The Hard Truth

GAZA CITY: A Palestinian militant from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, displays Qassam rockets during a rally in Gaza City 18 September 2005. (ABED/AFP/Getty Images)

Hamas is playing a dangerous game with Gazan lives – The Washington Post.

The hard truth is: yes. Just like the Assad regime in Syria, and Arab leaders in general, the calculus of Hamas leaders when it comes to the conduct of war and peace is rather different than what we are publicly told. Their ultimate mandate is not to protect their civilian population and build the state, but to protect their rule and increase their power, even at the cost of incurring heavy civilian casualties and destroying the state. If they can still retain control at the end, that’s victory enough for them.

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Jon Stewart – Just Another Fallen Idol

Jon Stewart Rips Apart How the Media Covers the Violence in Gaza – Mic.

Jon Stewart was quick to speak on the tragic developments in Gaza and to point out the asymmetric nature of the conflict. But on Syria, he remained silent until such time that Assad’s crackdown finally plunged the country into a civil war allowing for the emergence of Al-Nusra and ISIS. He, then, hosted guests like Fareed Zakaria whose main point was to insist on staying out of the fray, who spoke of all sides as being equally bad, and wondered where the good guys were, all while ignoring the asymmetric nature of the conflict. I long lost my respect for liberals like Jon. He could be brilliant at times, but his politics prevent him from being consistent, and that makes him a hypocrite. So, I don’t give a fuck anymore about how fair he chooses to treat certain issues. He’s just another ideologue.

Ah, the sheer lunacy of it all!

Mideast-Israel-Palest_Horo-31-965x543 — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a press conference at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, Friday, July 11, 2014. (photo credit: AP/Gali Tibbon, Pool)

Netanyahu finally speaks his mind | The Times of Israel.

If Netanyahu rejects a binational state and a fully sovereign Palestinian state, then, what does he endorse: apartheid “lite”? The expulsion of Palestinians into Egypt and Jordan? What other conclusions can one draw here? I mean a demilitarized entity encircled by walls and fences and crisscrossed by security checkpoints won’t even amount to a Lesotho-type state. Be that as it may, it’s clear that the Two-State Solution has by now taken its last breaths.

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Only Peace Can Counter Hate

Freedom for Palestine – OneWorld – YouTube.

Freedom for Palestine DOES NOT mean Death to Israel. It’s an endorsement of all relevant UN resolutions in this regard and of all peace talks premised on the notion of a two-state solution. If there are commenters on one side who clearly hate Jews, there are those on the other who evidently hate Arabs. To boot, both sets of haters have shown a willingness to kill. So long as this conflict is not resolved in a just manner, haters will keep scoring points and will keep making trouble. And Palestinians will keep getting denounced as terrorists by one set of people, and Israel will still be denounced as an apartheid sate by another. Media campaigns will not change this state of affairs, only peace can.