is all hell about to break lose in the middle east?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040322/ap_on_re_mi_ea/gaza_explosions&cid=540&ncid=716

If the capacity existed for the Palestinian terrorists to carry out any worse attacks than those which they are currently doing, then they would already be doing so.

So nope, I doubt it will get any worse.

and so the cycle continues.

wow... i imagine the Israelis are pretty pleased with themselves...

I think this is more to keep the hardliners in sharons government happy that to benefit any public relations. Sharon needs to stay in power to push his agendas (hes not exactly a dove either) and he probably trying to appease all sides. It must be frustrating for commanders to be able to take out those responsible for planning terrorist bombings but not actually doing anything about it. I think these targeted attacks are better than some of the other methods israel has used in the past but theres pretty much nothing that israel can do to appease the extremists other than cease to exist so if youre hated you may as well bring those people to justice (in the loosest sense of the word) and hope that more people in palestine see the sense of peace too.

this action can't help but bring more violence.

if it is just appeasment on the part of the israeli leadership then you've got to ask serious questions about their commitment to israel's security. if they wanted to get rid of hamas israel should make them irrelevant to the palestinian people.

murdering such a high profile person (a half-blind, wheelchair bound man no less) will only increase the support for hamas among moderate palestinians, not help them see the sense of peace.

i agree with what t.e.c says partly relating to the fact that the killing of the sheikh only increases support for hamas..

the effect of it was to make him a martyr....and when u have extremists who believe that suicide bombing is an act of martyrdom.....imagine the levels the israelis have boosted the sheikh to now...

this "act" was not intended to solve the problems they claim...in fact, one can almost see it (this is purely in my opinion only) and a step by step move to eradicate the palestinians...

if sharon had wanted peace, then making hamas irrelevant would have been the better option. it is clear here that he knew what kind of outrage he would have sparked from the palestinians...and no leader in his right mind would have 10 000 palestinians shouting "revenge!" at him...or his people........

ask yourselves why the assassination was done publicly? why was it not done and covered up? i'm sure the israeli army had the capability to covertly take out the sheikh....but such a public display was meant to send out a message.........death to terrorism? or a "i don't care about you guys" message?? think about this...not even the US would have the right mind to shoot saddam in public

a reported in the bbc news brought up a very good point...

"If Israel thinks it has the right to assassinate an allerged terrorrists for acts against its people....do the Palestinians have the same right to assassinate Sharon for his acts against their people??"

I'm not taking either sides.....but of late i feel that those who choose to propagate their own agenda have not chose the wisest way to do so....

Yeah, this wasn't a very good idea in my opinion....

It is just going to cause moderate Palestinian to go to Hamas, especially the youth....
Israel has just guaranteed that it is going have a steady supply of suicide bombers trying to kill its people for the foreseeable future…

so nice supply of fat aid cheques from the americans for arms then as well.......?

There doesnt seem to be much change in violence between when israel doesnt do anything and when it does, hama still keeps targetting civilians. They recently refused to a partial cease fire to stop targeting civilians in non settler areas.

Israel is fucked no matter what it does so it may aswell take the terrorist leaders out. I dont think anyone was thinking this wont have repercussions tho.

I wonder is there will ever be al queda in palistine. It would possibly be the worst thing for the palistinians, but it might actually get some people focussed on solving this problem once and for all.

I think it was done to send a message, LOOK WHAT WE CAN DO!

Keep blowing up our innocent civilians on their way to work, killing a dozen or so at a time but weve got the firepower and technology to walk right up to your front door and blow up your leader so bring it on!

Israel can fuck up Palestine whenever they want, its a non contest if ya ask me I guess now theyre thinking lets take out the head and hopefully the rest of the body wont function.

Its not good but what else can they do? (Isreal & Palestine)

I had to paste this from a GNN member's post on how Sharon is brilliant!

Israel has the right to colonize the Westbank under the rubric of national security. The "defense" against suicide bombers gives casus belli for Sharon to keep fragmenting Palestinian national aspirations. The wall Sharon is building is also a superb tactic to permanently shave off a great portion of Palestinian land.

Israel made shrewd decisions in the decades before by funding the fanatical Hamas terrorist group. It was a great play at divide and conquer, by fracturing the Palestinian resistance into the secular PLO and religious Hamas. The former lost legitimacy, while the latter discredited the overall Palestinian cause.

Israel also performed a sound move by creating more and more enemies in its occupation of southern Lebanon, and the reoccupation of the Golan Heights and West Bank later on. It brought in the Hezbollah and their Iranian patrons, not to mention Baathist support from Syria and Iraq. By repeatedly kicking the hornet's nest just enough, thus drawing retaliations from the full spectrum of Islamic resistance, they thereby secured much more funding from the USA. So clever, they were able to rationalize all their occupation as defensive, while claiming the Islamic resistance was purely offensive.

Throughout the 90s, Israel's brilliant tactics of playing the victim while attacking has led to some stunning gains and counters. Not only have they successfully sabotaged every peace plan that would have given the Arabs a united Palestine, but the process has "appeared" to be incredibly unfair for Israel. Propaganda efforts to make the Palestinians look irrational and greedy were particular successful in their main patron country, the USA.

As the rest of the world began to doubt Israel again, Sharon performed an awesome maneuver to keep the chaos going. He marched into the Islamic holy places in Jerusalem with 800+ armed troops. This sparked the second Intifadh. This psyop was beautiful. Once again, the Palestinians were tricked into rising up, and once again Israel claimed it was innocent even as their battalions struck hard everywhere.

The ongoing 2nd Intifadah has been particularly devastating for the Palestinians, with a 4:1 kill ratio in favour of the Israelis, while the casualty rate has been much higher, again in favour of the Israelis. Palestinian civic infrastructure is nearly gone. Unemployment is 60%. And at the same time, Israel is securing more subsidies, trade credits, and loans than ever before. The Palestinian quarantine on heavy weapons has been perfect, thus the reliance on suicide bombers continues, again discrediting their cause worldwide.

With America pressuring Syria and Iran, it's time for Israel to shine. At this window of opportunity, they can permanently carve off the best land from the West Bank and call it a defensive undertaking. The Palestinians will never recover it. They will live in a state not too unlike the Warsaw ghetto for decades to come.

Sharon is brilliant!

when does israel ever do nothing,

last time hamas called a ceasefire israel refused to agree to stop too, and a rocket attack soon made hamas forget its plan.....

You seem to love talking about how the extremists want to destroy israel, this is true, but it was also the palestianians that where the first to talk about a 2 state solution with the US and Israeli only really seriously talking about 2 states a couple of years ago...

The thing with hamas is israel has always given it its power.... hamas has more power on the streets than the Palestinian Authority, the clinics they run, the food they give out... get rid of extreme palestinian unemployment, extreme poverty, stop their children dying of curable disease and malnutrician that is the way to stop them becoming suicide bomber....

On the same note ... the fucking palestians should stop blowing people up, they should lay down their weapons and take to the streets in non-violent protest... (I'd like to say violence doesn't work, but simple fact of the matter is that violence does work........)

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3556350&thesection=news&thesubsection=world&thesecondsubsection=



I read in the hearlad today that Israel has used bombs to eliminate it's enemies in the past including booby trapping a cell phone.

There will be a response and a strong one no doubt. Israel will only have them selves to blame for it.

George Bush has shown a distinct disinterest in peace in the region in the intial part of his term and is only now paying it some attention.

Why can't the IDF with their superior fire power and training seek to capture or arrest some of these leaders rather than assassinating them.

well to the credit of george bush, one thing that he has done right is be the first us presisdent to talk about a palestinian state

the guy was in a wheel-chair, FFS

clearly, there were more dangerous targets than some decrept old man

Just because he's in a wheel chair doesnt make him innocent or less dangerous.

Read about this guy before you defend him.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3556343&thesection=news&thesubsection=world&thesecondsubsection=







The dude is a hardcore terrorist committed to the destruction of Israel and is responsible for the murder of many hundreds of innocent people.

The idea that Israel somehow ‘deserves’ some kind of retaliation for defending itself from this nut job is absurd to say the least…

its an age old debate between the palestinians and israelis....both sides has committed atrocities towards each other....whilst you might say that hamas did it on the palestinian side...isn't it worst that a ruling national government would commit the same acts as well??

solving the middle east conflict will not be easy....because those people running the papers are not living on the streets with the typical israeli or palestinian to be able to understand the severity of the conflict

it has gone on for so long now...that it would be right to assume that most youths there are accustomed to using violence......violence is already a way of life there....and BOTH sides are using violence....there is no one side to blame

with regards to palestine being a non contest in order to get their state back.....do not forget that israel is surrounded by arab countries.....whilst the US might be able to come in a save its ass....but there's no telling how much of israel will be left if all the surrounding arab states turn against it......all it takes is a few moments and enough damage will be done

also, if the arab countries fall in conflict with the west...they will again withold their oil supply...this will cause dire economic effects for the rest of the world.....and might even result in an all out war because oil is an important resource....and alot of countries in the world are not going to allow their economy to go on standstill

do anyone of us really want to see this happen??

the US is the most powerful country in the world.....that is in singular terms...but even the US cannot withstand a whole coalition of Arab countries and its allies......

don't forget also that the US has other problems in another part of the world, namely the taiwan - china conflict......looking at the situation there, the US might have to intervene in order to secure taiwan its independence from china and if china decides to invade....the US will have more than a handful........

in my opinion......the last countries you wanna see go to war are the Arab countries (in coalition) and China........

Who needs arab countries when it is alot easier to start a coup in Venezuela

Nelson mandela was a terrorist, he fought to overthrow the SA govt, he won in the end became president, won a nobel peace prize and was loved by the world....

terrorism does work

The key thing about Mandela is his imprisonment meant he was not compromised by the cycle of slaughter and brutalisation that happens with terrorists. This allowed him to act the elder statesman who had risen above the dirty war.

Violence is only a solution where it can be of sufficient force to allow the imposition of a permanent and decisive decision. Since terror is the weapon of the weak or of the desperate, it by definition will never solve anything.

but even when he was in prison he refused to renouce terror as a tactic

The apartheid government knew all about implementing terror. I don't see that Mandela should have had to renounce terror as a tactic.

so bob it doesnt matter so its better to commit murder then is it? so you openly support the murder of individuals who are only suspected of things and in killing them will solve nothing

it's a question of who started it and who over-reacted to what.

obviously that question is impossible to answer. although you seem to think you know the answer....

It is not a question of who started it rimu, actually it doesn't matter at all who started it!

If you go out tomorrow and organise for a bus load of school children to be blown up, then this is completely and utterly inexcusable. Claiming 'he started it' like some demented five year old is simply not going to cut it.

Hamas have previously offered a truce which was broken by Israel who decided it was ok for them to continue assassinations. Israel have now provoked Hamas and can expect ongoing retaliations and perhaps they will escalate things by targetting Israeli politicians.

of course not, i never said that it was excusable. it royally sucks.

but the fact is, that like a demented five year old, both sides are using the "we are retaliating for event X and Y" argument to justify their actions. and you used that same logic when you said



in defence of israel's actions, implying that it was Ok to retaliate like a 5 year old.

so i was using YOUR system of logic, and saying that you can never find out who did what first.

and then later, you agreed with me, when you said



so either you are confused, or you are trying to confuse me.

i'm not defending him....i'm just saying that there were other ways to solve the problem

for one...if you publicly assassinate someone...you're not saying you're defending yourself....you're imposing "revenge"...and if you can, then so can others.....

secondly, by publicly killing him (whether it was justified or not is another matter....) you have made those fenceliners his supporters......

if saddam is trialed in court and sentenced to death......that's one thing

if he's openly shot by US officials whilst he's in handcuffs (and not even in wheelchairs).....then the US is undermining the reasons it went to war in the first place.....

how much do we understand about the agenda of hamas or israel in order to justify their actions? all we know is what you get in the media...none of us are a palestine or israeli living in those conditions....

hamas may be a terrorists organisation but what are their members driven by? surely they're not just out to kill for no reason....we all know that there is a reason.......so we can't openly say that the israelites are the victims

are the palestines the victims then? no, we're not saying that as well......if you take hamas out of the picture...what happens then? will sharon's administration be seen as terrorists then???

hamas did not exist since the first conception of the jewish state...so think about it.....what did palestinian terrorist organisations spawn out of? both states were left alone whilst the rest of the world thought, "they'll settle their differences"....and now look at what has happened.....so to point blame at either the israelis or the palestinians is folly


we cannot understand how they feel......so i'm not saying that anyone is right or wrong.....i'm just saying that the method of it, the way it was done....was wrong.....

Given what happens when they try to arrest someone i think its best for israel to just execute him. Theres less civilians lives lost and and no hostage taking for his release.

Whenever the israelis incur into palistine extremists fight back - including kids throwing grenades so this way they can just get to the head without stirring up the lower levels.

Mummet - when hamas fronts up to court you can start worrying about evidence until then get a grip on reality.

rimu, you kind of got my point but then missed it there at the end.

What I mean by “it doesn’t matter at all who started it”, is that the calculated and cold blooded murder of innocent civilians is never justified, no matter who did what first to whom and when.

Going after the guy who organised and/or committed those murders is another matter completely, and is almost always going to be justified.

Bob it's a question of international law and doing the right thing. Executing some one with out a trial is wrong and it's disturbing to see people defend this type of killing.

It's interesting timing not long after Sharon said he would dismantle moer settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, gets criticized for it by the hard line factions of the government and then assassinates YAssin and murders innocent civilians at the same time.

so if there was a targetted assassination of Sharon, which hurt no one else, would that be ok? since both sides are guilty of needlessly killing civilians...

it's all a bit silly, really

Well Sharon isn't actively targeting civilians so it's not even remotely the same situation, but that said attacks against the Israeli military and its commanders could well be considered justified.

Now this does not automatically make it ok, but surely you see the distinction between this and the cold blooded murder of innocent civilians?

palestine doesnt have an "official" armed forces, so there all civilians..

i think non-combatants is the word your grasping for..

A terrorist organisation is not a civil organisation, so terrorists are not civilians.

Combatant/non-combatant is something different altogether. It is possible to be both a civilian and a combatant, or both a soldier/cop/terrorist and a non-combatant.

excellent..shall i get the dictionary...? or maybe the thesaurus

how about the palestinian children who throw rocks at israeli troops, what would you call them..?

an ambulance...

or maybe "collateral damage"...??

terrorists mybe..??

or a soft target....?

depends who you ask i guess..!

Typically israel and many other defence forces dont use less-lethal ammunition because the soldiers should only have to fire if thier lives are in danger and suggesting the ammois somehow less lethal would mean its more likely to be used.

Soldiers have been killed by mob of kid armed only with rocks so i sympathise with the soldiers but it always looks bad when an anarmed person is killed. These days the israeli army try and avoid direct confrontation by the missle attacks as you have seen.

Its interesting that so many countries have condemmed tese actions tho most have and all would do the same thing in this situation. I can list France US England Spain Greece and Italy as having "not negotiated" with terrorists.

What is the point of a stupid comment like that man, can we not have a ration discussion without it degrading to this kind of bollocks?

i see the distinction, yeah.

but IMO Sharon IS actively targeting civilians. when you order your helecopters to shoot missiles into a refugee camp (presumably to get some terrorists or whatever), you do so with the full knowledge that civilians will be killed.

to me, the difference between that and suicide bombers is a pretty fine one and differs in semantics only.

When have soldiers been killed by a mob of children throwing rocks?
Israel has the means to provide front line soldiers with both lethal and non lethal equipment but chooses not to.

Your version of english differs from the accepted form then. Directly targeting civilians is not the same as targetting militants knowing that civilians might be killed. Unfortunately until hamas stops hiding behind civilians more are going to be killed.

Yassin had just got out of the mosque after saying prayers so it's obvious that there are going to be civilians around. Israel obviously doesn't care about killing civilians and three missiles is over kill. There are other ways of eliminating militant leaders yet it will make no difference to Hamas who will be even more hell bent on revenge. If any thing Israel have done Hamas a favour by encouraging more people to join the movement and to become matyrs.

styln: rather than make broad statements as to israels intention why not address the issue i just brought up - that less than lethal ammo just gets used more often and looks bad on tv...

couple of years ago styln a group of about 20 soldiers got mobbed, one died from head injuries, they only had riot shield and battons - fully armed soldiers came and got them (i think it was on the temple mount so they werent armed at the time).

well they tried with one missle not long ago - it would have looked pretty stupid if they had failed again.

he deserved to die and it was israels decision to make re encouraging others to join. Id say him dieing is less likely to encourage people to join hamas than a say some normal civilians.

I was thinking about tear gas and rubber bullets which I suppose can still be lethal but are pretty effective. I wasn't advocating riot shields and battons. Not sure about your comments about less than lethal ammo looking bad on tv?

don't underestimate the effect and cause of what each side is fighting for.

as much as the sheikh is a "suspected" terrorist (i'm saying suspected because i do not have hardcore proof myself that he is....what i believe him to be is a different thing).....he also was the spiritual leader of his movement and to alot of other palestinians....

yes, it might be true that in his spiritual preachings he incited war and terror against the israelis...but nevertheless people look up to him where in a sense he is the "pope"...............those who have stayed down from arms because they thought that he and hamas was enough to protect them will now find a loss in security, and the only way they might see to bring them up again is to give hamas the support it needs...

he is the leader of a group that has killed 454 (or thereabouts) people and injured more than 2000.

He deserved to die - and lets not use any of this bullshit "lack of evidence" thing either how many of you dont think he was the leader of the group that killed (and claimed responsibility for these killings?

Im sure the israelis could have issued a court summons and tried to prove it in court.... i can see how well that would have gone.

The palistinians releying on him for protection - do you realise how stupid that sounds what happened when he launched an attack? were they safer or more likely to be killed?

I dont think hamas is going to have any significant increase in support from this other than in the determination of those already in the group which has been weakened by successive assisinations - last year they were responsible for 20 attacks the year before it was more than 50.

Anyone see robert fisk driveling about attacking leaders?

Yip, he drivels alot lately.

I used to like some of his writing.....now I find it so banal and predictable.

I have resisted this thread and just lurked about as I don't want to get involved but good just to watch for once! I am fascinated by the Mid East. I have travelled there, have friends there and studied it quite intensively from time to time.

I have always been (over many years) slightly pro-Palestinian though detest violence against civilians.

Have always thought that Israel as the bigger power should resist terrorism and negotiate through non violent means.

Have read the posts here with interest as many of them are pretty reasonable and switched on.

I guess we'd all agree the situation is horrid and just disagree on how to solve it.

Over the last six months or so I've begun to swing around alot more to the Israeli way of thinking however. What are they meant to do?

I think, in the current situation, the BEST thing that could happen would be unilateral Israeli disengagement, a big fuck off wall a la Gaza and and end to all settlements. As long as the wall is not used to "grab" land then what excuse do the Palestinians have to resist it. The Israelis can legitimately say 'you're coming and blowing up innocent people so we have no other option'.

Fuck this is a ramble post

Re Yassin the Hamas leader and his assasination and whether it will cause more problems than solve, I think the Jury is out....

I've always been a fan of democracy...

if you like democracy tooo, then you can't be pro-israel... it just don't make sense...

judging from some of your previous comments it would appear not..


it was apreemptive strike....

Why is that neil? (specifically)

Well israel is doing some good things, by pulling out of the territories etc and with the talking of 2 states, dismantling settlement etc these are good things...

but this wasn't always the way.....

but if you where you have a referendum asking all the people of the area israeli and palestinian what they wanted to happen... support for 2 states, dismantling of settlements, pulling out etc.... these things would all be supported by most of the population... these things are what right wing israeli's were not (and in some cases still not) willing to do.....

if you've been pro-israel for a while it show you have contempt for internation law and democracy

Errrr, yeah, kindda forgets that Israel is the only free and fair democracy in the entire Middle East.....

I think arafat should be shot but i know it will make the overall situation worse. He is the one responsible for the palistinains plight and is using them as a tool to get his agenda (and make himself rich at the same time) we have just discussed this in chat so ill leave it as you know my opinions and theyre arent much different to your own other than a few minor details

I really feel sorry for the palistinians theyve been let down by arafat and shat on by the arab world.

I also feel sorry for israel and i think the hope lies with israel as palistine isnt going to change till there has been seperation for some time. I think israel deserves more than its got and that it should be allowed some security buffers as its history has been pretty bloody..bloody.

what?... maybe you should be paying more attention d &c

Israels problems are simply american foreign policy IMO

how do reconcile that with the fact thy have been having trouble since the 1950's?

i dont.....

i take that back...that was badly phrased...

what i meant was.....put yourself in the shoes of an average palestinian...is hamas more than just a terrorist organisation to them? it is true that alot of us believe that yassin being a "spiritual leader" was just a front to coax palestinians into supporting their cause

however, what does the average palestinian think though? if arafat doesn't seem to be doing anything for them, what kind of weight does yassin have on them?

people need support....not in military terms....there is a reason why ten thousand palestinians would parade yassin's coffin......they obviously view him in a different light than we do......this is not to say that they agree with terror attacks, but obviously yassin meant more to them than a terrorist...

it is difficult to understand the complexity of this relationship....we see yassin as an outright murderer....so does israel.....but we have to realize that this doesn't mean that the palestinians view him in the same light.....

the most famous chinese emperor of all time, shih huang ti (the guy who built the great wall), was a well known tyrant before he came into power. he waged war upon all the independant territories, killing everyone that would stop him. he was an invader, his tactics were cruel, he showed no mercy and during the time everyone hated him.

it was only after he finished his conquest that people saw his true motives...throughout his life he saw china as a country filled with civil war.....his ambition was to unify the whole of china.....to him he would use whatever means and through his unification china knew peace for once in a very very long time....no more were there warlords fighting with one another for land

i am in no way a supporter of hamas and yes yassin deserved to die....but understand that the methods of his execution only caused more problems.....and one reason behind that was because alot of people just simply don't recognise that hamas have different meanings to us and to the palestinians.....and therein lies the crux of the problem

we think we're taking out a terrorist....to those 10 000 palestinians, israel just took out their spiritual leader......

- Harakat al-Muqaama al-Islamiya (HAMAS)

http://www.hamas.org/

HAMAS was formed in August 1988 in the West Bank by Sheik Ahmad Yassine as competition to al-Fatah (Arafat's group) for political leadership of the 1.8 million Palestinians in the occupied zones. Yassine was a refugee in 1948 and is well connected to the Ikwhan, or the Muslim Brotherhood, in Egypt. He controlled all the Muslim organizations in Gaza as a holy man. When the intifada began, he created HAMAS to lend support and provide an alternative to the PLO. In May 1989 he was charged with manslaughter and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The nearly blind, paraplegic, 61-year-old Sheik Ahmed Yassine was released in October 1997 to kick start the peace process. Yassine was one of 11 children, and remains poor despite the fact he handled millions of dollars in funds. He lived in a three-room flat in the Sabra area of Gaza City. He was jailed in 1989 and was released either because the Israelis did not want him to die in prison or as a token gesture for a botched Mossad hit on another HAMAS leader. The lack of terrorist acts since his release means that the aging and ailing Yassin and Arafat have struck a deal to chill out and see if the Israelis live up to their word (and to cash those U.S. peace checks).

Currently, the group is supported by about 30 percent of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and is more powerful than Fatah, the PLO's military wing. The intifada (which began in the summer of 198 hardened HAMAS into the most ardent and powerful group defending the Palestinians' perceived right to not only self-determination, but to the destruction of Israel. Part of their success strategy is a decentralized structure based on the Muslim Brotherhood, a popular Islamic fundamentalist group. HAMAS has been having its lunch handed to it by Shin Bet (the Israeli Secret Police). In August of '95, Shin Bet held a news conference to gloat over the capture of Abdel Nasser Issa, 27, and his apprentice, considered to be the head bomb maker for HAMAS. Both men credited Yehiya Ayash-aka "The Engineer"-as the man who taught them their bomb-making skills in the Gaza Strip. Issa is accused of recruiting and transporting suicide bombers. The arrest also confirmed that the group's spiritual mentor, Sheik Izzadine Khalil, is now in Damascus. Khalil was deported from Israel in 1992.

But in a turn of events for HAMAS, Ayash was assassinated by Shin Bet in January 1996 in a daring cellular phone explosion in Gaza City. Most Israelis rejoiced, while others pondered how many Palestinians Ayash had taught his trade to and how many of those would employ their new skills to avenge their mentor's death.

For now, there are plenty of angry 14- to 20-year-olds to toss rocks, pull triggers and vaporize themselves for HAMAS. The only university these kids have a chance of attending is the ultra-radical Islamic University of Gaza.

HAMAS is short for Harakat al-Muqaama al-Islamiya (Islamic Resistance Movement), but also means zeal or enthusiasm in Arabic. HAMAS members are not the well-trained military terrorists of al-Fatah but a youthful cadre of young Palestinians mostly enlisted from the poorest parts of the Occupied Territories. Most believe that they will find salvation and martyrdom by destroying Israel. Every member is sworn to destroy Israel and to create a new Islamic state based on the Koran. Initially, their campaign of rock throwing turned to stabbing Israeli citizens, including teenage schoolchildren. After HAMAS killed five Israeli Defense Force members, 415 HAMAS members were exiled to southern Lebanon by the Israelis, provoking an international outcry. In the seven years of intifada, Israelis have killed more than 2,000 Palestinians. HAMAS has slain more than 575 collaborators and more than 160 Israelis. The attacks have escalated in their frequency and nature, including the recent bombing of a Tel Aviv bus. HAMAS is expected to continue to terrorize Israelis into the foreseeable future, and Yasir Arafat and his Palestinian police will be expected to control HAMAS, thereby pitting Muslim against Muslim to maintain peace with the Jews, creating another schism in the Middle East. The Jordanian chapter, which was shut down in late 1999, was the most hawkish of the bunch and was credited with the July 1995 bombing in Ramat Gan.

HAMAS is gaining hard-core supporters from former PLO sympathizers. It has an office in Tehran, where they get financial support and receive military training from Hezbollah.

Id just like to reiiterate this bit cos i feel its important




why do we think this is..?

Hamas gets it power from a mix of religion and socio-economic circumstances.....

Its a mix of religious indoctrination, the belief that matyr is a ticket straight to heaven....
and the fact that they simple just don't have anything to live for, can't see any furture or any chance of bettering their circumstances....


give them something to live for... set up clinics, and schools (things that hamas is doing ... and therefore getting even more support), and you take away the power of hamas..... its simple....

teh US is good at throwing money at things, they instead of throwing money at the refugeee camps are instead throwing money to build tanks and attack helicopters

Hrm why arent the countries that pushed the palistinian refugees into this area providing care to them, the arabs owe more to the palistinians than israel or america.

america would have to do it indirectly and i beleive some countries are already paying large amounts of money to prop up the palistinian state. Maybe arafat could spend some of the $900million he has on clinics...

yeah you could argue about whoes responsiblity it is bob (but you're right in part), and meanwhile people die on both sides... or you could just deal with the situation...

interesting developments

Hizbollah and Hamas merging:

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4677665

it's not easy for the arab countries to lend support to the palestinians....

for one, politics.......the complexity of politics with the EU and US regarding how they would react if the Arab countries helped palestine....

also, amongst the arab countries there's also some friction.....but that is not to say that they will never unite for a common cause....