Twitchy is currently pushing a story about an appearance Nancy Pelosi made on CNN in which she made some comments about Hamas. Let me provide the relevant part of the transcript:
PELOSI: Well, we all – war is a deadly thing. And I have many Palestinians who live in my district and I am hearing them regularly about how their families are affected who live in the region. It’s a terrible thing. But let me just say that any missile that comes from someplace has a return address. And if Israel is responding to that address, then that’s a shame that the Palestinians are use – are rumored to be using children and families as shields for their missiles.
Should we all try to, first of all, avoid conflict, the Hamas initiated this. So again, this has to be something where we try to have the two-state solution, that we have to support – we have to support Abbas and his role as a leader there. We have to support Iron Dome to protect the Israelis from the missiles. We have to support the Palestinians and what they need. And we have to confer with the Qataris, who have told me over and over again that Hamas is a humanitarian organization, maybe they could use their influence to –
(CROSSTALK)
CROWLEY: The U.S. (INAUDIBLE) organization though, correct, to you? [Twitchy’s transcript of this portion: “The U.S. thinks they’re a terrorist organization though, correct? Do you?”]
PELOSI: Mmm-hmm.
CROWLEY: Yes.
PELOSI: We’ve had that discussion.
Now, Twitchy has apologized for running a headline calling Pelosi a “Jew-hating bitch” and for misrepresenting what Pelosi actually said. What she said is that the Qataris keep telling her that Hamas is a humanitarian organization but that she thinks that Hamas is a terrorist organization. Admittedly, the last part is a bit difficult to decipher from the audio but, at most, Pelosi was trying to suggest that maybe the government of Qatar could use their influence over Hamas to help modify their behavior. Nonetheless, Twitchy initially wrote that she had endorsed the view that Hamas is a humanitarian organization and the right went predictably crazy, accusing Pelosi of anti-Semitism, stupidity and mental instability.
Let me start off with the fact that Nancy Pelosi is contributing to making people stupid by arguing that Hamas initiated the current conflict. This is highly misleading, although the way events played out makes things just ambiguous enough to prevent me from saying that it’s an outright false statement. Still, stating that Hamas initiated this conflict is so simplistic that uttering those words actually makes people who hear them turn into half-morons.
Prior to the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank, Hamas had been actively suppressing rocket fire in the Gaza Strip. Other groups like Islamic Jihad were essentially being policed. Every once in a while a rocket did get fired into Israel, though this was not with the blessing of Hamas, but more a matter of their inability to suppress rocket fire completely.
When the teenagers were kidnapped, the government in Israel knew they had been executed almost immediately but pretended not to know this and let the Israeli public suffer in anguish over the fate of the boys for more than a week before “finding” their corpses. In the meantime, they used the search to round up dozens of members of Hamas and prisoners who had recently been released as part of the failed peace process. During this period, the government of Israel repeatedly blamed the Hamas government in Gaza for the murders in the West Bank, but they never produced any evidence and government officials basically think the killers were acting on their own initiative.
This is the true context within which Hamas decided to stop suppressing rocket fire into Israel and to begin using their own rockets. To say that Hamas initiated this war is either to accept the Israeli government’s lies about the kidnapping incident or it is to ignore the round up of Hamas leaders in the West Bank. In any case, Hamas had no particular reason to want a war with Israel right now, and they had been honoring a cease-fire agreement to the best of their abilities.
Then there is Twitchy. They label Hamas as a terrorist organization and they want you to stop all further thinking about the matter. Is Hamas more al-Qaeda or more Muslim Brotherhood? Why does that distinction matter? Who used to support Hamas but no longer does? Why did they stop supporting Hamas? What’s the difference between Fatah and Hamas and why did they recently announce a unity government? Why is Hamas popular in some circles? What kind of humanitarian work do they do?
These are the types of questions that, by labeling them as terrorists, don’t get asked or answered. But, if you don’t know the answers, you cannot understand this conflict.
Hamas is definitely a militant organization that has resorted to terrorism on a massive and deplorable scale in the past. They are also an organization that focuses of getting people access to health care, education, and basic nutrition. Their roots are with the Muslim Brotherhood which is a Sunni organization that is completely distinct from al-Qaeda. In the past, Hamas got much of its support from Iran and the Syrian regime, which no longer support Hamas because the fighting in Syria became a sectarian brawl between Sunnis and Shiites, and Hamas stood with the Sunnis. Hamas also lost the support of the Egyptian government when Morsi was overthrown in a military coup and the new leaders began a purge of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Fatah and Hamas recently settled their severe differences and announced a unity government. This was the result of the failure of the peace talks, which had excluded Hamas. Hamas’ decision to join a unity government showed, at once, that they had become quite weak and isolated and that they were willing to moderate their position in order to survive.
Indeed, while it’s true that Hamas’ charter calls for the elimination of Israel and that they have never formerly renounced their charter, their leaders have moderated their tone and their demands over the years. This is in addition to honoring a cease-fire over a number of years.
It should be remembered that Fatah is just another word for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) that became famous for stunts like murdering athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Simply labeling a group as a terrorist organization and then refusing to have any further discussion with or about them is not productive. It is not enlightening. And it cannot advance peace.
Hamas is under attack right now not because they had anything to do with the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers but because Israel didn’t want them to be in a unity government with Fatah, and because most of the governments in the region hate the Muslim Brotherhood at least as much as Israel does and don’t mind seeing them slaughtered.
But this is a little more difficult to understand than rockets and tunnels.
When the media and our political leaders are in collusion to make us stupid, it’s no wonder that we don’t know what the fuck we are talking about.
