The Washington Post Inaugurates 'The New Moderate'

"Thorn Head" by Graham Sutherland 1947, The Roland Collection, London

APOLOGIES, TYPEPAD HAD DOWNTIME TODAY AND YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO POST COMMENTS. UP AND RUNNING AS OF THURSDAYJULY 13TH.

Cross posted @ NewsBusters

Well, that admission hardly comes as a surprise.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to resign, dismantle the Authority and leave the Territories [...].

Abbas made the statements during a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who requested that he use his authority to help free Cpl. Gilad Shalit. Abbas responded that he no longer had any authority.

In contrast, Palestinian PM and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is kicking Hamas' global spin campaign into overdrive @ Washington Post.

You are surprised that WaPo has endorsed these shameless lies penned by this terrorist thug? Don't be. As soon as the MSM saw the writing on the wall for Abbas, a new 'moderate' had to be inaugurated, and fast: As Palestinian PM and Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh clearly had to be the man.

Consider the WaPo article as a formal gesture; recognizing Haniyeh's ascendancy to 'moderate' status, which Yasser Arrafat so famously gained in 1994 when he won the Nobel Peace Prize and shared it with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres - may the Nobel committee, who so permanently and disgracefully dishonored the Peace Prize for all future generations with their nomination of this murdering thug, and to top it, alongside these two great statesmen, forever relive the stigma of their calculated reasoning -  and who so spectacularly squandered this coveted status at the end of his life.

In fact, by deceitfully crafting the camouflaging status of a 'moderate' in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Yasser Arafat has perhaps left, what could arguably be in a tragic sense his principal legacy to this world: Russian, European pogrom and Nazi Holocaust came and went, but the world continues to deny the Jews a peaceful home.

So, now that the MSM have collectively decided to dress the wolf in sheep's clothing it follows logically to tirelessly force-feed the otherwise inconceivable notion of the transmogrification of the murdering terrorist organization Hamas into a 'moderate' political party. Haniyeh is clearly up to the task as he raises the bar from 1967 to 1948: 

If Israel is prepared to negotiate seriously and fairly, and resolve the core 1948 issues, rather than the secondary ones from 1967, a fair and permanent peace is possible. Based on a hudna (comprehensive cessation of hostilities for an agreed time), the Holy Land still has an opportunity to be a peaceful and stable economic powerhouse for all the Semitic people of the region. If Americans only knew the truth, possibility might become reality.

And the truth they shall know, as Carl in Jerusalem @ Israel Matzav points out (h/t my friend Jeremayakovka):

I'm glad you said this, Ismail, I really am. And now I'm glad that the Washington Post gave you this soapbox. Because now the American people understand that what you're offering is not 'peace' but a 'hudna,' a temporary truce that will give you time to regroup. And what you're after isn't just the 'territory conquered in 1967' as you call it, but the whole ball of wax. What you're after is to vitiate the existence of the State of Israel. And the American people will never willingly allow that.

We have certainly become more familiar with the term since 9/11, as Ed Morrissey quite rightly points out, in answer to Haniyeh's "deception-filled screed":

If Israel is prepared to negotiate seriously and fairly, and resolve the core 1948 issues, rather than the secondary ones from 1967, a fair and permanent peace is possible. Based on a hudna (comprehensive cessation of hostilities for an agreed time), the Holy Land still has an opportunity to be a peaceful and stable economic powerhouse for all the Semitic people of the region.

The hudna goes back to Mohammed, who used the device to gather his strength while weakening his enemy. Haniyeh knows full well what a hudna means, even if he thinks his audience does not. It's the final prevarication in a column full of lies and half-truths, hyperbole and hypocrisy. We leave Haniyeh's column more convinced than ever that Hamas has no intention of negotiating for Palestinian statehood along the framework of previous agreements, but intends to wage terrorism against Israel until it concedes.

More work for us bloggers in this David vs Goliath fight for truth and justice. 'Clearing the Summer Rains' @ Honest Reporting is another forceful and thorough rebuttal of Haniyeh's lies. My friend Michael van der Galien has more, and so do my estimable friends @ Vital Perspective, as well as Don Singleton and Meryl Yourish who is wandering whether Jimmy Carter wrote Haniyeh’s column, by any chance. Nice one Meryl. Didn't he write some speeches for Yasser Arafat in his day?

Comments

[Kenny Pierce]

Ghost,

Well done -- I am no expert, but as I understand the situation you have laid out the fundamental conflict perfectly well. I'm sure you'll disagree with most of what follows; but I genuinely want to congratulate you on the way you laid out the situation. I say again, well done.

May I paraphrase, from what you know to be my own perspective that (a) the most common and destructive fallacy in political thought is the fallacy of hypostasization, and (b) hatred, even where it is easy to understand, can never be condoned and always redounds to the self-destruction of him who hates?

The Palestinians are, in P.J. O'Rourke's words, "the most comprehensively screwed people on earth." And they are so because they insist on thinking (though "thinking" is not really le mot juste since this is a visceral and even unrecognized conviction with which their dysfunctional society has programmed them from birth) that the locus of rights and ownership is the group. This is "the Palestinians'" land, and "the Jews" took it. And never mind that there is a difference between the terrorist Menachem Begin (who is long since dead) and an Israeli child born five years ago in Tel Aviv; "the Jews" are the enemy and "the Jews" stole "our" land and "the Jews" deserve to die.

So, in Israel today, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who wants to see the nation of Israel abolished and openly admits it, can hold a seat in the Knesset. In Gaza today, a Palestinian Muslim who disagrees openly with the terrorist policies of Hamas, will be assassinated. For anyone whose interest is human rights at the individual level, there can be no comparison between the two regimes. But for a great many Palestinians -- Hamas did, after all, win in fair elections (though I hasten to add that I believe with only a plurality of Palestinian votes, not a true majority)...anyway, for a great many Palestinians, all that matters is the group rights, not the individual rights.

The fact is that if the ethnic Palestinians were to gain a majority in Israel and gain control of the democratic government, they would instantly turn all the power of that government to the purpose of persecuting, harassing, expelling and if all else failed (and perhaps without bothering to try anything else) exterminating the Jews of Israel, most of whom were born there and have lived their whole lives in this, the only home they have ever known. The Palestinians have, in my mind, no grounds to complain about oppression, because they desire power purely so that they can in their turn oppress.

Let us do a thought experiment: let us grant the truth of every even faintly credible charge that any Palestinian has ever made about "the Jews." Now, if there are two groups of people who have an equal hatred of each other, and who equally disdain the others' human rights, and who equally desire to oppress and persecute the other, then hell, as far as I'm concerned whichever of the two groups of bastards wins, the other one deserved it. If you're going to solve that problem, the only acceptable solution is for an overwhelming outside force (call it "colonial" if you want and I won't care in the slightest) to march in, take power from both sides, mercilessly execute the ringleaders of violence on either side, and ensure the individual rights of such members of both groups as are willing to live peaceably. Otherwise, screw it, whichever side wins, the other side got what was coming to them (except for the peaceable people on that side; but then the alternative would be that peaceable people on the other side died; so with two groups of people dominated by evil there's just no way that nice but impotent people on both sides can keep from getting hurt). The behavior of the Palestinians over decades -- their insatiable hatred and their widespread support of terrorism and their thirst for revenge on the Israelis, or at the very least their complete incompetence when it comes to keeping their politics from being dominated by people who fit that description -- leaves me quite certain that such power as they obtain, they will instantly turn to the service of oppressing and killing Jews; and therefore I will never grant any justice to their cause. Those who would abuse the rights of others can never claim rights for themselves.

As for the Israelis, if they were as bad as the Palestinians make them out to be, then I would simply say we should walk away and let them kill each other, or else move in and take over the whole country and run it ourselves -- at any rate, we shouldn't take sides. But a simple comparison of how the Israeli government and people treat the ethnically Palestinian citizens of Israel, with how the Palestinians treat Jews -- or even more tellingly, with how the Palestinians treat each other -- makes it clear to me that there may not be any good guys in this fight, but at the very least one side is one helluva lot less bad than the other.

But that it is a fight to the death...that, I think, is a conclusion very hard to escape; for the Israelis are not so suicidal as ever to allow the Palestinian Jew-haters to take control of Israel, and the Palestinian Jew-haters would rather kill Jews and live in misery and poverty and wretchedness than coexist with Jews in health and security and mutual forbearance. For hatred must destroy; and when hatred is too impotent to destroy that which is hated, it turns on itself.

I ask one final question to all those who believe that the Palestinians' current misery is the fault of the Jews and is not the result of severe dysfunction in the Palestinians' own culture: let us imagine that Gaza and the West Bank had been filled in the late '40's with refugees -- but not with Arab refugees, but instead with Chinese refugees. Does anyone seriously maintain that half a century later the West Bank and Gaza would not be economically thriving? Can anyone find any time in history in which a comparable number of Chinese refugees have fled oppression, or been targeted for oppression in their own homes, and have responded with a complete disintegration of their own society. Can anyone really think that with fifty years to build a new society and new homes in new places, a community of Chinese refugees would still be utterly incapable of governing themselves, and still incapable even of feeding themselves without massive infusions of external aid?

But the Palestinians' misery is all the fault of "the Jews," and they bear no responsibility for it themselves. Yeah, right.

P.S. If you accuse me of racism you only make yourself a fool. I am not saying that Palestinians are genetically inferior to Jews. I am saying that Palestinian culture is seriously dysfunctional; just as I would say that the antebellum slave-holding plantation culture of the American South was seriously dysfunctional; and just as the kind of person who tosses around the word "racism" would say that modern-day redneck Bible-reading Bambi-barbecuing Red State culture is seriously dysfunctional; and just as Palestinians themselves (though with rather less politeness) insist that Jewish culture is seriously dysfunctional. It is not racist to point to cultural defects; unless one wishes to say that anybody who might have objected to the Aztec practice of cutting the still-beating hearts out of live human victims, would prove himself thereby an Aztec-hating "racist." As Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary might have it were he alive today:

racist, n.: one who is engaged in winning an argument with a Democrat.

(I didn't make that up myself but, alas, I can't remember where I saw it and therefore can't give credit where credit is due.)

[Ghost Dansing]

So Haniyeh writes in WaPo on 11 July:

"...We present this clear message: If Israel will not allow Palestinians to live in peace, dignity and national integrity, Israelis themselves will not be able to enjoy those same rights. Meanwhile, our right to defend ourselves from occupying soldiers and aggression is a matter of law, as settled in the Fourth Geneva Convention. If Israel is prepared to negotiate seriously and fairly, and resolve the core 1948 issues, rather than the secondary ones from 1967, a fair and permanent peace is possible. Based on a hudna (comprehensive cessation of hostilities for an agreed time), the Holy Land still has an opportunity to be a peaceful and stable economic powerhouse for all the Semitic people of the region. If Americans only knew the truth, possibility might become reality."
The dispute, in this case, is not restricted to the territories occupied in the 1967 war, but is deeply rooted in issues that stemmed from Israel’s creation in 1948, such as the refugee question or the question of the political status and national rights of the Palestinian minority that remained in Israel proper. These 1948 issues are not territorial matters that determine Israel’s size. They are linked to the very existence of Israel as the State of the Jewish people."

What does this mean? And...what the heck are we blaming WaPo for? (But we know the reason...we just have this thing about the MSM whenever it presents a point of view other than our own).

For Israel, the problem began in 1967. For the Palestinians, the idea of cooperation is difficult because it begins from the war of 1948. Issues were not discussed and moved forward. Each side remained entrenched in their prejudices.

The "1948 issues" relate to Israel's very soul and being, on two counts: the refugee question, and the Arab minority who have been citizens of Israel since
its independence.

Israel cannot allow the 1948 refugees to return and still remain the state of the Jewish people. Nor can it concede to the demands of increasing numbers of Israeli Arabs that it cease being the state of the Jewish people and become the "state of all its citizens." Though seemingly innocuous, this formula is no more than a
euphemism for negating Israel's raison d'etre.

On the other hand, Palestinians see what they call the Zionist enterprise as nothing more than a movement of settler colonialism, imposed upon them by force.

Zionism, for the Palestinians, has no saving grace. It was in no way a movement of self-defense, but rather one of net aggression from start to finish. It sowed the seeds of destruction of Palestinian society in 1948.

What was for the Jews their war of “liberation” was for the Palestinians their nakba, national calamity or catastrophe. What is for the Jews their rising from the ashes is for the Palestinians their crushing defeat, the disintegration of their society, their loss of homeland and the transformation of half their number into refugees. This catastrophe of 1948 is the formative experience and crucible of Palestinianness and the backbone of Palestinian identity, and is the foundation of a collective self-image as the victims of a gross historical injustice.

For the most part, the evolution and entrenchment of territorial nationalism in the Middle East has been conducive to Arab-Israeli peace making, but not in the case of the Palestinians.

Egyptianism and Jordanianism are territorially defined in ways that did not conflict with Israel’s pre-1967 integrity. The same can be said of the issues that had to be resolved between them so that peace treaties could be signed.

But Palestinianism as a territorial identity applies to all of the territory of British Mandatory Palestine and has never been confined to the West Bank and Gaza and their residents. It relates to all Palestinians who originated from historical Palestine and their descendants, wherever they may be.

Hamas (Arabic: حركة حماس‎) is a Palestinian Islamist organization. It is listed as a terrorist organization by Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Israel, and the United States, and is banned in Jordan.

Hamas is an acronym of the Arabic phrase حركة المقاومة الاسلامية, or Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya or "Islamic Resistance Movement". The word formed by the acronym corresponds to an Arabic word meaning "enthusiasm, fire, ardor, fervor, zeal, fanaticism". The name has bad connotations to Jews and Israelis, because in Hebrew it means "violence, injustice, harsh wrong" (Oxford University Press Hebrew-English dictionary). This word is quite common in the Hebrew Bible, such as in Genesis 6:11, "...the earth was filled with violence".

The military wing of Hamas, formed in 1992, is known as the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades to commemorate Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, the father of modern Arab resistance, killed by the British in 1935. Armed Hamas cells also sometimes refer to themselves as "Students of Ayyash", "Students of the Engineer", or "Yahya Ayyash Units", to commemorate Yahya Ayyash, an early Hamas bomb-maker killed in 1996. These facts show the rootedness in British Colonialism as well as grudge-longevity against both the British mandate and Zionism.

Hamas regards the territory of the present-day State of Israel — as well as the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — as an inalienable Islamic waqf or religious bequest, which can never be surrendered to non-Muslims. It asserts that struggle (jihad) to regain control of the land from Israel is the religious duty of every Muslim (fard `ain).

Then there is Hisbollah and Lebanon...and Syria, and Iran...and this latest thing.

[Ghost Dansing]

xxx

[Randy]

I am so grateful for the blogosphere. I am sure that most Americans will read the word "hudna" and assume it is a benevolent term when in fact it is not. I am tired of the MSM not reporting the whole story and not informing the public of the true context of a situation.

For some reason I am reminded of Sun Tzu's Art of War. This is a war strategy in the name of a peace offering. WaPo is complicit and the question in my mind is: are they willingly complicit or just to lazy to do the hard work of actually reporting something in full context without bias?

[Barry Meislin]

For anyone with eyes to see, this should have been clear when "Intifada 2" began in September 2000, if not before. And if it was not clear by then, it should have been clear when the Taba talks "broke down" in early 2001.

Essentially, what the Arab leadership has offered Israel is either to agree to be dismembered or to be dismembered by force.

The only questions remaining are a) to what extent the unmitigated campaign of slander waged against the Jewish State will rebound against the slanderers and b) whether Naqba 2 will be as universally commemorated as Naqba 1.