Hamas and the will of the people

Over at the Guardian, they′re saying precisely what you′d expect them to be saying at times like this. Gerald Kaufman, a Jewish MP, says the rise of Hamas is all Israel′s fault, and Jonathan Steele, one of their top pundits, sees an opportunity for Europe to distance itself from America and Israel, by working with Hamas. The beliefs of Hamas, he knows to tell, aren′t really to be taken seriously, and should be irrelevant.

How is it that the beliefs of the Guardianistas always trump their ability to understand reality, while those of Hamans are insignificant, I can′t tell you, but that′s part of the fun of reading the Guardian. They have a full-blown Weltanschauung which informs everything they say and apparently everything they think, so you always know where they stand, and with a little practice, you′ll always be able to write their columns for them in advance; yet for the life of them they are incapable of granting anyone else the capability of thinking along any other lines. Human behaviour is formed and informed by the motives postulated at the Guardian, and if anyone thinks otherwise, they′re wrong, and should spend more time reading the Guardian so as to behold the truth.

This weekend, however, they could be forgiven for feeling a bit smug, seeing that everyone else agrees with them on the essentials, if perhaps not on the vituperative details. Hamas, a deeply religious organization that has been on the scene for an entire generation without ever muting its positions, actually isn′t what it says it is. True, there is the problem that it′s about as antisemitic as any organization you′ve ever met ("The Jews enginiered World Wars one AND two for their own nefarious purposes, and God hates them), that it′s committed to the destruction of Israel for religious reasons, and religious reasons are the only kind that are immutable in a system such as theirs, but all this has nothing to do with  their electoral victory. They won because the Fatah chaps are all currupt, ineffective, and generally stinkers, and anyone would vote for murderous thugs who believe their God-given duty is to kill Jews, if they were the alternative to the crooks. Now that they′ve been elected, what we need to do is manipulate them into forgetting the essentials of their beliefs, so that they make peace with the Israelis just like the other lot did. (or did they?).

I have been roaming the Web reading the pundits, and have yet to find one single, lone voice willing to entertain the thought that perhaps, just perhaps, many Palesintians voted for Hamas because they agree with Hamas, and perhaps - banish the thought - they don′t want Hamas to change, not even to morph into a Palestinian version of a European social-democratic party of athiest pacifists.

So my request for you all this morning is to keep your eyes open for me. Should any of you come across such an interpretation, whereby the Hamas just won a great electoral victory because they′re in tune with the will of the Palestinian people, please send me the link.