I want to be sympathetic toward Gazan citizens. I really do.
I keep trying to convince myself that a large number of them are victims, who are stuck with hamas\’s governance whether they want it or not (no elections have been held since 2006 – not that elections mattered even then, since hamas, which won a majority of the legislative seats, but decided it wanted them all – violently removed the 45 fatah party winners and just took over.)
But it is hard to summon much sympathy when I read something like this – as excerpted from Maher Abukhater\’s article for the Los Angeles Times:
Alarge majority of Palestinians believe that the Islamist movementHamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, won its 50-day war with Israel,a new Palestinian public opinion poll said Tuesday.
Thepoll, conducted by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center forPolicy and Survey Research (PSR) in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,found overwhelming support for Hamas and its leadership, and far lessapproval for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and hisFatah party.
Asa result, according to the poll, 79% of respondents said that Hamashad won the Gaza war, while only 3% believe Israel did. Some 17% saidboth sides were losers.
Inaddition, nearly eight in 10 Palestinians blame Israel for thebreakout of the war while only 5% believe Hamas was responsible.
Accordingto the poll, overall support for Hamas was a striking 88%; thePalestinian Authority lagged far behind at 36%. In spite of the heavycost of the war on the Palestinians, 94% of the respondents said theywere satisfied with Hamas\’ military performance and 78% weresatisfied with its defense of civilians in Gaza.
In fairness, let\’s remember that this “poll” was not exactly conducted under neutral circumstances. Less than two weeks ago 18 Gazans were summarily executed for being suspected of collaborating with Israel – which doesn\’t give much of a reason for someone who thinks hamas is wrong to say so out loud.
But if those data are anywhere near true, they are astonishing.
Forget the part about blaming Israel. Israel just reduced much of Gaza to rubble, which makes it a tad difficult for Gazans to be introspective in assessing blame.
What amazes me is the idea that hamas, which has overseen the massive destruction of Gaza, is seen by a vast majority as winning the war.
Here\’s the news, Mr. and Ms. Gazan: regardless of who is to blame for the war, what happened to Gaza is not winning the war.
Elsewhere in the article it states that this opinion is predicated on “hamas\’ ability to stand up to Israeli\’s vaunted military for 50 days, something no Arab country has ever been able to do”.
Which is utterly ludicrous.
Israel never decimated any Arab country – certainly not anywhere near what it has done to Gaza. Those wars ended when Arab heads of state, recognizing the war was lost, decided it was pointless to continue and have more of their countries destroyed.
By contrast, hamas, which doesn\’t care one bit about whether its people die or its infrastructure is bombed to the stone age, kept fighting anyway.
How self destructive was this? Even Pyrrhus would have shook his head and said “Are these guys out of their minds?”
Imagine being an Israeli and reading these findings. Your country just made mincemeat of Gaza — and 94% of the people there say they are satisfied with hamas\’ military performance? 78% say hamas, which literally told its citizens to ignore Israeli warnings about imminent bombings and stay right in the line of fire, satisfactorily defended them? What would you make of that, other than that they place zero value on life, quality of life, or living conditions?
That is why it is hard to be sympathetic to the people of Gaza. If the above data are anywhere near accurate, they are telling us – emphatically – that they like being blown to smithereens. It is great news to them. So they\’ll be on board for hamas to keep attacking Israel.
That doesn\’t leave Israel much choice, does it?
