Blog Hamincha

It should come as little surprise that Hamas won a decisive majority of seats in the palestinian "knesset." Fatah, and by extension, the palestinian authority, is completely corrupt. Billions of dollars in international aid have gone straight into the Swiss bank accounts of Arafat and his cronies. Ambulances being shipped for humanitarian purposes end up being stripped for parts and sold on the black market. Every regional and local flunky has his hands out, and nothing gets done without well-placed bribes. (Sounds a little like Israel. But that's a different story...)

The people had enough. The people want to see government that actually has a sense of pride, purpose, and dedication to the public. That group, unfortunately, is Hamas.

Hamas is dedicated to principles of Islamic rule. Its leaders (for the most part) aren't looking for a payout; they're looking for a palestinian nation that will stretch from the Mediterranean to the Jordan. And they're happy to kill any and every Jew that gets in the way.

From an international standpoint, Hamas is a fundamentalist, terrorist group. No question about it. But on the ground, in the refugee camps and squalid palestinian towns, Hamas is the group that's giving out medicine, distributing food, educating the children (a frightening prospect), and offering any glimmer of hope. They're very clever, to be honest. Almost like the mafia don who carries out bloody killings on a daily basis, but who's beloved by his neighbors for being generous and affable.

So - it's important to remember that Hamas's victory doesn't necessarily mean that the majority of palestinians want to wipe Israel off the map. It just means that they're fed up with the corruption and cronyism that have kept them in squalor and poverty for the last 40 years.

It's equally important to remember that Hamas is dedicated to destroying Israel. Completely. Hamas has no qualms about admitting its intent to kill me. Specifically me. My wife and kids, too. So the US and Europe are absolutely correct in stating that they won't deal with terrorists, and they should keep Hamas isolated from the international community. Israel, too, should finish the security wall--encompassing any current West Bank yishuvim and leaving room for growth--and pull the heck out. Shut them away. Let Syria and Saudi Arabia provide them with aid. Give them a couple of years to establish a palestinian infrastructure that's free of corruption and graft (if such a thing is even possible), and then, let's see whether the majority of moderate citizens will elect a moderate government.

I think that in addition to stamping out corruption and establishing a Judenrein state, Hamas wants to swing the palestinian government from a secular parliament to an Islamic fundamentalist theocracy. If that's the case, the territory on the other side of the wall could become another Afghanistan, complete with Taliban-like religious police and a complete suppression of civil rights. Maybe then the US will step in and bomb them all to hell.

We'll have to see whether Hamas can carry out its 'good works' internally and then bow to the will of the people in terms of foreign relations. I honestly don't know. I do know, however, that Israel is in a very bad position right now. I recommend additional unilateral steps (without regard for dunams re-annexed), complete with plenty of targeted killings. Seal them off and then let's see how the bacteria in the petri dish propagate.