No, what matters is what path they are desiring to follow.
If they are true to their past words and actions then the path they will consistently choose is not one that leads to a long term peace. The fact they have not the capacity to carry out genocidal ambitions (or regional ethnocide even) matters not to the fact that those who have that as their goal are unlikely peace partners.
But, and as I linked to in another thread, maybe, just maybe, some pragmatism will emerge even in Hamas. Maybe they will see their way to choosing another path.
Mind you even I, the eternal optimist in all matters of the ME, am not holding my breath. But the window exists. It may be open only a crack, but it is open. The big questions are if the world’s communities will provide the incentives that allow for the pragmatists to win out and that get Israel to make some immediate positive moves rather than Netanyanhu’s proposed idiocy.
The window may be cracked open only for a short time.
This is a on the right track. Although it is a prayer, not the simple declarative sentence sought. While it does not express the intentions of Hamas, the first problem is reliability. The source is the notorious MEMRI, which we are asked to rely on for both the transcription and then the translation. Indeed observe MEMRI Criticism:
More at source.
The other reliability problem is Sheik Ahmad Bahr. Termed a ‘Hamas spokesperson’ and on the net as "acting speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council’, there is no reference to him independent of this passage. No independent source lists him in any leadership position, eg. Hamas Leaders. In other words 3 problems:
Reliability:
MEMRI and transcription & translation issues.
Sheik Ahmad Bahr does not have the authority to represent Hamas
Content:
The passage is a prayer and request, not a statement concerning intent.
Optimally we would see a written document, reliably authorised by Hamas. Simple declarative sentences.
Afraid not, especially the ‘kill all’ parts. I apologise for not correcting you earlier when you first stated this interpretation. I understand Hamas to be interested in creating an Islamic Waqf in the region, it’s a kind of polity which is observant of Islam. So long as the area is governed under that principle, it it all good.
Kim:
It’d be an easy enough claim to falsify. Show me a method that should have been used but was not. They’ve used informants and patrols, and checkpoints and barricades and security guards all over the place.
We’ve got military testimony that the barrier is a military necessity, and facts showing that it’s virtually eliminated the threat of suicide bombings in many points. We’ve got members of terrorist organizations, saying of their own free will, that the barrier has made it extremely difficult if not impossible to attack Israelis. If there is a method that Israel could have used during that time to cut down suicide bombings by the same degree as the barrier has done, then what was it? What other possible methods would have worked as well as the barrier has worked?
If there was some other method which you claim could have been used, show it.
You offered the ICJ, and for all practical purposes they didn’t even consider the question of military necessity. Now you’re denying that history proves out the claim that all viable methods have been tried and this is a military necessity. And as you’ve admitted,* you don’t even know what methods were tried.*
If you don’t even know the history, or the current events, then you can’t argue against historical claims or contemporary analysis on any type of informed basis.
If you want to debate my analysis of the information, provide an example of a method I overlooked. Otherwise, you’re disagreeing without even knowing the facts you’re disagreeing about. And yes, I have the blasphemous certainty that comes from having looked at the evidence and reasoned it to a conclusion.
I don’t care if you find it dogmatic or phlegmatic.
Argue the facts if you believe I am wrong in my analysis.
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you about the relationship between Khalas and Hamas. But, just for fun, here’s an interview with Ismail Abu Shanab where he points out:
From an article by Agence France Presse, November 29, 2006, entitled “Livni Shuns Qatar Conference, but Israel is There”, about the international conference on democracy in Doha, Qata, and the failure of Tzipi Livni, at the time Israel’s foreign minister, to show up:
From The Media Line’s Jan 19, 2009 article “As Fighting Ends, P.A. Leadership Crisis takes Over”
From the Jan 25, 2009 edition of the Kuwait Times, political analyst Dr. Ayad Al-Manna’s views on the political implications of the Arab Economic Summit and the Gaza fighting.
Meanwhile … yeah, Hamas is not quite so monolithic.
And forces are at work to help the pragmatists take the helm.
Now then he also says
and here he is wrong. If the pragmatists do not emerge on top then that poor option is the only one remaining. If only as a means to a better solution.
Hamas isn’t an individual; it is a political organization engaged in an asymmetrical conflict. You claim morality doesn’t apply in wars. I am merely applying your reasoning. If morality doesn’t apply to what Israel is doing in said conflict, it doesn’t apply to Hamas either, no?
If the Taiwanese people were in the habit of marching en mass in the streets shouting for the deaths of all mainland Chinese, and they constantly gave speeches where they said they wouldn’t rest until China was wiped off the face of the map, and they had a habit of carrying out terrorist acts against Chinese civilians, and they were repeatedly caught smuggling large scale weapons, and then they started launching rockets at the nearest towns in China, killing Chinese civilians, do you know what I think the Chinese would do?
I think they would flatten them. In fact, I think that would be the response of many countries if they were faced with that level of hostility and threat on a constant basis. Many of the same countries that are now clucking about Israel’s ‘disproportionate’ response.
I agree that the population is not morally culpable. Certainly not the ones who didn’t vote for Hamas, and not others who voted for Hamas for reasons other than their rhetoric towards Israel.
But that’s not the issue. The issue is whether Israel has the right to strike legitimate military targets in Gaza, even if it co-located in a civilian area. International law says absolutely yes.
Disproportionality is not a reasonable standard of objection. The casualties in WWII were extremely disproportionate between the Americans and the Japanese, or the Americans and the Germans. The casualties were extremely disproportionate in both Gulf wars. The most moral is not the side with the most casualties.
Unfortunately, it’s governments that take people to war, and also unfortunately, you can’t surgically remove the government from the people. Especially if the government allows its armed wing to use the population as cover. Civilian deaths that occur in such a situation are mainly the responsibility of the government that put them in harm’s way to act as human shields.
Who are “them” in your scenario? All Taiwanese? Taiwanese government and military officials? Taiwanese terrorists? Taiwanese who participate in anti-Chinese marches?
This careless lumping together of different groups of people into one vaguely defined enemy “them” is part of what I was objecting to in the post that you responded to.
Um, no. The issue that this thread is about is whether the citizens of Gaza as a group are deserving of blame for the attacks on Gaza.
