It should not have come as a shock, but it did.
Regardless of the mass worship of Wikileaks, I have always been suspicious of it. But I did not expect Consortium News to parrot drivel without a thought - without any investigation.
Consortium News posts Wikileaks garbage as Palestinians are getting slaughtered, making HAMAS the guilty party - and in fact painting it as a battle between 'good' and 'evil', 'secular' versus 'fanatic':
"US cables show how #Israel facilitated birth of #HAMAS in order to marginalise the PLO #Gaza".
WikiLeaks on Twitter: "US cables show how #Israel facilitated birth of #HAMAS in order to marginalise the PLO #Gaza Link: https://t.co/RBtdBFPVoX Link: https://t.co/4t8h9Nk7UM https://t.co/kPX0PQk6Fx" / Twitter
These ignorant pretenders must be corrected. Hamas-an acronym
for the Islamic Resistance Movement-was born with the first Palestinian uprising
in December 1987. Hamas's goals-a
nationalist position couched in religious discourse-are articulated in Hamas's
key documents: a charter, political memoranda, and communiques. They have since moderated their stance and in
recent statements by key Hamas officials maintain that their goals are Israel's
withdrawal from lands occupied in the 1967 war, the end of Israeli occupation,
the establishment of a Palestinian state, and a solution to the refugee issue
(Roy, 2003, 2)[i] .
With the end of
the Intifada and the initiation of the Oslo peace process, the resistance
component of the Palestinian struggle-so critical to Hamas's political thinking
and action-was undermined. For Hamas,
social and political action is inextricably linked.
However, the retreat from the
political sphere was pragmatic and accompanied by a need to rediscover Islam
and its relevance to society. This enabled Hamas to spread itself among the
Palestinian people and organize itself. In
the two- to three-year period before the second Intifida in 2000, Hamas was no
longer prominently or consistently calling for political or military action
against the occupation, but was instead shifting its attention to social works and the propagation of Islamic values and religious practice (Roy,
2003, 3)[ii].
The
start of the second Palestinian Intifada on September 28, 2000, coupled with the impact of September 11, dramatically changed the environment in the
West Bank and Gaza(Rabbani & Roy, 2002,
1).[iii]
Preexisting political arrangements had been severely disrupted, economic
conditions had deteriorated, and key social structures and mediatory
institutions had weakened. Within this context of desperation and hopelessness,
the Islamist opposition, notably Hamas, had reasserted itself.
Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon continued the Israeli land expansions through land
expropriations and economic dispossession.
It is unlikely that his agenda included a Palestinian state. The United States uneven handling of the
conflict encouraged Sharon’s plans. With a weak Palestinian leadership in place,
and the increasing significance of Hamas influence, the U.S. opened dialogue
with a senior Hamas leader in early September of 2002. Judging by the Israeli reaction, it seems
that Israel does not want to have any Palestinian engaged in dialogue with the
U.S. for fear that there may be a political solution to the Israel-Palestine
conflict.
United
States-Hamas contacts, of which Israel was fully aware, ended when the Israeli army arrested a politically moderate Hamas official in Ramallah on
September 9, which Hamas interpreted as a deliberate attempt by the Sharon
government to undermine its exchange with the Americans. A few days later,
Israel launched an attack in Rafah that killed nine Palestinians, including
civilians. Predictably, a suicide bomber staged an attack on a bus in Tel Aviv
on September 19, killing six people.
Other Hamas-Palestinian
Authority (PA) cease-fires have been undermined by Israeli attacks. Alex Fishman,
the security commentator for the right-of-center Yediot Achronot, Israel's
largest mass-circulation newspaper, detailed in the November 25, 2001 issue of
the newspaper how the assassination that November of Mahmud Abu Hanud, a key
Hamas figure, shattered a Hamas promise not to carry out suicide bombings
inside Israel: "Whoever gave the green light to this act of liquidation
knew full well that he was thereby shattering in one blow the gentleman's
agreement between Hamas and the PA; under that agreement, Hamas was to avoid in
the near future suicide bombings inside the Green Line [Israel's pre-1967
borders] of the kind perpetrated at the Dolphinarium [a discotheque in Tel
Aviv].( Perry, 2004, 7) [iv]
In effect,
Israel’s actions led Hamas to play into their hands. Having already marginalized the PLO and Yasir
Arafat, by instigating Hamas suicide bombings Sharon would ensure that
negotiations for a Palestinian state would not take place, no matter what the
cost. Although seemingly agreeing to
the “road map” initiated by the U.S., Sharon’s underlying intentions were
otherwise. The Israeli prime minister actions led to a
period of suicide bombings by Hamas, followed by negotiations while Israel
expanded in to the West Bank, having found the perfect excuse to deal heavy
handedly with Hamas and PLO and to build a barrier which it claimed was to stop
the suicide bombings.
On Aug 8, 2003
more than 40 protestors were arrested by the Israeli government for attempting to interfere with construction of the security barrier
separating Israel and the West Bank. In a raid by Israeli troops, one Israeli
Defense Forces (IDF) soldier and two suspected Hamas bomb-makers were shot and killed. The raid took place in
the “Askar” refugee camp next to the West Bank city of Nabilus. On August
12th Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and Hamas claimed responsibility for
separate suicide bombings near Rosh Haayin in Israel. Although the attacks were
uncoordinated, they occurred a few miles, and less than an hour, apart (Middle
East Journal, 2003).
With the
escalation of suicide bombings, the European Union imposed a sanction on Hamas
and their assets were frozen. Sharon
started targeting top Hamas personnel, and in 2004 Israel’s extra judicial assassination
of Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin was supported by the United States. This gave Sharon the green light and he gave
the orders to kill the man who replaced Yassin – Abdel Aziz Rantisi. Again, without being reprimanded from
Washington, and finding that Hamas is
being crushed, having found that the Middle East Peace Plan is moving in
accordance to Sharon’s wishes, that is unilaterally and unacceptable not only
to Palestinians, but to the whole Arab world, Sharon has now declared that he
will target Arafat. This will buy him
the excuse to eliminate anyone to negotiate with for an independent Palestinian
state.
The suicide
bombing tactics served to advance Sharon’s goals and that of Israel. They came across as the aggressors that
created fear and mistrust who had to be dealt with brutally. With the world super power backing every
action of your opponent, it is hard to devise a plan to counter their
aggression. Even the United Nations and
Europe is impotent vis-à-vis U.S. and Israel.
It would have been fruitless for Hamas to have protested at the onset of
the Israeli master plan. It would have
no doubt fallen on deaf ears. It is
clear that their unity with PLO and Arafat would have served Palestine. As it stands, suicide bombings gave Sharon a
carte blanche, did not further the cause of the Palestinian people, and
depleted Hamas of funds, to say the least.
[i] Roy, Sara. “Hamas and the transformation(s) of
political Islam in Palestine”. Current
History. Jan 2003
[ii] Roy, Sara. “Hamas and the transformation(s) of
political Islam in Palestine”. Current
History. Jan 2003
[iii]Rabbani, M & Roy, S. "Palestinian Politics and September
11th: Critical Changes in Policy and Structure," Middle East Policy, December 2002
[iv] Perry, M. "Israeli Offensive Disrupts US-Hamas
Contacts," Palestine Report,
October 9, 2002 Downloaded April 23, 2004 from <httpJ/www.jmcc.org/
media/report/02/Oct/2b
