I don't think I have ever read a column by Johann Hari that I agreed with. In fact , I rather pride myself on it. Yesterday's offering from him was his usual anti Israel and anti America tirade. According to Hari Hamas have been acting like little angels in Gaza and it's all the fault of those nasty Americans and Israelis. Presumably they forced the hooded gunmen onto the streets to slaughter their opponents. According to Hari Hamas have behaved "in a pragmatic way". I'd love to see what they do when they get the courage of their convictions. Hamas is a nasty, vicious, murderous terrorist organisation. They have now been ejected from the Palestinian government. As a result the USA and the EU have restored aid to Palestine. I wonder what Mr Hari has to say about that.
One other thing. I saw an interview with a AK47 touting hooded gunmen from group Army of Islam, the terrorists who are holding Alan Johnston, giving an interview to Al Jazeera. Is it unreasonable to demand that TV channels to make people they are interviewing to show their faces?
66 comments:
"Is it unreasonable to demand that TV channels to make people they are interviewing to show their faces?"
Yes.
LOL
Are Fatah really much better?
Does our intervention (financial or political) really help?
Short of letting the Palestinians starve we should leave them to sort out their own differences as we do with Zimbabwe, France, etc.
Thanks for highlighting this Iain. In this vein, does Hari agree with Hamas' actions in Gaza i.e. destroying internet cafes, music shops etc for being unIslamic? Indeed, I wonder if he's aware of their attitude towards homosexuals? I think we should be told
"Is it unreasonable to demand that TV channels to make people they are interviewing to show their faces?"
Hey, why not have their words read out by out of work b movie actors from Clapham? What do you mean, some idiot already tried that?
A bit like the Night of the long Knives really. You have a coalition with Hitler and Von Papen backed by the DNVP and then the SA is sent in to purge enemies of Hitler.
Hamas is simply following the handbook and liquidating opponents. It is the usual fashion and the Western media sit by in stunned silence.
It shows that one should not be too squeamish in dealing with terrorists of this type, and we should have fewer Breaker Morant Trials of British soldiers.
The Law of the Jungle exists even in the Middle East....so BBC types can choke on their sherry
There seems to be no end to the supply of hooded macho tossers running around with their latest headbands and assorted weapons. I don't think they all belong to Hamas.
Is a bit of all this a fashion thing?
"Hamas is a nasty, vicious, murderous terrorist organisation. They have now been ejected from the Palestinian government"
Just one itsy bitsy problem Iain; Hamas got more votes than Fatah in what international observers certified as free and fair elections. Why oh why can can those stupid Palestinian Arabs not simply see things our way - the correct way, the right way I wonder? So now we'll have to try a little bribery - restore 'aid' and the necessities of life through a government with no mandate, in the hope (expectation) that next time they WILL vote the right way eh? - sounds a bit like the current manouverings over the EU constitution to me. Bloody democracy - it has this nasty habit of coming up with wrong result doesn't it?
In similar vein I guess you are baffled about why people consistently voted for that other 'nasty vicious murderous terrorist organisation' Sinn Fein eh? So, I'll let you in on a little secret: One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter - got that?. Until we stop preaching to the world about the necessity for it to see things our way and using military means in an effort to force the issue, my guess is that the 'war on terror' will be never-ending - Being 'good for business' no doubt helps a little too.
Unfortionatly, I can only see things getting worse until a sustainable solution is found for that part of the world.
Thankfully Fatah are still in control of the West Bank, but if settlements continue to expand, and no real solution is on the horizon then it doesn't take a genious to work out what will happen there.
Hamas got more votes than Fatah in what international observers certified as free and fair elections.
I did not know they had been free and fair ......in fact I doubt anyone certified them as such
According to Hari Hamas have behaved "in a pragmatic way". I'd love to see what they do when they get the courage of their convictions.
Nice one, Iain, most amusing.
Doubt many people would be brave enough to make sartorial suggestions to a man brandishing an AK under their nose.
Oberon
Edward McMillan-Scott, British Conservative head of the European Parliament's monitoring team described the polls as "extremely professional, in line with international standards, free, transparent and without violence". His colleague, Italian Communist MEP Luisa Morgantini said there was "a very professional attitude, competence and respect for the rules."
I am not aware that anyone, including Israel, has ever challenged the validity of the election in which Hamas secured 74 seats to Fatah's 45 in the Palestinian Legislative Council.
In other words, the EU accepted that Hamas won freely and fairly but nonetheless withdrew cooperation and aid. Now that the election victors have been ejected from government, the EU and US see fit to restore that aid. Hardly a ringing endorsement of democracy is it?
But never mind; maybe they'll vote for the right people next time. If not they'll just have to keep on voting until they do now won't they? THAT's the West's definition of democracy for the Middle East - though why the hell it should have anything to do with us is beyond my simple-minded view of the matter. Just can't resist educating the poor bloody natives I guess
Sabretache, it is true that Hamas won the elections to the Legislative Council. However, that does not give them a mandate to engage in an armed uprising to overthrow the Fatah President (he was elected too, remember?) and establish Gaza as a separatist state.
I'm a teensy weensy bit confused as to how you think their having been elected justifies what is essentially a military coup, along with the murder of at least 100 Fatah guards, officials and civilians.
Also, no-one has disputed Hamas' victory in the elections (although it is highly questionable how any election in which people have to vote under the watchful eye of armed militias is "free"), but equally no-one has a responsibility to like, or fund, them just because the murderous scum won.
Bulldoze my house , take my land ,kill members of my family and you may just find me getting a trifle upset ak47 in hand.
Iain, Whilst I fundamentally agree with your analysis of Hamas, the problem is they look less corrupt than Fatah.
It seems like they were voted in in some strange way like everyone deciding to vote Lib Dem as it was safe to protest without thinking they might get in. From there they are building.
On the Alan Johnston front this organisation is nothing more than a front for the Durmush clan who seem to be a bit of a bunch of outsiders. They also seem unable to take a hint from Fatah's defeat.
and fawkes , if you are going to post a picture (even one with the eyes blcoked out)make it a little more up to date , as in one with jowells (+:
Hari Hamas! Good name - I think you may be onto something Iain.
I wrote an abusive e-mail to Johann Hari the other day. Now I'm just an occasional reader of the Guardian, and I assumed he was a woman and I was tempted after seeing the photo to say, Eric Morecombe style: "Is it a fella?"
What has this got to do with Palestine? Not a lot. And by the way, I got a nice polite reply from him/her.
So Iain, what exactly would you do if you were a Palestinian living in Gaza or the West Bank? Have you any idea of how they are treated in their own land?
Mark
"I'm a teensy weensy bit confused as to how you think their having been elected justifies what is essentially a military coup"
No, you're just a teensy weensy bit confused period.
I did not (and do not) seek to endorse Hamas or justify their actions - the Palestinian electorate did the endorsing and, had fatah got the upper hand in the recent violence, that would have been no less a 'coup', as you put it. In fact that is exactly what HAS happened in the West Bank, a Fatah coup - but that's OK of course, because it's Fatah. So, no doubt we'll be talking about who started it next.
The point I am making concerns the West's selective interpretations of what exactly constitutes 'democracy' and our equally selective support for what are by any definition 'terrorist' governments (Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan spring to mind) when they happen to serve the West's interests.
Lets not pretend that Hamas are worse than Fatah. The point is that there are now 2 Paleastinian authorities & for the first time there is a situation in which some Palestinians have an incetive towards something other than extremism. Previously no Palestinian leader could support a real settlement with Israel because they would have to accept that most of their constituency were never going to go "home".
The western role must be to encourage the relative moderation of Fatah & equally firmly discourage that in Gaza. This is not a matter of goodies & baddies but of trying to tame a mass culture.
I really can't stand Mr Hari, he is extremely pretentious and utterly poisonous. His ostensible personality suggests it's probably quite safe to assume that he was bullied mercilessly at school, which I suppose is some consolation*. Aside from everything else I do wish they'd stop booking him for Newsnight Review!
*To any sensitive souls reading - apologies for the black humour.
Anonymous@1.17: perhaps the Palestinians could take a leaf out of the Jews' book - for centuries, the Christian (and very occasionally) the Muslim world tried to exterminate them, exile them, or subject them to harsh, restrictive laws. So what did they do? Every time, EVERY TIME, they picked themselves up, dusted themselves down, and started all over again.
Speaking as a Jew, I happen to think the establishment of the State of Israel was a massive and tragic mistake, both for the Jews and the native population, and for the ensuing world problems it has helped to generate. However, we are where we are, and it seems that a significant proportion of Arabs prefer to kill each other than help each other.
Rather like so many African tribes, unfortunately.
judith
The fact is that a "Jewish" state in the Middle east was always an impossible dream without buiding a walled in apartheid society
Whoops!
On a serious note the only sensible thing that nutter who rules Iran has ever said was that we Europeans should have established a Jewish state in Europe after WW2. The Jews get to feel safe and Europe gets some good neighbours made up of industrious and talented people.
The Hitch offers you Turkey.
One cannot anthropomorphise the Middle East. I don't think it has ever been a very pleasant place - well certainly not for the last 500 years. The sooner the oil runs out, the better. As for Israel's prospects in the caliphate, not looking too rosy one suspects.
Agree with Mr GuF. Yes it is unreasonable etc. And not just when Mr GuF is on the rack himself.
Anyway, isn't the correct question when it comes to Fawkes:
"Is it unreasonable to demand that TV channels make people hide in the shadows?"
On the politics I guess you and Hari are as all over the place as one another.
PS Has Hari apologised for his comment re Ms A Widdy yet? I wrote in to him, his paper and his paper's letters page about that disgrace.
Mark,
The Fatah President sacked the Hamas Prime Minister and moved to install an "emergency government".
It was an EU/UK/US sponsored Fatah coup-d'etat.
Mr Hari includes one statement that he must know is a bare-faced lie. He states that Hamas observed a truce and had given up suicide murders, when all the while they were firing rockets into Israel and trying to attack with suicide bombers, reducing only due to greater success of Israeli security services.
Sabretache
Democratic elections do not allow the elected group to terrorise a neighbouring state and threaten her existence. Hamas might be the elected government, but that simply makes it worse. If the party in power is attacking, then surely the Palestinians as a group who elected that government must take responsibility for their choice. It is not as if they hid their intentions. Hamas has destruction of Israel enshrined in its constitution as one of its main aims, more important that helping the Palestinians people.
ed [11.13 AM] You say, "Short of letting the Palestinians starve we should leave them to sort out their own differences."
But that's the problem, isn't it? To say "We can't let them starve," is to say, "We must send them aid," which is to say, "We must feed and clothe a terrorist organisation which rules by the gun and whose avowed aim is the destruction of Israel."
I don't think we are under any legal or moral obligation to do any such thing.
Wonko, Fatah dissolved the Government after Hamas had seized Gaza and over-run the compounds. The sequence of events is quite important!
From now on, it is safe to say that Hamas' activities are benefiting from EU/US/UK funding because they've undoubtedly got a huge stock of the weapons that we stupidly gave to Fatah...
I have no sympathy for either Fatah or the Palestinians. All of them are Jew-haters and have choosen terrorism, tyranny and violence over peace and libertarian democracy.
The de facto creation of a Hamas state in the Gaza Strip will re-energise pan-Arabism. And Israel should seize that opportunity, to define herself, wholly accurately in pan-Arab terms, as an Arab country.
As much as anything else, why would not the Sephardic Arab majority of Israeli Jews want to do this, since it would provide the perfect excuse to sling out the despised Ashkenazi elite?
For over half the Jews in Israel are now Arabs, so Israel has become a classic Levantine Arab country, with an unusually high number of Jewish Arabs much as Lebanon has an unusually high number of Christian Arabs, and with certain ethnic minorities (notably the Ashkenazim) in much the way that Iraq has Kurds and Turkeman.
Pan-Arabism (which is of Christian origin) now requires the same solidarity with the Muslim, Christian, Druze and Jewish Arab people of the Arab country that is Israel as with, for example, the Muslim, Christian and Druze Arab people of the Arab country that is Lebanon (a much more Westward-looking country, as befits the descendants of the Phoenicians, with her large Christian population, her use of French, her constitutional requirement that the President be a Maronite Catholic, and so forth).
I remember the establishment of the State of Israel. This right to their own country was hard won. It is a little silly to suggest "we" should have given them some land in Europe, that idea shows no sense of history. The Jews had been driven out of Palestine and persecuted by bigots in every country.
Since that day they have been subject to unannounced military attacks, bombing, rockets, suicide bombers hitting their civilian population. Those have been without cessation.
The Palestinian Arabs were not expelled from Israel - they fought Israel, lost and fled. They had equal rights of occupation and the franchise all enshrined in the constitution of the new state.
A view over the centuries shows that Arabs do not need any great disute to fight over, they will fight anybody or amongst themselves.
Hamas is a terrorist organization masquerading as "moderate". Moderate what?
The West has been fooled many times into talking about good terrorists and bad terrorists. All terrorists are bad. A further glib catchphrase goes "one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter". That lacks originality or real meaning.
No, we should not support any such organisation for any reason at all. The West is being paternalistic and delusive if we think that any intervention on our part will alter the fate of the Middle East in any way.
But the, we should not be supporting Israel either. We may think it is our business but it isn't.
I can't stand that smug PC obsessed, terrorist supporting androgynous creep Johan Hari, but neither can I stand the neo-cons and their running dogs like our poor, naive Mr Dale.
A pox on both their houses.
Well we pay and support the Palestinians: to do what they like.
Personally I suggest ALL EU aid be withdrawn. It might bring economic reality to aplace which lives entirely on subsidies.
And as we all know the result is a distortion of reality. Bomb a factory .. and you still are fed..
A plague on all your houses.
have no sympathy for either Fatah or the Palestinians. All of them are Jew-haters and have choosen terrorism, tyranny and violence over peace and libertarian democracy.
June 19, 2007 4:26 PM
Correct - sad but true.
As Abba Eban said "the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity"
Follow this link and see a short film on the whole sorry mess.
http://webapp.doctors.org.uk/Redirect/www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened/
The palestinians have received huge amounts of aid but it has just gone off into private bank accounts. Presumably they thought Hamas, being pseudo-religious, would be less corrupt and more just. I think that myth has now been dispelled.
sorry
link pasted incorrectly
it is:
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened/
"Is it unreasonable to demand that TV channels to make people they are interviewing to show their faces?"
As long as it's not Hazel Blears.
But seriously Iain, your oversimplicity is mindblowing. Perfectly reasonable beings, decent cultured humans just as well as rats, when stressed and made fearful behave in the most apalling manner and often take it out on each other rather thasn the oppressor. Nazi Germany, Srebrenitsa, Rwanda are just recent examples. Israel was born of abuse and became a serial abuser. I worry that the Palestinians may go likewise.
Oh yes and Hari is a total twat even if he does get the odd thing right.
Some Palestinians are behaving like caged rats because that is what the racist oppressors of Israel has turned them into.
I have no time for muslim fundamentalists let alone terrorists but the fascistic and racist behaviour of the zionists is the biggest recruiting sergeant Islamic terrorism has.
What a nasty, racist little creep this Jeremy Jacobs fellow is.
His regular displays of racist macho trialism is quite nauseating to behold and tells us much of what we need to know about the problems in the Middle East.
Take it from a fellow Jew, Jeremy, you are doing our people no good whatsoever and if I could disown you I would.
Lebanon (a much more Westward-looking country, as befits the descendants of the Phoenicians, with her large Christian population,
You are way out in the left field David Lindsay. Lebanon does not have a large Christian population, and the Constitution is now completely out of kilter because Muslim population has grown enormously and the ratios do not favour Christian influence being retained - Hezbollah wants to drive Christians from Lebanon.
The aim is to drive the Christians out of the Middle East altogether......
There has been no official census since 1932 precisely to avoid recognising reality.....Hezbollah aims to smash the Constitution and erect an Islamic State.
Europe should watch in awe as it might be an early glimpse of a future in Spain or France....
Democratic elections do not allow the elected group to terrorise a neighbouring state and threaten her existence.
Who had democratic elections ? I doubt one has ever taken place with the Palestinians....the EU aid was used to buy votes - after all it is a Welfare State funded by EU and US taxpayers......and votes are bought
"Hamas won 44 percent of the popular vote but 56 percent of the seats, while Fatah won 42 percent of the popular vote but only 34 percent of the seats" according to the New York Times
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_legislative_election,_2006
Observer said...
...Europe should watch in awe as it might be an early glimpse of a future in Spain or France....
Observer, you are right. It's the armies of muslims who we now have in our midst that cause me considerably more concern than those in their Middle Eastern homelands.
Oriana Fallaci sounded a timely warning and her books should be read by everyone concerned at the way our towns and cities are being taken over and Islamified.
http://www.giselle.com/oriana.html
anon 5;11
many jews are of european stock
their ancestors were no more driven out of palestine than mine were (even the jewish ones)
jews are not a race.
That fact sinks the whole concept of the stae of Israel
"Hamas is a nasty, vicious, murderous terrorist organisation." Iain, before you get too volatile, remember that this means they will be in Government soon, just like Sinn Fein, so I would not get too excited.
The true test of the next phase is when a suicide bomber hits Israel.
Would Israel act in Gaza but not the West Bank?
Most people accept that Hamas won the election fairly. That is not really in dispute. What is relevant is the fact that the Hamas charter commits it to the destruction of Israel and that is unacceptable to the USA and the EU.
Observer 7.41 PM
"You are way out in the left field David Lindsay. Lebanon does not have a large Christian population....
According to the CIA World Factbook 39% of Lebanese are Christians. Sounds large to me.
According to the CIA World Factbook 39% of Lebanese are Christians. Sounds large to me.
June 19, 2007 10:25 PM
Estimate made on basis of 1932 Census......The Pope is less convinced and expressed concern at how few Christians remained in Lebanon
If the British Government estimated the Muslim population on a 1932 Census basis most people would be surprised
http://phoenicia.org/christiansmea.html
Christians in the Middle East are fast disappearing from the area. The Lebanese Christians, who constitute the only influential Christian community in the Middle East, are fast declining in numbers and power.
This paper discusses the history of the Christian minority in Lebanon, and the decline of their hold on political power, in favour of the Muslim majority.
Theodor Hanf stated that the Lebanese nationalists, mainly Christians, tried to prove that Lebanon had existed since time immemorial and stressed its independence and uniqueness. He added that Arab nationalists, usually Muslims, tended to present the history of what is now known as Lebanon as a provincial chapter in the history of Arab-Islamic empires2.
Christian nationalism made the Christians reluctant to share their power with Muslims until the commencement of the 1975 Lebanese civil war. They were worried about their future as a minority, surrounded by a majority Muslim population that was hungry to claim its fair share of power due to their superiority of numbers. Lebanese Christians were always keenly mindful of past atrocities inflicted on their brethren in the Middle East at the hands of the Muslims- namely the demise of Armenians in Turkey and the persecution of Coptic Christians in Sudan and Egypt. The majority of Christians associate themselves with Phoenician roots and not to the Arab Bedouin (Originally Arab).
Christian nationalism made the Christians reluctant to share their power with Muslims until the commencement of the 1975 Lebanese civil war. They were worried about their future as a minority, surrounded by a majority Muslim population that was hungry to claim its fair share of power due to their superiority of numbers. Lebanese Christians were always keenly mindful of past atrocities inflicted on their brethren in the Middle East at the hands of the Muslims- namely the demise of Armenians in Turkey and the persecution of Coptic Christians in Sudan and Egypt. The majority of Christians associate themselves with Phoenician roots and not to the Arab Bedouin (Originally Arab).
Christian Emigration from Lebanon, in large numbers, also contributed to the decline of the Christian influence in Lebanon. Both Muslims and Christians fled Lebanon, but far more Christians left. From a pre-war Lebanese population of roughly 4 million, 500,000 of the 700,000 who emigrated were Christian. Just how many Christians remain in Lebanon is in dispute. There are no official population figures for Lebanon. Some estimate that about 1 million residents or 25 percent of the country are Christians. This figure is less than half of the nearly 60 per cent majority of the early 1970s.
William Harris saw that Christian numbers declined in Lebanon as the years went by: 1911 79%, 1921 55%, 1932 51%, 1943 52%, 1970 42%, 1990 35%35. It is hard to see the Christians current decline in status to be reversed in the view of Harris's statistics. It is very plausible that the number of Christians will become negligible in 50 years and thus their presence in the Middle East will be in jeopardy. Christians need to have the numbers in order to have a legitimate claim to sharing power with the Muslims. Charles M.Sennott quoted a Christian lawyer Nehmatalla Abi Nasr talking about the effect of Christian migration:
Ian, your post is downright dishonest. Hari talks about how he "loathes" Hamas, points out their anti-Semitic constitution, and has written long pieces condemning their attitudes towards gays.
You leave all of this out, and your commenters plainly haven't even bothered to read the piece.
Hari is hardly pro-Islamist! Look up all his articles about Islam... he is constantly being accused of being an 'Islamophobe' by the left!
Anti-American? he supported the Iraq war!
His argument is that if you don't deal with hamas, you will end up with something even more extreme. (as to your poster who asked if he supports the people blowing up internet cafes... unlike you, I suspect, he actually went to report first-hand on this at great risk to himself, defending thge victims and condemning the groups commiting these crimes, who are not Hamas, and indeed are anti-Hamas jihadists. See http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1035 ).
A hilariously misinformed post from you, Ian...
Oh, and your point about pragmatism... if you actually read Hari's article (have you read it at all?) he says Hamas were being pragmatic until the Israelis blocked them from taking power (after winning an election), blockaded and starved Gaza, and started bombing the shit out of it. Then they stopped being pragmatic.
So when you cite their behaviour over the past week as something Hari thinks is pragmatic, you are actually lying.
You really ought to print a correction. If I was Hari, I'd sue for libel.
"Hamas is a nasty, vicious, murderous terrorist organisation." Wasn't aware that you've visited the Middle East and met Hamas recently Ian. Or is this just hearsay? It's continued prejudice like this that has caused the (ongoing) chaos in the region.
I presume the last three anonymouses are the same person. On the last point, are you really saying that they're not a nasty, vicious, murderous terror organisation?
On your other points, I link to his article. People can make up their own minds.
My name's David. I write the first two anonymous posts but not the last one.
Do you want to answer my points, Ian? You really should correct the more blatant errors.
Your evasiveness on this speaks volumes. You really should think more carefully before you write about a person, and actually read the article you are commenting on - David
Maybe if you knew what you were talking about your spewings could have more credibility. Until such time as you do learn the truth, there can be nothing but dismissal for those said spewings. So spew away. I'll check back in in about a month or so. Good Luck. Nat
Why not read the Hamas constitution for yourself and then decide what kind of organisation they are?
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Hamas_Covenant
Ed asked: is Fatah that much better? Again, you decide: http://www.zoa.org/2007/06/zoa_mahmoud_abb_1.htm
You can also read a bit of the long history of Hamas and the Nazis here:
www.tellthechildrenthetruth.com
You may not like the sources, well, you can verify those facts elsewhere.
Extraordinary. When it is pointed out to Ian Dale that he has described as "anti-American" a person who supported the American invasion of Iraq, and that he has described as a Hamas cheerleader a person who "loathes" Hamas, he makes no correction.
"Hamas is a nasty, vicious, murderous terrorist organisation."
Much like those who vote for them. Death to the lot of them, and the 'useful idiots' supporting them.
"is it unreasonable to demand that TV channels to make people they are interviewing to show their faces?" er like when they are women wearing veils ?
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