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Re: Hamas and all that by Louis Proyect 08 April 2002 19:19 UTC |
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The Washington Report On Middle East Affairs, March 1993 - Vol. XI, No. 8 M Y T H S A N D F A C T S ============================= (In refuting myths about the Middle East, sometimes one doesn't have to look beyond the mainstream media that help perpetuate them.) ........................................................................... Did Israel Create The Hamas Frankenstein? ----------------------------------------- MYTH: "For almost five years, since Hamas took shape in the early days of the intifada, the Palestinian uprising, Israel has been trying to quash it by arresting its leaders, ferreting out its sources of money and capturing its armed cells. But each cycle of arrests has been followed by an escalation of attacks against Israeli targets, and the armed cells have regenerated themselves almost as fast as they are uncovered." --Correspondent David Hoffman, The Washington Post, Feb. 3, 1993 FACT: "The former Israeli government tended to see Hamas and Islamic Jihad as elements that could hem in the PLO." --Washington Post editorial, Dec. 29, 1992 FACT: "It was an open secret that Israel's previous, Likud-led government aided and abetted Hamas in an effort to divide the Palestinians under Israeli occupation. Many Israelis decried this shortsighted policy and warned that the intra-Palestinian violence it helped spawn would soon turn toward the killing of Israelis. Once the PLO agreed Palestinian participation in the Madrid peace talks, the Hamas radicals could be expected to make every effort to derail the talks. Lately, the PLO-Hamas rivalry has intensified to the point that Hamas is suspected of plotting to kill the PLO-sanctioned participants in the peace talks. Whatever fears they may harbor as to Hamas, the PLO leadership in Tunis had no recourse but to support the deportees, call for their immediate return and threaten to boycott the U.S.-led peace talks. Moderate Palestinians committed to the peace process are worried that the stalemate over the deportees' fate will immeasurably add to Hamas' appeal." --International lawyer Rita E. Hauser, Los Angeles Times, Jan. 19, 1993 FACT: "Following the 1967 war, [Israel] saw the Palestine Liberation Organization as its chief adversary, and took an ambivalent view of the fundamentalists. In the early 1970s it allowed [Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed] Yassin to open a community center in Gaza and some Israeli military commanders viewed the growth of Islamic fundamentalism as a valuable counterbalance to the PLO." --Correspondent David Hoffman, The Washington Post, Feb. 3, 1993 FACT: "It was indeed Rabin who helped Hamas toward its present prominence. Years ago, when the Islamic fundamentalists were not an important political quantity on the scale of Palestinian nationalism, Rabin was among those ordering material support for Hamas as part of a strategy of circumventing the PLO, which was regarded as the prime threat because it had become dangerously moderate in its diplomatic approach." --Columnist Alexander Cockburn, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 8, 1993 Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
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