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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>this came from Jerusalem yesterday - worth a
read</FONT></DIV>
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<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><B><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">Hamas
and Us</SPAN></FONT></B></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><B><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">Gila
Svirsky</SPAN></FONT></B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><B><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">1)
Who’s to blame?</SPAN></FONT></B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">Listening to the reactions
of passersby at the recent Jerusalem vigil of Women in Black, you would think it
was our peaceful little group that put the Hamas into power. This stems
from Israeli right-wing politicians who are asserting that Hamas won because of
the Gaza withdrawal and other conciliatory overtures, i.e., “rewarding
terrorism”. Indeed, Bibi Netanyahu & co. are delighted with the Hamas
victory, on which they can now build a fear-saturated election campaign, and
return voters to the fold who lately had slipped into something more
moderate.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">But here’s my take on what
made Hamas victorious in the recent elections: Israel’s failure to sit
down and negotiate an end to the occupation. This is often phrased as “the
failure of Fatah to make progress on peace”, but they amount to the same
thing: the Fatah failed because Israel refused to offer any reward for
moderation, refusing to sit down and negotiate with them.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">And what about the
corruption claim – that voting for Hamas was also a vote against the corruption
of the Fatah politicians? This may have played a role for some voters, but
since when does corruption bring down a politician? Certainly not in
Israel, where Sharon’s corruption has been an open book, but forgiven by those
who support his politics. Corruption is tolerated when approval ratings
are high in other respects. The corruption of the previous Palestinian
government would have been overlooked, had the politicians only managed to show
some progress on ending the occupation.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><B><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">2) When
terrorists become politicians</SPAN></FONT></B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">I remember standing on the
balcony of my home in Jerusalem on a lovely May morning of 1977 and gasping when
I heard who had won the Israeli election: Menahem Begin, former head of a Jewish
terrorist organization that had killed 91 civilians by bombing the King David
Hotel in 1946. And then it was Begin who returned the Sinai Peninsula and
negotiated peace with Egypt. In 2001, Israel elected Ariel Sharon,
responsible for blood-soaked episodes in Qibiya, Beirut, Gaza, Sabra and
Shatila, and more. And then it was Sharon who returned Gaza – imperfect,
but a singularly important precedent.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">I condemn terrorism,
whether ‘rogue’ or state sanctioned, and I would never have voted for Hamas (or
Begin or Sharon). But who is better positioned than Hamas to reach a
compromise peace agreement? We have the mirror image of Israel in the
Palestinian election: Just as the Israeli right (Begin and Sharon) could
more easily make concessions than Yitzhak Rabin, who had to fight our right wing
all the way, so too the Hamas can mobilize more support for concessions than the
more moderate Fatah could now undertake.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><B><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">3)
About creeping fundamentalism</SPAN></FONT></B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">Yes, I am worried about
Hamas rule, particularly its domestic agenda in Palestine: I worry about
women, non-Muslims, journalists, gays, people in the arts, and all those who
benefit from the open society. To what extent will the Hamas increase the
role of Shari’a (Muslim) law in civilian life? Or religious education in
the schools? On the other hand, it’s quite evident that Palestinians have
experienced democracy and will not easily tolerate a closing of their
society.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">I take heart from this
week’s survey of the Palestinian population, published in the Palestinian
Authority’s <I><SPAN style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda</SPAN></I>
and reported in the <I><SPAN style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Jerusalem
Post</SPAN></I>*: </SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">84% of Palestinians
support a peace deal with Israel. In case you wondered if this includes
the Hamas, 75% of Hamas voters are opposed to calls for the destruction of
Israel. The Hamas knows that seculars comprise a large portion of their
constituency.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><B><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">4) And
who benefits from ending foreign aid?</SPAN></FONT></B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">So along come American and
Israeli politicians advocating for a policy that would isolate and punish the
Palestinians by withholding financial aid. Everyone knows this would
destabilize the fragile economy, harm the innocent (but not the politicians),
and foster increasing bitterness against the secular west. A much more
reasonable approach would be to extend support and see how responsibly Hamas
uses it. Or does someone have an interest in sowing chaos in the
Palestinian territories?</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">Yes, I too would like to
demand a renunciation of terrorism and violence as a precondition for talking
…I’d like to demand it from both sides. But realistically this has to be
done as part of the negotiations.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">Gila
Svirsky</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"></SPAN></FONT><FONT
face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">Jerusalem</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"></SPAN></FONT> </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">* <A
href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1138622512446&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1138622512446&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull</A>
</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=blue size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: blue; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">___________________</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=blue size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: blue; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">Gila
Svirsky</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=blue size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: blue; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">Coalition of
Women for Peace</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=blue size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: blue; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><A
href="http://www.coalitionofwomen.org/">www.coalitionofwomen.org</A></SPAN></FONT></P>
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style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></SPAN></FONT> </P></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>