, including support for the imperialists and the local capitalist states. A clear case is Algeria where these liberals and leftist sects have been supporting the FLN and the Algerian army against the F.I.S, at the same time as the FLN has been carrying out the policies of the International Monetary Fund.
The opposite approach sees the Islamic movements as "progressive", "anti-imperialist" movements of the oppressed. This was the position taken by the great bulk of the Iranian left in the first phase of the 1979 revolution, when the Tudeh Party, the majority of the Fedayeen guerrilla organisation and the left Islamic People's Mojahedin all characterised the forces behind Khomeini as "the progressive petit bourgeoisie". They all supported the Mullahs to the extent that their programme became nothing less than "Allah u Akbar" (God is Great)! When the Mullahs came to power this left paid with blood for their stupid illusions. As Marxists we have explained many times that illusions can kill.
Islam appeared in the 7th century, but today it exists because it is no longer the ideology of the merchant tribes that gave birth to it. It exists today because it has obtained from the landowners and the industrialists of modern capitalism the finance to build its mosques and to employ its preachers. It is a capitalist backed movement but it has been able to gather support among the mass of poor people by offering consolation to the poor and oppressed on the one hand, while at the same time protecting the exploiting classes against the wrath of the workers and thus represents an obstacle to the socialist revolution.
In countries that have never had a "welfare state", as a mechanism for guaranteeing some form of social stability, the fundamentalists lean on the teachings of Islam that demand that the rich have to pay a 2.5 percent Islamic tax (the zdaka) for the relief of the poor, that rulers have to govern in a just way, and that husbands must not mistreat their wives. While presenting this face to the masses, the Islamic hierarchy treats the expropriation of the rich by the poor as theft, and disobedience to a "just" government as a crime to be punished with mutilation and death. It provides women with fewer rights than men within marriage, over inheritance, or over the children in the event of divorce.
In some places like in Palestine, or Iraq under the imperialist occupation, it challenges the state and elements of imperialism's political domination. Thus the Iranian Islamic fundamentalists seized the US embassy in the past. The Hezbollah in the southern Lebanon and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza have played a key role in the armed struggle against Israel.
Thus, while the Islamic movements are not "fascist", it is equally true that they are not "anti-imperialist" or "anti-state" either. They do not fight against the capitalist system that exploits and dominates the mass of people. At the same time they fight against secularism, against women who refuse to abide by Islamic notions of "modesty", against the left and, against ethnic or religious minorities. The Algerian Islamic fundamentalists established their hold on the universities in the late 1970s and early 1980s by organising "punitive raids" against the left. In the Algerian towns where they are strongest, they organized attacks on women who dare to show a little of their body, and on the Berbers who are not Arabic speakers. Similarly, in Egypt, they organize pogroms, against the Coptic Christians.
They do not fight imperialism - the capitalist world system - but rather its cultural expressions. They want to keep the banking system operating, but they demand that only the Arabic language be used and they want to force on the workers the reciting of suras taken from the Koran.
It is neither a fascist nor a revolutionary movement, but a populist movement. A recent study of Khomeinism in Iran by Abrahamian (E. Abrahamian, Khomeinism,) compares it to Peronism and similar forms of "populism": "Khomeini adopted radical themes... At times he sounded more radical than the Marxists. But while adopting radical themes he remained staunchly committed to the preservation of middle class property. This form of middle class radicalism made him akin to Latin American populists, especially the Peronists." [page 3]
And Abrahamian goes on to say: "By 'populism' I mean a movement of the propertied middle class that mobilises the lower classes, especially the urban poor, with radical rhetoric directed against imperialism, foreign capitalism, and the political establishment... Populist movements promise to drastically raise the standard of living and make the country fully independent of outside powers. Even more important in attacking the status quo with radical rhetoric, they intentionally stop short of threatening the petty bourgeoisie and the whole principle of private property. Populist movements thus, inevitably, emphasise the importance, not of economic, social revolution, but of cultural, national and political reconstruction." [page 17]
In other words it is a petit bourgeois movement dressed up in religious clothes, not different in its class composition from those who supported previously Stalinism and bourgeois nationalism.
The petit bourgeoisie as a class cannot have an independent policy of its own. This has always been true of the traditional petit bourgeoisie - the small shopkeepers, traders and self-employed professionals. They have always either served the capitalist class or, in certain cases, allied themselves with the working class. In those countries where a layer of this class did lead a revolution (following the model of either the Soviet Union or China) the best that were able to establish were states we define as Proletarian Bonapartist. These are terribly deformed workers' states, with a privileged bureaucratic elite at the top. They are not genuine healthy socialist regimes. Which direction this petit bourgeois layer goes in depends on the balance of forces between the working class and the capitalist class and also on the kind of leadership the working class has.
The failure of Stalinism and nationalism has thrown those same layers of students and radicalised middle classes, who once looked to the left, into the arms of the fundamentalists. Support for the Islamic movements became stronger as they seemed to offer immanent and radical change.
Today, with the growing militancy of the working class the left has been offered by history a chance to grow once again and to challenge the hegemony of the fundamentalists. Take the case of Iraq, where we witness the spreading of the anti-colonialist revolutionary struggle against the imperialist occupation, which is presently being led by the fundamentalists. This is an opportunity for the Communist Party of Iraq to struggle for the leadership of the movement. Instead it has entered the puppet "governing council" appointed by the American occupiers. It seems they want to ensure that the leadership of the movement will remain in the hands of the fundamentalists. What is needed is a revolutionary opposition within the Communist Party, and the Communist movement in Iraq as a whole, that will be capable of posing a clear alternative to the present right wing leadership of the party.
The Muslim Brotherhood
The Muslim Brotherhood that was born in Egypt grew rapidly in the 1930s and 1940s as it picked up support from those disillusioned by the compromises the bourgeois nationalist Wafd had made with the British, as well as by the class collaborationist polices of the Stalinist leaders. In particular, this process was aided by the Communist left under Stalin's influence, which went so far as to support the partition and the establishment of Israel. By recruiting volunteers to fight in Palestine and against the British occupation of the Egyptian Canal Zone, the Brotherhood could present themselves as supporting the anti-imperialist struggle.
But just as the Brotherhood became a mass movement, it began to disintegrate. The reason for this is quite clear. Like all populist movements at the rank and file level it got the support of the mass of petit bourgeois youth, but at the top it was connected with the palace, and with the right wing of the Wafd, and also with the army officers " which were themselves moving in different directions according to their own base of support. Thus the lower ranks were more connected with the petit bourgeois masses, while the uppers ranks were close to the Wafd.
The seizure of power by the military under General Nagib and Nasser in 1952-4 produced a fundamental divide between those who supported the coup and those who opposed it until finally rival groups within the Brotherhood ended up physically fighting each other for control of its offices. The loss of confidence in the leadership enabled Nasser eventually to crush what had once been a very powerful organisation.
In their propaganda the imperialists changed their tune when it suited them. The anti-communist hysteria that had previously dominated the American mass media was replaced with anti-Islamic propaganda. And often this had its reflection within a layer of the petit bourgeois left, that drew very similar conclusions. The Islamic fundamentalists are seen by these, as the Stalinists were once seen, as the most dangerous of all political forces, able to impose a totalitarianism that will prevent any further peaceful progressive development. The logical conclusion that they draw is that, in order to stop the fundamentalists, it is necessary to unite with the "liberal" wing of the bourgeoisie, or even to support openly dictatorial regimes in their repression of the Islamic groups.
The Iranian revolution was not a product of Islamic fundamentalism, but of the contradictions that arose within the Shah's regime in the mid to late 1970s. The economic crisis had heightened the deep divisions which already existed between sections of modern capital (associated with finance capital) and the merchant class centred around the bazaar (which was responsible for two thirds of wholesale trade and three quarters of retail trade). At the same time there was the mass of the workers and the vast numbers of recent ex-peasants who had flooded into the cities. In these conditions, the protests of the intellectuals and the students - which the disaffected clergy also joined - spread to involve the urban poor in a series of major clashes with the police and army. A wave of strikes paralysed industry and brought the all-important oil fields to a standstill. And then early in February 1979 the left wing guerrillas of the Fedayeen and the left-Islamic guerrillas of the People's Mojahedin succeeded in fomenting large-scale mutinies in the armed forces, that finally brought about the collapse of the old regime. The tragedy of the whole situation was that the left supported Ayatollah Khomeini, presenting him as a "progressive". Thus, with the absence of a revolutionary working class leadership the Islamic clergy was able to come to power and divert the movement of the masses away from the main task - the overthrow of capitalism - and begin to build its own reactionary regime.
The result was a totalitarian regime based on a one-party regime not unlike Eastern Europe under Stalinism, with the important difference that Iran remained a capitalist state. Today the regime is clearly in crisis and has exhausted its reserves of support among the masses. The key question now is the independence of the working class led by a leadership that understands the lessons and the mistakes of the past.
Israel's support for Hamas in the past
Today in the Palestinian territories the main opposition to the Israeli occupation of 1967 has become the Islamic movement known as Hamas. While our support for the Palestinian struggle for national freedom does not depend on who is leading that movement at any given moment, Marxists must struggle to replace this reactionary leadership not with the bankrupt PLO but with the leadership of the working class. Hamas' aim is not to liberate the working class, the poor peasants and the urban poor, but to create a single, Islamic state within historical Palestine, which is now largely divided between Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Hamas, meaning "zeal" or "fervour" in Arabic, is an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya, or Islamic Resistance Movement. The group was founded as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.
It is not a well known fact, but it will not surprise those who know anything about the history of the Taliban in Afghanistan, that Israel in many ways initially created this monster but later lost control over it.
Richard Sale, a UPI Correspondent, wrote an illuminating article on the origin of Hamas in which he pointed out that, "According to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years."
Israel "aided Hamas directly ‑ the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization)," said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies.
Israel's support for Hamas "was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative," said a former senior CIA official.
According to documents United Press International obtained from the Israel-based Institute for Counter Terrorism, Hamas evolved from cells of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928. Islamic movements in Israel and Palestine were "weak and dormant" until after the 1967 Six Day War.
After 1967, a great part of the success of the Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood was due to their activities among the refugees in the Gaza Strip. The cornerstone of the Islamic movement's success was an impressive social, religious, educational and cultural infrastructure, called Da'wah, that worked to ease the hardship of large numbers of Palestinian refugees, confined to camps, and many who were living on the edge of poverty.
"Social influence grew into political influence, first in the Gaza Strip, then on the West Bank", said an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
According to ICT papers, Hamas was legally registered in Israel in 1978 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the movement's spiritual leader, as an Islamic Association with the name of Al-Mujamma al Islami, which widened its base of supporters and sympathizers through religious propaganda and social work.
According to U.S. administration officials, funds for the movement came from the oil-producing states and directly and indirectly from Israel itself. The PLO was secular and leftist and promoted Palestinian nationalism. Hamas wanted to set up a transnational state under the rule of Islam, much like Khomeini's Iran.
"The thinking on the part of some of the right-wing Israeli establishment was that Hamas and the others, if they gained control, would refuse to have any part of the peace process and would torpedo any agreements put in place," said a U.S. government official who asked not to be named. "Israel would still be the only democracy in the region for the United States to deal with," he said.
According to former State Department counter-terrorism official Larry Johnson, "the Israelis are their own worst enemies when it comes to fighting terrorism. The Israelis are like a guy who sets fire to his hair and then tries to put it out by hitting it with a hammer. They do more to incite and sustain terrorism than curb it," he said." (Published on the June 18, 2002)
Hamas today
Today Hamas's following is estimated to be in the tens of thousands, but until 2000, less than 18 percent of the population of the West Bank and Gaza supported its political views. After a renewed Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip erupted in September 2000, and the failure of the secular PLO to provide any leadership, but rather acting in the service of the US and Israel, support for Hamas grew to more than 25 percent. Its appeal is greatest in the more impoverished Gaza region than in the West Bank. Its leaders include religious figures, sheikhs (Arab chiefs), intellectuals, and businessmen.
Mosques and Islamic religious organizations are Hamas's most important vehicles for spreading its message, and it mobilizes local popular support by providing social services to the needy. In September 1993 Israel and the PLO signed a so-called a peace accord that gave Palestinians limited self-rule in the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. Hamas denounced the agreement and continued to conduct strikes against Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as in Israel proper. It boycotted January 1996 Palestinian presidential and legislative council elections - to avoid giving legitimacy to Arafat's recognition of Israel and to the secular nationalist camp that the PLO represented. Under the accord, Israel, the United States, and Western European imperialism asked the newly created Palestinian National Authority (PNA), headed by PLO leader Yasir Arafat, to suppress Hamas's attacks. Arafat periodically restrained Hamas terrorist actions against Israel but he could not suppress them altogether. The signing of this treaty, while unemployment among the Palestinians grew massively and more lands were confiscated for Jewish settlements, helped to spread Hamas' influence. Hamas participated in the outbreak of the second intifada against Israel in September 2000. The renewed uprising led to a further significant increase in support for Hamas's views among the Muslim Arab population.
During the"Al-Kuds" Intifada Hamas carried out many terrorist actions that killed innocent Israelis and pushed them into the hands of reaction in Israel. Whenever Sharon needs to divert the class struggle into reciprocal national hatred he assassinates Hamas leaders and activists and Hamas responds by playing its role in organising acts of individual terrorism. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon then immediately reacts by vowing to fight "Palestinian terror" and summons his cabinet to decide on a military response to the organization.
The real aim of the latest cease-fire between Israel and the PNA is to push the Palestinian non-elected government to start a civil war against Hamas. Clearly Abu Mazen is incapable of this. [Editor's note: since this article was written Abu Mazen has been forced to resign, confirming that he had no real basis of support].
This article is being written when all the signs are there that the cease-fire, the "Hudna", is collapsing and many more lives of Arab and Jews will be lost so that the US and the local rulers of the Middle East will continue to dominate.
The only way out of this bloody insane circle is the revolutionary struggle of the Arab and Jewish workers for workers' power in the form of a socialist federated state as part of the socialist federation of the Middle East. A dream some will say. But these are the people who want us to think that the nightmare we are presently living in is the only possible reality.
August 21, 2003.
See also:
- After the resignation of Abu Mazen - From Nationalism and Bloodshed to a Class Position By Yossi Schwartz (September 10, 2002).
- Socialism: the only way out of the bloodshed in Israel/Palestine! By Yossi Schwartz (August 25, 2003)
- Arab-Jewish workers' joint struggles prior to the partition of Palestine - Part One - Part Two By Yossi Schwartz (June 2003)
- The Middle East " Road Map" is destined to fail By Yossi Schwartz in Israel (June 8, 2003)
- The decline of " Avodah" (the Israeli Labour Party) By A. Kramer (June 3, 2003)
- Israeli general strike called off� for now. By Fred Weston (April 15, 2003).
- Sharon government on collision course with Israeli trade unions. By Fred Weston (April 8, 2003).
- Israeli elections solve nothing " Next year everyone will be back to the polling stations!" By A Kramer, in Israel (January 29, 2003).
- Some historical clarifications on Israel/Palestine By Fred Weston (September 2002)
[Back to In Defence of Marxism][Back to Middle East]
Number 2
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) view:
From: http://www.cfr.org/publication/8968/
Hamas
Updated: June 8, 2007
- What is Hamas?
- What are Hamas’s origins?
- Who are Hamas’s leaders?
- Where does Hamas operate?
- What does Hamas believe and what are its goals?
- Is Hamas only a terrorist group?
- How big is Hamas?
- Where does Hamas’s money come from?
- What attacks is Hamas responsible for?
- How does Hamas recruit suicide bombers?
- How does Hamas train the bombers?
- Is Hamas popular among Palestinians?
- Has Hamas always participated in the Palestinian electoral process?
What is Hamas?
Hamas is the largest and most influential Palestinian militant movement. In January 2006, the group won the Palestinian Authority's (PA) general legislative elections, defeating Fatah, the party of the PA's president, Mahmoud Abbas, and setting the stage for a power struggle. Since attaining power, Hamas has continued its refusal to recognize the state of Israel, leading to crippling economic sanctions. Hamas maintained a cease-fire brokered in March 2005 until June 9, 2006, when it ended the truce after reports that errant Israeli shell killed several civilians on a Gaza beach. The Israeli Defense Forces later denied responsibility for the deaths.
Historically, Hamas has sponsored an extensive social service network. More notoriously, the group has also operated a terrorist wing carrying out suicide bombings and attacks using mortars and short-range rockets. The group has launched attacks both in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and inside the pre-1967 boundaries of Israel. In Arabic, the word "hamas" means zeal. But it's also an Arabic acronym for "Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya," or Islamic Resistance Movement.
What are Hamas’s origins?
Hamas grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood, a religious and political organization founded in Egypt with branches throughout the Arab world. Beginning in the late 1960s, Hamas's founder and spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, preached and did charitable work in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, both of which were occupied by Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War. In 1973, Yassin established al-Mujamma' al-Islami (the Islamic Center) to coordinate the Muslim Brotherhood's political activities in Gaza. Yassin founded Hamas as the Muslim Brotherhood's local political arm in December 1987, following the eruption of the first intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza. Hamas published its official charter in 1988.
The first Hamas suicide bombing took place in April 1993. Five months later, Yasir Arafat, the then-leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and Yitzhak Rabin, then-prime minister of Israel, sealed the Oslo accords—an Israeli-Palestinian peace pact that eventually unraveled. Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli right-wing fanatic in November 1995. Arafat died in November 2004.
Who are Hamas’s leaders?
Since its victory in the Palestinian legislative elections, Hamas has failed to unify around a coherent program, leading to partisan tensions within the Palestinian Authority that verge on civil war. Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian prime minister and senior Hamas figure in Gaza, has appeared at odds with Khaled Meshal, Hamas’s overall leader who lives in Syria in exile. A Backgrounder profiles these and other Hamas leaders.
Where does Hamas operate?
Historically, Hamas has operated as an opposition group in Gaza, the West Bank, and inside Israel. Most of the population of Gaza and the West Bank is officially ruled by the PA government, so Hamas’ new role as the legislature’s controlling party has forced the group to reconsider the function and scope of its operations. For instance, since their party took power, Hamas leaders have embarked on several diplomatic visits throughout the region. Early on, some observers hoped that political legitimacy—and the accountability that comes with it—could force Hamas away from using violence to achieve its goals. But to date, the group has shown little interest in stopping the kidnappings and rocket fire that continue to draw Israel’s ire. Meanwhile, Hamas shares responsibility with Fatah for much of the bloody infighting between the rival parties in Gaza.
What does Hamas believe and what are its goals?
Hamas combines Palestinian nationalism with Islamic fundamentalism. Its founding charter commits the group to the destruction of Israel, the replacement of the PA with an Islamist state on the West Bank and Gaza, and to raising "the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine." Its leaders have called suicide attacks the "F-16" of the Palestinian people. Hamas believes "peace talks will do no good," Rantisi said in April 2004. "We do not believe we can live with the enemy."
Is Hamas only a terrorist group?
No. In addition to its military wing, the so-called Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigade, Hamas devotes much of its estimated $70-million annual budget to an extensive social services network. It funds schools, orphanages, mosques, healthcare clinics, soup kitchens, and sports leagues. "Approximately 90 percent of its work is in social, welfare, cultural, and educational activities," writes the Israeli scholar Reuven Paz. The Palestinian Authority often fails to provide such services; Hamas's efforts in this area—as well as a reputation for honesty, in contrast to the many Fatah officials accused of corruption—help to explain the broad popularity it summoned to defeat Fatah in the PA's recent elections.
How big is Hamas?
Hamas’s military wing is believed to have more than one thousand active members and thousands of supporters and sympathizers. On March 22, 2004, more than two hundred thousand Palestinians are estimated to have marched in Yassin’s funeral. On April 18, 2004, a similar number publicly mourned the death of Rantisi.
Where does Hamas’s money come from?
Since its electoral victory to lead the PA, Hamas has had public funds at its disposal, though it does not have access to the foreign-aid dollars traditionally provided by the United States and European Union to the PA. Historically, much of Hamas's funding came from Palestinian expatriates and private donors in Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Persian Gulf states. Iran also provides significant support, which some diplomats say could amount to $20 million to $30 million per year. In addition, some Muslim charities in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe funnel money into Hamas-backed social service groups. In December 2001, the Bush administration seized the assets of the Holy Land Foundation, the largest Muslim charity in the United States, on suspicions it was funding Hamas.
What attacks is Hamas responsible for?
Hamas is believed to have killed more than five hundred people in more than 350 separate terrorist attacks since 1993. Not all Hamas's attacks have been carried out by suicide bombers. The group has also accepted responsibility for assaults using mortars, short-range rockets, and small arms fire.
How does Hamas recruit suicide bombers?
The organization generally targets deeply religious young men—although some bombers have been older. The recruits do not fit the usual psychological profile of suicidal people, who are often desperate or clinically depressed. Hamas bombers often hold paying jobs, even in poverty-stricken Gaza. What they have in common, studies say, is an intense hatred of Israel. After a bombing, Hamas gives the family of the suicide bomber between three thousand dollars and five thousand dollars and assures them their son died a martyr in holy jihad.
How does Hamas train the bombers?
The recruits undergo intense religious indoctrination, attend lectures, and undertake long fasts. The week before the bombing, the volunteers are watched closely by two Hamas activists for any signs of wavering, according to Nasra Hassan, writing in the New Yorker. Shortly before the “sacred explosion,” as Hamas calls it, the bomber records a video testament. To draw inspiration, he repeatedly watches his video and those made by his predecessors and then sets off for his would-be martyrdom after performing a ritual ablution and donning clean clothes. Hamas clerics assure the bombers their deaths will be painless and that dozens of virgins await them in paradise. The average bombing costs about $150.
Is Hamas popular among Palestinians?
According to Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki, in late 2006 Hamas still enjoyed public backing, though most Palestinians also wanted to see a negotiated settlement with Israel. According to Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, the U.S. security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Territories, brutal internal clashes in Gaza have caused Hamas to lose some of the goodwill of the Palestinians. In fact, the group has a history of fluctuating approval: Following the collapse of the peace process in the late 1990s, Hamas’ popularity rose as Arafat’s fell. In the spring of 2002, during a period of intensified armed conflict between Israeli security forces and Hamas militants, polls showed that Arafat's Fatah faction of the PLO and the Islamists each commanded support from roughly 30 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza (the remaining Palestinians were either independent, undecided, or supported other factions). But trust in Hamas dropped in 2004. In a poll conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center after Arafat's death, 18.6 percent of Palestinians named Hamas as the Palestinian faction they most trusted, down from 23 percent a year earlier. Hamas experienced a short-lived spike in popularity after the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in August 2005; after a rocket explosion at a Hamas rally September 23, 2005, killed fifteen people, Hamas blamed Israel and launched rocket attacks against it. Israel retaliated with punitive air strikes, which Palestinians blamed Hamas for provoking. The explosion was revealed to be an accident.
Has Hamas always participated in the Palestinian electoral process?
No. Hamas boycotted the January 2005 PA presidential elections. But even prior to its 2006 victory in the PA's legislative elections, the group had made strong showings in municipal elections, especially in Gaza. In December 2004 West Bank local elections, Fatah won 135 seats and Hamas won seventy-five. In Gaza, where Hamas is based, it won seventy-seven out of 118 seats in ten council elections held in January 2005. Hamas appeared to have lost its political momentum in a September 2005 round of local elections in the West Bank: Fatah, benefiting from the Israeli withdrawal, took 54 percent of the vote over Hamas’ 26 percent.