Uri Avnery :How Israel is Multiplying Hamas by a Thousand ?

Balqis · January 13, 2009, 12:32am

Please go to this link, I cannot put there all the text because it is too long !

Here are some interesting extracts :

Children hunker as bombs fall overhead in Jabaliya, Gaza (Image: International Solidarity Movement)

JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT, Aljazeera’s Arabic channel was reporting on events in Gaza. Suddenly the camera was pointing upwards towards the dark sky. The screen was pitch black. Nothing could be seen, but there was a sound to be heard: the noise of airplanes, a frightening, a terrifying droning.

It was impossible not to think about the tens of thousands of Gazan children who were hearing that sound at that moment, cringing with fright, paralyzed by fear, waiting for the bombs to fall.

“ISRAEL MUST defend itself against the rockets that are terrorizing our Southern towns,” the Israeli spokesmen explained. “Palestinians must respond to the killing of their fighters inside the Gaza Strip,” the Hamas spokesmen declared.

…]

**Millions are seeing these terrible images, picture after picture, day after day. These images are imprinted on their minds forever: horrible Israel, abominable Israel, inhuman Israel. A whole generation of haters. That is a terrible price, which we will be compelled to pay long after the other results of the war itself have been forgotten in Israel.

But there is another thing that is being imprinted on the minds of these millions: the picture of the miserable, corrupt, passive Arab regimes.**

As seen by Arabs, one fact stands out above all others: the wall of shame.

…]**

Throughout the Arab world, from end to end, there echoed the words of Hassan Nasrallah: The leaders of Egypt are accomplices to the crime, they are collaborating with the “Zionist enemy” in trying to break the Palestinian people. It can be assumed that he did not mean only Mubarak, but also all the other leaders, from the king of Saudi Arabia to the Palestinian President. Seeing the demonstrations throughout the Arab world and listening to the slogans, one gets the impression that their leaders seem to many Arabs pathetic at best, and miserable collaborators at worst.

This will have historic consequences. A whole generation of Arab leaders, a generation imbued with the ideology of secular Arab nationalism, the successors of Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, Hafez al-Assad and Yasser Arafat, may be swept from the stage. In the Arab space, the only viable alternative is the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism.

This war is a writing on the wall: Israel is missing the historic chance of making peace with secular Arab nationalism. Tomorrow, It may be faced with a uniformly fundamentalist Arab world, Hamas multiplied by a thousand**.

MY TAXI DRIVER in Tel-Aviv the other day was thinking aloud: Why not call up the sons of the ministers and members of the Knesset, form them into a combat unit and send them off to head the coming ground attack on Gaza?

Uri Avnery is a journalist, peace activist, former member of the Knesset, and leader of Gush Shalom. He is a regular contributor to Scoop. You can email correspondence to correspondence @ gush - shalom . org (without the spaces).

Prince_Abbas · January 13, 2009, 2:40am

As much as anti-Muslim anti-Semitic Nazionists hate Resistance, it will continue to grow. Now everyone is admitting that pro-Zionist Arabs are losing ground to Islamic movements.

By siding with Zionists, anti-Muslim Arabs (and Pakistanis) are helping in the long run the very people they hate.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hXLe2NVuevUTenjjSyrSMPaGKMew

Israel’s Gaza onslaught boosts Islamists’ popularity: analysts

1 day ago

DUBAI (AFP) — Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip is boosting the popularity of Hamas and other Islamic groups in the Arab world where people are dismayed by the passiveness of their regimes, analysts said on Sunday.

“Hamas appears to be scoring points. So far, Israel has not achieved all its military and political objectives and has lost the media battle,” said Dhia Rashwan, an Egyptian specialist in Islamist movements

Israel’s military offensive on the Hamas-controlled territory has killed at least 875 Palestinians, including 275 children, and left 3,620 wounded, since it began on December 27.

Media coverage shows an imbalance between a modern force, armed to the teeth with the most sophisticated weapons, and a militia equipped only for guerrilla warfare, analysts said.

This appears to have contributed to inciting angry protests worldwide, mainly in Arab countries, they believe.

“This is a repetition of the major crises seen in the region during the past few years,” which strengthened Islamism in the Arab world, Rashwan told AFP.

He highlighted Israel’s war on Lebanon in July 2006 which failed to destroy the military might of the Iran-backed Shiite Hezbollah, and the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq, which brought Islamism to the forefront of the resistance.

“Opposition in the Arab world has become led by Islamist movements… Public opinion is led by these movements,” at the expense of Arab nationalists and liberal oppositions who are losing ground."

Meanwhile, “the gap between Arab regimes and their people is being widened all the time,” Rashwan added.

Abdul Aziz al-Sager, head of the Dubai-based Gulf Research Centre (GRC), agreed that Islamists are reaping a windfall of popularity from the Gaza war.

“Injustice serves the Islamist movements, putting them in the vanguard through their support for jihad” or holy war, in the Arab world, he told AFP.

“What Israel is doing in Gaza is strengthening Hamas” in terms of gaining the backing of the public opinion for the movement, although “part of this opinion still notices a lack of political maturity of this movement,” Sager said.

“In wanting to wipe out the resistance, you have created a resistance inside every household,” Hamas’s exiled political chief, Khaled Meshaal, told Israeli leaders in a speech on Saturday.

“As Israel strikes Hamas to weaken it, this movement is becoming stronger among the Palestinians and Arabs, mainly as it has proven to be the only one to stand up to Israel, following the example of Hezbollah in Lebanon,” Bahraini activist Ali Fakhrou told AFP.

“Through this war, Israel does not seek (just) to hit Hamas, but the Islamist resistance which is feared by the United States and its allies among the Arab regimes, who believe that success for this resistance would lead to fundamental changes,” in the region, he said.

“Islamist movements, born out of the void created by the collapse of the Arab nationalist and leftist ideologies, are the only ones capable of protecting the region from the madness of US politics and Israel,” said the former Arab nationalist.

“Islamist movements are going to dominate the political scene for many years to come,” Fakhrou predicted, citing the “interaction between these movements and the Arab street where recent pro-Gaza demonstrations were dominated by Islamist slogans and calls for jihad.”

Jordan’s Princess Haya, a UN messenger of peace, also warned that growing Arab anger and frustration over Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, could spiral out of control.

“I think the frustration on the Arab street, the humiliation, the hurt, the anger and the sadness are something that can’t be kept under control very easily in the near coming future if this (war) continues,” said Haya, daughter of late King Hussein and wife to Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.

burqaposhx · January 13, 2009, 3:25am

That is true. Islamists' popularity gets a boost. Even when we look at Pakistan. Islamists' popularity is specially boosted in FATA and adjoining areas.

Ear chopping (Swat/Bajore), murder of Shias in Moharram (Hangu), Continuous killing in Kurram agency (Shias murdered again).

Yes Islamists' popularity is a good thing. We should all encourage it. NOT!

Prince_Abbas · January 13, 2009, 4:18am

Hey, you Zionist supporter, how can you compare holocaust of thousands of people by a racist apartheid regime with anything?
Have you lost all morality?

Even many Jews can see the terrorist acts of this racist regime, and yet you have audacity to compare it with anti-Islam Talibanic ideology?!

But yes, thanks from the people like you supporting the massacre of innocent people by barbarians, the very people you hate are getting more and more boost.

Faiz:
jo zulm pe laanat na kare aap LAEEN he
jo jabr ka munkir nahin wo MUNKIR E DEEN he

Moonshiner · January 13, 2009, 4:44am

Only mental patients believe that the Taliban and Hamas are the same.