[News] Hamas – They’re not bad, they’re just drawn that way

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Hamas – They’re not bad, they’re just drawn that way

http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/10/19/hamas-%E2%80%93-they%E2%80%99re-not-bad-they%E2%80%99re-just-drawn-that-way/
By 
<http://palestinethinktank.com/author/mary-rizzo/>Mary 
Rizzo • Oct 19th, 2009 at 16:24 •
WRITTEN BY MARY RIZZO

In many parts of the West, certain political 
parties or movements are treated as if they come 
from the Moon or are alien to any body politic. 
Their existence among the people is always 
scrutinised as negative, transitory and something 
created in a boardroom or a backroom, imposed 
upon an unsophisticated public that is unable to 
differentiate a true political programme from 
empty and simplistic rhetoric. These parties or 
movements are depicted as if they only address 
the margins of society who are disenfranchised 
from any “normal” democratic bodies, and thus, 
are ramshackle bands that represent a minority 
constituency. Given their oppositional nature to 
pre-existing parties, they are outfitted with the 
label that will serve to keep them isolated from 
the structures that are already in operation. All 
of this is to destroy the party or movement by 
propaganda work rather than analysis of reality.

An entire mythology has been built around the 
Palestinian resistance movement (which morphed 
into a party) Hamas. This construct has actually 
taken on more legitimacy as a factual 
interpretation of Hamas than the facts 
themselves. In most of the Western media, no 
matter if it is on the right or the left, and in 
some of the “moderate” media in Arab countries, 
the very name of the party is coupled with terms 
such as “fundamentalist”, “radical” or 
“terrorist”. Clearly, this serves to create a 
<http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/10/02/the-first-word-war-palestine-think-tank-and-tlaxcala-declare-war-against-disinformation/>fear 
trigger that will remove the word from being 
critically and honestly evaluated. The listener 
will immediately identify Hamas with a negative 
connotation and is removed from responsibility 
for understanding that this is a manipulation of 
reality. The listener is expected to accept the 
claims that Hamas is “anti-democratic” and 
“fanatical”. It is child’s play to then convince 
the listener that Hamas is Bad, that it is the 
Enemy of all We represent (in our own eyes, 
tolerance, democracy, Goodness itself). It is 
possible to then extend that reading to the 
belief that action must be taken against them, 
that they are a 
“<http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/02/28/noa-the-hasbara-queen-and-islamphobe-prepares-for-battle/>cancer 
that must be gotten rid of”, as quoted by the 
institutional peacenik, 
<http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/02/28/noa-the-hasbara-queen-and-islamphobe-prepares-for-battle/>Noa. 
How does one eradicate a cancer, once it has been 
diagnosed? By extirpation or bombardment. With 
cancer treatment, one “bombards” even the healthy 
parts of the body with toxic agents, waiting to 
see if after the battle there were enough healthy 
parts remaining to allow the organism to continue 
to exist. Once you have set into the minds of 
millions of people the idea that destruction is 
good, because the enemy is just so damaging and 
evil if allowed to exist, the risk of bringing 
the entire organism to its grave by weakening it 
dramatically is taken as a viable risk to run. 
This is a way to make them justify actions that 
their own eyes don’t see as therapeutic, but are pure horror and evil.

How did it work that the world was so fooled and 
allowed Israel to destroy Gaza to “get rid of 
Hamas”? It was quite simple, and it’s always the 
same answer: Israel and its allies keep people 
disinformed. Those who actually will go slightly 
below the screaming headlines of the newspapers 
might find out a few facts buried that that will 
contradict the spin, but not that many people 
will go that far, given that they are exposed to 
something with an element of truth buried deep 
within. If that were not problematic enough, even 
the “progressives” have done meritorious services 
to rendering Hamas untouchable. They might accept 
them as a “resistance movement” but they won’t 
allow their personal ideological bias to see 
Hamas as a progressive force for their own 
people’s advancement. This may be out of 
conviction, convenience or even lack of research 
or a blindspot that does not allow variations on 
the theme of the class struggle, where everything 
is “international” and the same type of rules and 
ideals should be considered applicable and 
necessary for all, going so far in some cases to 
“import democracy” under various more or less aggressive forms.

These people, many of whom are armed with good 
intentions, have chewed, swallowed, and are 
spitting back quite a few of the outright lies 
and distortions that are part of the mythology 
created by opponents of Hamas, created in Israel and the West, primarily.

What are the components of that mythology?
1) Hamas was created by the Israeli Mossad.
2) Hamas represents a marginal portion of the Palestinians.
3) Hamas turned democratic enough just to be able 
to obtain some legitimacy to later take over and 
turn the Palestinian Territories into an Islamic State.
4) Their victory in the polls was nothing more 
than a protest vote against the corruption of Fatah.
5) Hamas is comprised of a bunch of illiterates 
and their electors are sucked in by their own ignorance.
6) Hamas is a fundamentalist group and therefore 
inflexible and incapable of any modification or 
evolution. The oft cited Charter is used against 
them to stress that they are simply a radical, 
destructive group poised for Holy War.
7) Hamas does not seek any kind of compromise 
with other Palestinian political parties or 
factions, and are therefore the divisionary 
element that prohibits of the unity of the people.
8 ) Hamas operates to indoctrinate their people 
with hate propaganda in order to utilise them as cannon fodder.
9) Hamas is a terrorist group that exists only 
thanks to financing by “fundamentalist regimes”.

That Hamas is merely a resistance movement has 
been thoroughly disproved by the elections, but 
this seems to be the safe place that activists 
can cluster in order to allow themselves to be 
able to tolerate Hamas, while wishing for their 
quick demise. They are not viewed then as having 
a true heritage as a political party that can be 
compared to those of “democratic nations” of the 
“international community”, and thus, analysis of 
them can remain at an elementary level, lending 
itself to hasty generalisations.

I ask my readers to kindly forgive all the 
inverted quotation marks, but these words do 
become ironic and empty of true meaning when they 
are applied to the objects indicated by the spin 
doctors, whose task it is to do the bidding of 
the hegemonic powers. How can a minority of a 
handful of nations that always pits itself 
against the will of the remainder of the world 
community in the UN be considered as the 
“international community”? It’s a boy’s club that 
excludes practically everyone. How can a country 
that puts in office the candidate who obtains the 
lesser amount of votes be called a “democracy”? 
It is when we start to question our own 
foundations that we can detect that there is a 
lot of convenience in presenting any opposition 
as being an enemy and outside of paradigms that 
we consider to be core to our expectations of how 
to establish a just and equitable world.

It’s time to debunk a few of these myths with facts.

1) Hamas was not created by Mossad. Although 
Israel does like to claim credit for many things, 
this one is not their doing. Political Islam in 
Palestine has had a presence since the early 40s 
in Mandate Palestine, and Hamas was born as part 
of the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan), with many of 
its early leaders formally affiliated. It was the 
experience of refugeehood that turned Hamas into 
a more autonomous element with a particular 
nationalist basis to it, a natural result of the 
urgent and real human situation of displacement 
and loss of their cultural and national identity.

There were close relations of this group with the 
Egyptian base, and the first offices of the 
Ikhwan in Palestine were created in Gaza in 1945, 
led by a member of one of the most important 
families of the zone, Sheykh Zafer al Shawwa. 
During the first Arab-Israeli war, Islamist 
volunteers reinforced the ranks, coming primarily 
from Jordan and Syria, and this support showed 
the refugees that the Ikhwan had the courage to 
defend itself, even during the “Israeli War of 
Independence”. The growing number of refugees 
gave a stronger identity and sense of purpose to 
the Islamist movement in Palestine. Therefore, in 
the civil society and in the population in 
general, a motivation from any other source was 
not required to be able to pledge: “I promise to 
be a good Muslim in defending Islam and the lost 
land of Palestine. I promise to be a good example 
for the community and for others.” These were the 
words spoken by those who swore their loyalty to 
the Ikhwan in Palestine (source: Beverly Milton 
Edwards, “Islamic Politics in Palestine”, p. 43). 
The local Ikhwan had its own agenda, defending 
its lost land. It didn’t require fanaticism, 
outside influence or even propaganda. The 
refugees themselves were living proof of the 
horrors of deportation and suffering. The 
identification as part of an international 
movement was concomitant with the recognition of 
the particularity of the Palestinian experience. 
The official foundation, dating 9 December 1987, 
was only the culmination of an organisation in 
the works for decades. Organised Islamic 
resistance was further utilised when the 
situation precipitated dramatically in 1967 and a 
new generation was born as refugees. For this 
generation, a return to Islam was considered as a 
necessity for the moral and political future of a 
people that was being literally destroyed. The 
cause of the Nakba was seen by many as the result 
of the distancing from a normal society, the 
Palestinian one, in which the ethical, religious, 
cultural and traditional values had been 
devastated by the occupation, and the descent 
into further degradation, poverty, 
disenfranchisement and social instability was 
seen not only as the result of the occupation, but part of its cause.

The “international community” would not come to 
the rescue of these people, the rest of the Ummah 
was not caught up in their national struggle, 
largely because they were not directly involved 
or were even prohibited from involvement. The 
extreme pain and disgrace of losing one’s land at 
that time was a new element to the area, where 
previous colonisation avoided expelling the 
indigenous inhabitants, and throwing off the 
usurpers was not complicated with the total loss 
of roots and a base. The basis for the formal 
dimension of Hamas was thus present for decades 
prior to its official birth. In order to operate, 
being under the thumb of the occupation, these 
organised groups that existed had established 
charities and benefit organisations for their 
people. These institutions were tolerated by 
Israel in the Occupied Territories. Israel 
conceded some operating space through granting of 
licenses. As General Yitzhak Sager said in an 
interview to the International Herald Tribune in 
1981, the Israeli government “
gave money that 
the military governor allocated to the mosques 
[
] the sums were used both by the mosques and 
the religious schools, with the purpose of 
reinforcing a subject that would contrast that of 
the Left that was in favour of the PLO.” If there 
was some motivation for Israel to be involved, it 
was really as an act of ‘divide and rule’, a bit 
of tolerance, a bit of economic support to the 
various religious associations in order to see if 
an opposition to the nationalists of the PLO 
could develop. They really were only looking for 
a way to see the weakening of the PLO, which was 
gaining some support in the West, and they did 
not found, provide major financing or in any way 
influence a movement that they would in some way 
infiltrate or control. That is pure mythology. 
Why give Israel credit where none is due?

2) That Hamas represents only a marginal portion 
of Palestinians is another myth to debunk. It is 
indeed true that all Palestinians are not 
refugees, and it is also true that virtually all 
of the leaders of Hamas were born in exile or at 
some point were subjected to the experience of 
expulsion and loss of their homes and 
possessions. This is a core Palestinian 
experience, and it is true that even those (few) 
Palestinians who were not uprooted can identify 
with the loss of their cultural and national 
identity, and all of them know that their 
national aspirations and cohesion as a group have 
been destroyed by Israel. Thus, even a movement 
or party that has its own identity in the refugee 
camps and in exile or in religious roots, is 
recognised as an intrinsic, legitimate and 
natural representative of Palestinians as a 
whole. They even obtained the majority vote in 
areas of the West Bank that were not considered 
as Hamas strongholds, as well as obtaining votes from many Christian areas.

3) The myth that Hamas turned “democratic enough” 
just to get its foot in the door as the first 
step of forcing an Islamic State upon the 
entirety of Palestine is a very widespread one, 
especially in the progressive circles that do not 
recognise the popularity of the movement or who 
have an ideological prejudice against any 
religious movement. There is much to be said in 
favour of separation of church and state, but 
this of course is something that cannot be 
imposed from afar, and furthermore, there are 
many levels of separation to take into 
consideration. Those who subscribe to this 
position of “Hamas buying time before introducing 
the Sharia” tend to deny that a democracy has 
certain characteristics, and it is not 
necessarily a synonym of “secularism”. When the 
word “democracy” is applied correctly, it has 
certain characteristics, and Hamas meets these. 
Hamas has popular consensus. It has an internal 
structure that is autonomous and recognised as 
legitimate by its constituency. It follows the 
rules of elections, meeting the requirements for 
participation. Once elected, it assumes its role 
within the existing system, not having overthrown 
or staged coups against established structures. 
It is a political movement with several factions 
(some of them armed, as is true of many parties 
in areas under occupation, Fatah included) with a 
history and an organisation. There is widespread 
discussion among its constituencies, including 
those who are political prisoners, prior to 
making decisions, and the majority decides the 
actions to be undertaken. If one thing must be 
said about it to set it apart from parties that 
Westerners are familiar with, highest level 
leaders generally do not assume the governing 
roles. This is understandable in a party where a 
great quantity of the leaders are routinely 
assassinated by Israel. That the current 
political director, Khaled Meshaal, must live in 
exile after having once been victim of an 
attempted assassination says more about this 
anomalous situation than a thousand words can.

4) That Hamas’s victory in the Legislative 
Council election was nothing more than a protest 
vote (another pet theory of the left) was 
brilliantly illustrated as false by Paola Caridi 
in her very good book (despite the sensationalist 
subtitle) “Hamas, What it is and what the Radical 
Palestinian Movement Wants”, published by 
Feltrinelli and only available in Italian at this 
time. I am translating a few paragraphs that deal with this question.

“There is a precise political reason for which 
the majority of Palestinians voted for Hamas. It 
is a reason that concerns the decision made by 
the Islamist movement formally on 23 January 
2005. (translator’s note, a year prior to the 
Legislative elections): a unilateral truce, 
reached together with the Islamic Jihad (that had 
instead broken it on several occasions), which 
had turned words into facts: that there would be 
the end of the season of terrorist attacks made 
by Hamas inside Israel as indicated within the 
confines of the 1949 armistice, the Israel within 
the Green Line, in other words. The ending of 
suicide attacks in Israeli cities, substantially 
bringing an end to the Intifada as well as 
(Hamas’s) participative choice is interpreted by 
the Palestinian population as a precise political 
proposal: an alternative to those who had 
governed and controlled them, holding the 
hegemony up to that moment. A proposal that poses 
at the same time new de facto limits to Hamas’s 
resistance strategy. The Islamist movement has 
not been, therefore, chosen only as a protest 
against the corruption, patronage and 
inefficiency of Fatah, which as a party is often 
confused with the PA. Corruption, patronage and 
inefficiency that are related, at least from a 
temporal point of view, with the failure of the 
Oslo Accords and the “facts on the ground” realised by the Israelis.

“The people of Hamas were considered people who 
are serious, who did not enrich themselves at the 
expense of the population, in fact, they 
continued to live in normal neighbourhoods and in 
the refugee camps.” (Caridi, p. 171).

5) An extremely offensive smear, oft repeated, is 
that Hamas’s followers and its leaders are a 
“<http://peacepalestine.wordpress.com/2005/10/17/jews-against-zionism-more-like-jews-against-the-palestinian-street>bunch 
of illiterates” or “religious fanatics”. Almost 
all the leaders are (or were, given the number of 
assassinations within their ranks, the past tense 
is de rigueur) university graduates in fields 
ranging from medicine and physics to 
jurisprudence, economics and theology, is 
testament itself that this smear is merely to 
throw dirt on them and paint them as having read 
only religious texts and therefore 
“under-developed” when compared to other 
movements. Education has always been one of the 
pillars of Hamas and its charity work. The people 
of Palestine don’t need to be told this, it is a 
reality for them, where in many cases without 
this foundation, Palestinians would be left wanting in this area.

6) The inflexibility of Hamas is another myth, 
especially yanked out when speaking of the 1988 
Charter (Mithaq). Shiekh Hamed Bitauri, 
“religious authority of Nablus, president of the 
Union of the Palestinian Ulemas, known for his 
radical positions had no problem confirming that 
‘the Charter is not the Qu’ran. We can change it. 
It is only the synthesis of the positions of the 
Islamist movement in its relations with the other 
factions, and its politics.’ Aziz Dweik, founder 
of the Department of Geography of the University 
of Nablus, later to become the spokesman of the 
Palestinian Parliament after the 2006 elections, 
and imprisoned in Israeli jails since the summer 
of that year, went even further, declaring the 
political and pragmatic necessity of distancing 
from the Mithaq of 1988 to Khalid Amayreh, 
Palestinian journalist that is sensitive to 
Islamist positions, he said that ‘Hamas would not 
remain as a hostage to rhetorical slogans of the 
past like those of the ‘destruction of Israel’.” 
(Khalid Amayreh, Hamas Debates the Future: 
Palestine’s Islamic Resistance Movement Attempts 
to Reconcile Ideological Purity and Political 
Realism, in “Conflicts Forum”, Nov. 2007, p.4) (Caridi p. 90).

Haniyeh has mentioned on many occasions that the 
Charter has been surpassed in its substance by 
the other official documents, the most important 
of which, the Electoral Programme of the Reform 
and Change List (the list in which Hamas ran for 
office). This programme is structured like a 
document that goes far beyond the needs of a 
political campaign, according to the leader of 
Hamas, and it indicates the policy of the 
movement. It was not written in the heat of the 
revolution of the Intifada, and reflects the 
evolution of the party. The changes present are 
not ideological so much as ones of a strategic 
and political nature. The positions have been 
reiterated so many times in interviews and public 
interventions, it seems incredible that the 
complexity and maturity of Hamas should by now 
not be apparent to everyone. It is clear that 
they are still dedicated to the liberation of 
Palestine, but they are attempting to achieve it 
through reaffirmation of the rights of the 
people, knowing full well that as a party, Hamas 
is not equipped to overthrow the occupation in 
any practical way or to destroy what they recognise as a reality.

Many of us who follow events in the Middle East 
hope that they do not surrender to pragmatism so 
far as to recognise Israel not only as a reality, 
but as a “Jewish State”, however, we must watch 
from the sidelines and evaluate facts. The people 
of Palestine will be vigil about what rights are 
being surrendered, if any, and many of us believe 
that backs to the wall, they will not capitulate 
and lose what they know is theirs for reasons of 
political expediency. Hamas too is aware of this fact.

7) Hamas has been far less divisionary than its 
principle counterpart, Fatah. The Gaza “coup” 
that shocked and saddened the world was actually 
a preventive measure to the thwart the planned 
takeover by the Fatah forces faithful to Dahlan 
(in collaboration with Israel). That Hamas was 
the party that was awarded victory by its own 
people has never been recognised by the 
“international community” that nevertheless 
pushed for elections and insisted that this was 
the necessity for Palestinians, because this 
would mean that the resistance had been granted 
legitimacy and would become policy within the 
governing body, the rejection of negotiations as 
sub-alternates with Israel, which was Fatah 
policy, had been officially sanctioned by the 
populace and it would only be a matter of time 
before the programme would become policy. So, any 
steps by the Fatah “Security Forces” to overtake 
Gaza would actually have been the coup. But in 
the backwards way of viewing events, fuelled by 
disinformation, the tragic bloodbath between 
Palestinians prevented the real overthrow of 
democracy that would have taken place had Dahlan 
had the chance. Again and again, Hamas has sought 
to work together with the opposition party, and 
this is something they would not tolerate in the 
vain hope that their economic advantage and 
political nulla osta from the boy’s club would 
allow them to command even in absence of the popular mandate to do so.

8 ) It’s not necessary to use propaganda to show 
to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and 
in exile, and even to many within Israel, the 
ongoing destruction of the Palestinian 
civilisation and people. Blockades, bombardments, 
assassinations, war, checkpoint humiliations, 
restrictions, separation of families, 
imprisonment and further abuses are not isolated 
incidents, but they are the daily bread and water 
of Palestinian life. No one needs to invent a 
rage over a phantasmagoric enemy. There is a real 
one that is subjecting the people of all ages and 
conditions to humiliation, deprivation and death. 
Showing a man in a mouse costume to insist that 
children are being indoctrinated in hate might go 
down well with the uninformed masses, but a 
glimpse into the reality makes Farfur look like 
the sweetest kind of way for a child to 
assimilate and tolerate that he or she is a 
prisoner doomed for life to suffer in the most 
atrocious way for being born as a lesser being in the oppressors’ eyes.

9) The worst smear against Hamas is the one to 
keep them as the symbol of evil: that they are a 
terrorist group, financed by “rogue States in the 
axis of evil”. Bearing in mind that their 
financing is abysmally inferior to the gigantic 
economic and “military aid” package given to 
Israel by America, Canada and many other nations 
in the “international community” in an official 
way, why should the claim of foreign financing be 
considered as unacceptable when it is simply the 
way the that Israel keeps afloat through billions 
of dollars annually, up front, and heaven only 
knows what other financing comes in through the 
thousands of “charities” that are really little 
more than fronts for mass immigration to Israel 
to curtail Arab growth? If Zionism and its 
charities are considered as legitimate and noble, 
why are Islamic ones put on blacklists and the 
donors treated as if they are financing 
terrorism? There is a double standard here.

That Hamas has rejected terror operations against 
civilians and did its best to do so in the 
service of achieving a realistic improvement for 
the life conditions of its people is an 
authenticated fact, corroborated by none other 
than the USA Congressional Research Service, a 
Think Tank that basically presents its 
conservative and Israel-friendly positions to the 
Congress so that they become policy. In fact, in 
the document coordinated by Jim Zanotti 
<http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/R40101.pdf>http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/R40101.pdf 
Israel and Hamas, Conflict in Gaza (2008-2009), 
we see that the quoted “reason” for the onslaught 
of Gaza to “cleanse it of Hamas”, the rockets 
fired into Israeli territory, was nothing but an 
excuse that the West drank down with gusto as if 
it were cherry juice. The extremely rudimentary 
rockets were recognised as NOT having been 
launched by Hamas, and not only that, Hamas was 
viewed as being able and willing to suppress the 
attacks. It is significant that the first victims 
of the Israeli attacks in Gaza were the regular 
police forces who had just been trained, perhaps 
also for this purpose. Zanotti writes:

For the first five months, the cease-fire held 
relatively well. Some rockets were fired into 
Israel, but most were attributed to non-Hamas 
militant groups, and, progressively, Hamas 
appeared increasingly able and willing to 
suppress even these attacks. No Israeli deaths 
were reported (although there were injuries and 
property damage), and Israel refrained from retaliation.

Nevertheless, each party felt as though the other 
was violating the terms of the unwritten 
ceasefire. Hamas demanded­unsuccessfully­that 
Israel lift its economic blockade of Gaza, while 
Israel demanded­also unsuccessfully­a full end to 
rocket fire and progress on the release of 
Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit from Hamas’s captivity.

Israel cited the sporadic rocket fire as 
justification for keeping the border crossings 
and Gaza’s seaport closed to nearly everything 
but basic humanitarian supplies. Hamas, other 
Arab leaders, and some international and 
non-governmental organizations involved in aiding 
Gazan civilians complained that Israel was 
reneging on its promises under the unwritten cease-fire agreement.

If that were not enough, the author, certainly 
not sympathetic in any way to Hamas, makes 
statements about the aftermath of the war where 
even Israel admits that Hamas was not responsible for the rockets:

Since Israel’s unilateral ceasefire began on 
January 18, 2009, there have been about 40 
sporadic rocket launches into southern Israel, 
far fewer than occurred on average per day just 
before Operation Cast Lead. Moreover, Israeli 
officials believe that smaller militant groups, 
such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa 
Martyrs’ Brigades, and not Hamas, have fired the 
rockets, as they did during the cease-fire 
(although it is possible that Hamas is enabling 
or acquiescing to these attacks while preserving deniability).

So, Israel used the excuse of Hamas rocket 
launches to justify the elimination of Hamas (by 
means of destruction of the entirety of Gaza) 
through what they call “military operations” but 
the rest of humanity knows is war, while they 
were aware that Hamas was neither the author nor 
the facilitator of the rockets, any kind of 
excuse they pull out of the magic hat to justify 
their actions should fall on deaf ears. 
Complaints about arms smuggling through the most 
rudimentary of tunnels should stink to high 
heaven when we see the Defense Budget 
Appropriations for US-Israeli Missile Defense 
Programs in that same Congressional Report. Iron 
Dome, David’s Sling and other “military aid” 
costing the American people billions of dollars 
are described briefly. For every five ineffective 
bottle rockets that are smuggled through a 
tunnel, the USA is flying in full cargoes of arms 
and cases of cash to be spent by Israel for their 
military “needs”. The double standards here also 
draw innocent blood in violation of international 
law at the expense of your hard-earned money. 
Again, from the Congressional report:

Israel may have used weapons platforms and 
munitions purchased from the United States in its 
military operations in Gaza, reportedly 
including, among others, F-15 and F-16 aircraft, 
Apache helicopters, and, according to Israeli 
press reports, GBU-39 small diameter guided bombs 
approved for sale by the 110th Congress following 
notification in September 2008.

Additionally, all unilateral truces between 
Israel and Hamas (called by Hamas, not by Israel) 
were broken in every case by Israel. In many 
cases, making incursions into the Occupied 
Territories, which legally they are prohibited 
from doing, as civilian populations under 
occupation (even if the “settlers” have left, 
Gaza is kept under siege by Israel) are required 
to be protected by the occupier, not attacked. 
Israel, using weapons and planes supplied for 
them by the good graces of the people of the 
United States, bombarded streets where their 
targets (politicians and clerics that Israel 
terms as “militants” if not worse) were located, 
killing in an indiscriminate way anyone in the 
range, children included. If that’s not terrorism, the word has no meaning.

These are only a few of the myths in circulation. 
They represent just a portion of the lies, 
disinformation and hasbara that circulates about 
one of the major Palestinian parties, born from 
within, developing as all parties do, from below, 
and legitimised by fair and legal elections. 
Debunking these lies is a duty. One doesn’t need 
to agree to the entire programme of Hamas, but 
one is obligated to recognise that they are 
entirely different from the image that they have 
been straightjacketed into. What Jessica Rabbit 
said in the film, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” could 
very well apply to Hamas: “I’m not bad, they just draw me that way.”

This article is part of the Palestine Think Tank 
and Tlaxcala initiative The First Word War 
against Disinformation. If you would like to 
contribute your own original articles to this 
initiative, send them to 
<mailto:contact at palestinethinktank.com>contact at palestinethinktank.com 
or to <mailto:tlaxcala at tlaxcala.es>tlaxcala at tlaxcala.es

visit <http://www.tlaxcala.es>www.tlaxcala.es and 
<http://www.palestinethinktank.com>www.palestinethinktank.com




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