Saturday, July 07, 2007

Hamas Hate: Not Jews but Israelis

It's one thing to seize the government; it's a whole 'nother thing to run it.

Hamas has taken over Gaza. The picture of fighters in mask holding the offices of the previous government speaks volumes. Thomas Friedman of the NYTimes noticed it also. He wrote about it in his June 20, 2007, column. I won't site it since it is behind the Times wall…on second thought.

Anyway, one of the more juicier quotes – and Friedman has a knack with juicy turns of phrase – was on a subject I have been posting for some time. He wrote:

If it's O.K. to wear masks when confronting the Jews, it eventually becomes O.K. to wear masks when confronting other Palestinians. If it becomes O.K. to use suicide bombers against the Jews, it eventually becomes O.K. to use suicide bombers against other Muslims.
One of my earliest post, Reap the Whirlwind, was about the error of teaching hate and how Islam will rue the day they whole heartedly accepted this strategy for their children. As I wrote in Reaping the Whirlwind, I did not believe I would see the day when it happen, but we are living in fast times, and I am seeing my foreboding on the wrongness of teaching hate coming to pass.

Christians are no better – or worse – than Muslims in how they treat other people as well as their own kind. But at least Christians teach their children to love one another, turn the other cheek, do unto others as you would want done unto you before they become adults and start killing and exploiting the rest of the world. Hate is not institutionalized in Christian Sunday school and at the pulpit. Christians don't teach hate, and yet, look at all the bad they have done. As bad a things are, think how much worse things would be if Christians had taught hate.

As many have learned, and so too now must Hamas, governing is way more difficult than attacking the government. Hamas was elected the majority in the old dead Palestinian government because it cared and did more for the people than the Fatah party. Hamas then torpedo the idea of allowing Palestinians to vote on whether they should recognize Israel's right to exist because it threaten its reason for being not that of Palestinians.

I would have like to have seen the results of that vote.

History is full of noble intentions that fail in their implementation. Our very own George Bush and his Neocon policy wonks are a good example. If only the purpose of being President was getting elected, Bush would be one of the greatest Presidents we have ever had. I don't believe history is going to be anywhere that nice to Bush – especially if he and his administration has set up a situation in the Middle East – regardless however good their intentions – that the whole world must suffer.

Hamas needs to take off their mask and put them away. Government official conceal enough without mask. Hamas needs to count their numbers and realize they could do more with peace than could ever be achieved through terror. Hamas needs to think more about the daily lives and problems of Palestinian and less that of Israelis. The time of governing is upon them. The footnotes in history are full of many who have come as far only to fail.

Besides, in the Middle East, Jews are called Israelis – a citizen of a nation – while everywhere else they are just referred to as Jews. That's more progress than ever occurred for hundreds of years of European history. At least there's that.

Oh, and one more thing: Stop teaching hate. Hate comes natural. Love and forgiveness is the more difficult and righteous path and will lead to a more mission accomplished than any teaching of hate or sending you children tied with bombs to die.

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