# Fuck Hamas **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 27, 2008, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867 "2008-12-27T19:30:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 28
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/541 "2008-12-30T19:14:14Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > If contradicting your puerile false equivalence of Israeli self-defense with Palestinian terrorism makes me stupid, then I am happy to bear the label. It’s an odd thing indeed, a man contradicting things that exist only in his imagination. Fail. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/542 "2008-12-30T19:21:02Z")
> [@Just](#): > > Maybe eventually, the Palestinian civilians will also understand cause and effect, and will drop support for Hamas too - not that I’m holding my breath. Never happen, not from bombing them; last time I checked, the Palestinians are still human. And it’s human nature to want vengeance, and to strike back at oppression and abuse, which means that Hamas or a similar organization is the only one that will be politically acceptable to the Palestinians. Just as Hamas knew that the Israelis would inevitably retaliate for those rockets. Why would this be any more likely to break the Palestinians than the bombing of Britain by the Germans or that of Germany by the Allies broke the will of either side ? This sort of thing doesn’t WORK. It just kills innocents, increases anger, but without actually stopping your enemy from retaliating. The worst of both worlds. ---
**Author:** ![Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Petrobey_Mavromihalis)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/543 "2008-12-30T19:23:27Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > I merely suggested that in searching for a solution to the problem, a possible starting point would be to recognize that a “two state solution” has already been (poorly) implemented No you didn’t. Read your post again. i don’t get annoyed at “mere suggestions”. > [@](#): > > , and that rather than demanding the creation of a third (inherently weak and unstable) state Not if it had backup from the international community like, say, Israel did. However, thank you for clarifying your ideas further - they’re not entirely crazy. Your original post was, though. [QUOTE=Bosda] The Terror refers to a period following the French Revolution. A time of political purges & reckless executions of guilty & innocent alike. Nobody’s life was worth a nickel. [/QUOTE] I know what the Terror was, for goodness sake. I just want to know what it has to do with this situation. Or do you merely mean “It was bad, so is this”? > [@](#): > > As for brothers in Islam, I refer to their co-religionists, who tended to hate the Palestinians’ guts before modern Israel existed Well apart from pointing out that a good deal of Palestinians were Christian or Jewish I’m also going to need several cites for this. > [@](#): > > [And]will not admit them to their countries Do you know where the majority of Palestinians live? It might be worth your while looking it up. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/544 "2008-12-30T19:28:54Z")
I’d just assume that the new nation of West-Bank (or whatever it is called) will be at best vassal to Israel and Jordan, with the larger nations cooperating to keep it reasonably stable, well-fed and harmless. That’s about the best I think they can expect, at least in the short run. Becoming the westernmost province of Jordan might be preferable. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/545 "2008-12-30T19:29:53Z")
Why does Hamas control Gaza? [Vanity Fair, April 2008:](http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804) > [@](#): > > Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. (The State Department declined to comment.) > > But the secret plan backfired, resulting in a further setback for American foreign policy under Bush. Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza. > > Some sources call the scheme “Iran-contra 2.0,” recalling that Abrams was convicted (and later pardoned) for withholding information from Congress during the original Iran-contra scandal under President Reagan. There are echoes of other past misadventures as well: the C.I.A.’s 1953 ouster of an elected prime minister in Iran, which set the stage for the 1979 Islamic revolution there; the aborted 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, which gave Fidel Castro an excuse to solidify his hold on Cuba; and the contemporary tragedy in Iraq. > > Within the Bush administration, the Palestinian policy set off a furious debate. One of its critics is David Wurmser, the avowed neoconservative, who resigned as Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief Middle East adviser in July 2007, a month after the Gaza coup. > > Wurmser accuses the Bush administration of “engaging in a dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Abbas] with victory.” He believes that Hamas had no intention of taking Gaza until Fatah forced its hand. “It looks to me that what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen,” Wurmser says. One can argue over the relative responsibilities of Israel, Hamas, and the Palestinians in Gaza in this latest round. But one thing that _won’t_ fly is the bizarre notion that nobody was doing anything to anyone when, completely out of the blue, Hamas started lobbing its rockets into Israel. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/546 "2008-12-30T19:54:37Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > the Palestinians overwhelmingly voted for Hamas, who has have openly stated again and again that the Jews of Israel must be wiped out. There may well be a small peace faction that is unheard, but to say that only a few Palestinians wish to destroy Israel is simply false. [From the WaPo:](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/29/AR2008122901901.html) > [@](#): > > The lack of international support since the 2006 elections, followed by this rebuff to Gaza’s only Arab neighbor, Egypt, compounded the deterioration of Hamas’s internal support. By November, the survey showed, only 16.6 percent of Palestinians supported Hamas, compared with nearly 40 percent favoring Fatah. The decline in support for Hamas has been steady: A year earlier, the same pollster showed that Hamas’s support was at 19.7 percent; in August 2007, it was at 21.6 percent; in March 2007, it was at 25.2 percent; and in September 2006, backing for the Islamists stood at 29.7 percent. So much for the Palestinians’ overwhelming support of Hamas. Apparently that brief moment was based on factors much more transient than the much more stable relative attitudes of Hamas and Fatah towards the survival of Israel as a nation-state. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/547 "2008-12-30T20:50:21Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > Well, you know how to froth at the mouth without contributing anything to the discussion, that’s for sure. Holy fucking shit, are you kidding me? I was reading along on your side until you went batshit crazy about 4 pages back. Talk about irony. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/548 "2008-12-30T22:14:15Z")
I know the post count, and have been at work for an almost solid 1.5 days, so pardon me for not going back and reading every single post, but could someone please explain the following mindset, because I really don’t get it at all. The New York Times print edition (checking the online version: [found them](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/opinion/l30mideast.html)), had several anti-Israel letters in it today. Here’s the “best” one: “I believe the Israeli airstrikes are clear violations of international humanitarian law. While the Palestinian rocket fire against civilian targets in Israel may be illegal, that does not give Israel the right to violate the Geneva Conventions. The airstrikes represent:” [Follow link to read several paragraphs worth of shameless hypocrisy] “May” be illegal. Ya think? Two faced hypocritical batsucking dildohole. Hamas can get literally away with murder and these cuntwipes excuse it all, but if Israel responds in kind all of a sudden they are the bad guys and the only ones alledgely breaking any Geneva conventions. It’s thanks to these knee-dick-jerk dissemblers in Europe (& elsewhere) that Hamas is pursuing such a strategy, because they know that these buttlicking morons will inevitably side with them, no matter how henious their actions and no matter what Israel does. Is this just mere anti-Semitism, misguided ivory towerism, and/or something else? I’ve never understood it. This does not excuse the sins of the Israelis, btw. Sooner or later the entire lot of them, Jew and Muslim and whoever, in that region are just going to have to say “enough” to this endless madness, and stop blowing each other to bits. But this one-sided “commentary” just invariably pisses the hell of out me. * * * Oh I see she has written several heavily pro-Palestinian books. Have fun while Hamas relentlessly rides you from behind, lying whore. Oh and I hope you used protection. ---
**Author:** ![Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gala_Matrix_Fire)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/549 "2008-12-30T22:30:27Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Okay, so the word “exterminate” is not in the Hamas charter. Lots of similar words are, though, to take up the slack. How fun! Let’s play this game: “We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid Palestine of its Arab population.” “We must expel the Arabs and take their places.” ----one of modern Israel’s founding fathers, David Ben Gurion. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/550 "2008-12-30T22:37:37Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > I merely suggested that in searching for a solution to the problem, a possible starting point would be to recognize that a “two state solution” has already been (poorly) implemented, and that rather than demanding the creation of a third (inherently weak and unstable) state, it might be more productive to look at possibly integrating the displaced Palestinian population into the state that was originally intended for them, which could include things like Jordan assuming control of the West Bank, having some Palestinians absorbed into the larger Jordanian population as a whole . . . That actually would be a pretty good solution, and Gaza could be handed over to Egypt; but Jordan has made very clear for a long time that it wants no part of the WB, and I don’t think the Egyptians want Gaza. And Jordan within its current boundaries [probably has already taken in all the Palestinians it can handle,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_refugees#Jordan) and certainly all it wants. Palestinians already constitute 40-45% of the total Jordanian population by government estimates (which may be lowballed for political reasons). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/551 "2008-12-30T22:42:43Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > A hypothetical- > > Let’s assume the PoliSci Pixie waves her wand, & magically creates a Palestinian homeland…POOF! > > 1. How long before the Palestinians turn on one another? And would it be worse than, say, the French Terror? Might could be, but at least they couldn’t blame the Jews for that. And it might not happen at all. > [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > 2)How long before their Brothers In Islam invade, from one or more neighboring countries, & conquer the P State outright? 😕 What would they want it for?! Jordan has long since renounced any claim to the WB, and no other existing state ever had or asserted a claim. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/552 "2008-12-30T22:48:10Z")
> [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](#): > > How fun! Let’s play this game: > > “We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid Palestine of its Arab population.” > > “We must expel the Arabs and take their places.” > ----one of modern Israel’s founding fathers, David Ben Gurion. Well, a search on this phrase shows it being written in 1937 or 1938 (sources vary) by Gurion in a letter to his son. I daresay that’s quite different from the Hamas charter, published openly in 1988. Do you have a more recent, more official statement from a prominent Israeli? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/553 "2008-12-30T22:55:06Z")
> [@Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](#): > > I know what the Terror was, for goodness sake. I just want to know what it has to do with this situation. Or do you merely mean “It was bad, so is this”? No, dammit! I mean that the minute they lost a common enemy, they’d turn on one another & a far nastier slaughter would begin. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/554 "2008-12-30T22:56:16Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, a search on this phrase shows it being written in 1937 or 1938 (sources vary) by Gurion in a letter to his son. I daresay that’s quite different from the Hamas charter, published openly in 1988. > > Do you have a more recent, more official statement from a prominent Israeli? Don’t you think they might have got a bit cleverer about what they say in public after all these years? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/555 "2008-12-30T22:56:48Z")
The first phrase ("We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid Palestine of its Arab population.”) is apparantly not from Gurion, but rather [the Koenig Memorandum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Koenig_Memorandum), leaked in 1976. I’ll read up on it and post my analysis shortly. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/556 "2008-12-30T23:01:18Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > No, dammit! > I mean that the minute they lost a common enemy, they’d turn on one another & a far nastier slaughter would begin. Well, the Irish, after the Brits granted independence to the Republic, did immediately have their own (brief) [civil war](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_civil_war) over the question of whether to accept Northern Ireland’s status as remaining within the UK. We might see something more like that – civil strife over whether to accept just the WB and Gaza rather than all of Canaan\* – than like the French Terror, which was more about factional strife between different political ideologies. Or, we might not. \*I like “Canaan” – a nice, ethnopolitically neutral name for the whole land between the Mediterannean and the Jordan. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/557 "2008-12-30T23:22:01Z")
Hmm, this getitng more complicated, since further reserarch finds cites with varying sources for the quote. A cite that supposedly contains the actual [Koenig report](http://issuu.com/joeexample1/docs/koenig_report?mode=embed&documentId=080506204439-216255f2c4b346bc921ee88643ce527b&layout=grey) doesn’t include the words “assassinate” or “confiscation” though I admit I haven’t read the entire 11-page text as yet. I don’t want to downplay hardcore racism from Gurion or other Israeli Jews, and I have no doubt that it still exists, but I’d like to firmly establish the source of these quotes. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/558 "2008-12-30T23:28:21Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > It’s thanks to these knee-dick-jerk dissemblers in Europe (& elsewhere) that Hamas is pursuing such a strategy, because they know that these buttlicking morons will inevitably side with them, no matter how henious their actions and no matter what Israel does. What makes you think they’d be less violent if Europe disapproved ? Europe’s disapproval doesn’t make Israel ( or anyone else ) less violent, so why Hamas ? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/559 "2008-12-30T23:35:59Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Hmm, this getitng more complicated, since further reserarch finds cites with varying sources for the quote. A cite that supposedly contains the actual [Koenig report](http://issuu.com/joeexample1/docs/koenig_report?mode=embed&documentId=080506204439-216255f2c4b346bc921ee88643ce527b&layout=grey) doesn’t include the words “assassinate” or “confiscation” though I admit I haven’t read the entire 11-page text as yet. > > I don’t want to downplay hardcore racism from Gurion or other Israeli Jews, and I have no doubt that it still exists, but I’d like to firmly establish the source of these quotes. The first quote I can’t find any citation for at all, and the second one is dubious to say the least. This article claims it is basically a fabrication: [http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE\_ID=49415](http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49415) > [@](#): > > The Harvard philippic defers to the “New Historians’” most flamboyant and fishy associate, Benny Morris. In fact, it was Morris’ bowdlerization of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s words that first prompted Karsh to investigate the fraud perpetrated by these hip historians and expose it in his masterful book, “Fabricating Israeli History: The ‘New Historians.’” > > While perusing the English-language version of Morris’ doctored-to-death book, “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem,” Karsh happened upon a quote from a letter Ben-Gurion wrote to his son, allegedly stating that, “we must expel the Arabs and take their places.” Karsh “recalled the letter saying something quite different.” On examination, it transpired that the Hebrew text read as follows: “We do not wish, we do not need to expel Arabs and take their place. … All our aspiration is built on the assumption that there is enough room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs.” I don’t read Hebrew and have no access to Ben-Gurion’s letters to his son - but this is pretty thin stuff compared to the official Hamas Charter. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867/560 "2008-12-30T23:49:51Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > This article claims it is basically a fabrication: > > [http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE\_ID=49415](http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49415) :rolleyes: Dude, that’s WorldNetDaily. Same source that has been pounding the “Obama birth certificate” canard for months. It has the credibility of TimeCube Guy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867.md?page=27) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-hamas/478867.md?page=29)