How George W. Bush Helped Hamas Come to Power In Bush’s naïveté about the magic of elections, he ignored a crucial point about democracy. By Fred Kaplan Oct 24, 2023 https://slate.com/news-and-politics...-george-w-bush-2006-palestinian-election.html A Hamas militant waves his party’s flag as he celebrates the radical Islamist movement’s victory in the general election on Jan. 26, 2006. Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images In a speech during President Biden’s visit to Israel last week, he urged the nation’s military to do all it can to minimize civilian casualties in its war with Hamas. “The vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas,” he said. “Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people.” How did Hamas come to power in Gaza in the first place? That history is worth revisiting now, two and a half weeks into the war, as it tests whether Biden’s point is true. It was in January 2006 that the Palestinian territories held what turned out to be their last parliamentary elections. Hamas won a bare plurality of votes (44 percent to the more moderate Fatah party’s 41 percent) but, given the electoral system, a strong majority of seats (74 to 45). Neither party was keen on sharing power. Fighting broke out between the two. When a unity government was finally formed in June 2007, Hamas broke the deal, started murdering Fatah members, and, in the end, took total control of the Gaza Strip. Those who weren’t killed fled to the West Bank, and the territories have remained split ever since.............
Hamas is an organization with leadership. Hamas run businesses and has professional fundraising, Runs many organizations at US universities Their conscience would be in a code of ethics and a mission statement
From wiki... Extrajudicial killings of rivals See also: Capital punishment in the Gaza Strip In addition to killing Israeli civilians and armed forces, Hamas has also murdered suspected Palestinian Israel collaborators and Fatah rivals.[356][357] According to the Associated Press, collaborating with Israel is a crime punishable by death in Gaza.[358] Hundreds of Palestinians were executed by both Hamas and Fatah during the First Intifada.[359] In the wake of the 2006 Israeli conflict with Gaza, Hamas was accused of systematically rounding up, torturing and summarily executing Fatah supporters suspected of supplying information to Israel. Human Rights Watch estimates several hundred Gazans were "maimed" and tortured in the aftermath of the conflict. Seventy-three Gazan men accused of "collaborating" had their arms and legs broken by "unidentified perpetrators", and 18 Palestinians accused of helping Israel were executed by Hamas security officials in the first days of the conflict.[360][361][362] In November 2012, Hamas's Izzedine al-Qassam brigade publicly executed six Gaza residents accused of collaborating with Israel. According to the witnesses, six alleged informers were shot dead one by one in Gaza City, while the corpse of the sixth victim was tied by a cable to the back of a motorcycle and dragged through the streets.[363] In 2013, Human Rights Watch issued a statement condemning Hamas for not investigating and giving a proper trial to the six men. Their statement was released the day before Hamas issued a deadline for "collaborators" to turn themselves in, or they will be pursued "without mercy".[364] During the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, Hamas executed at least 23 accused collaborators after three of its commanders were assassinated by Israeli forces, with Amnesty International also reporting instances of torture used by Hamas forces.[365][366] An Israeli source denied that any of the commanders had been targeted on the basis of human intelligence.[367] Frequent[ambiguous] killings of unarmed people have also occurred during Hamas-Fatah clashes.[368][369] NGOs have cited a number of summary executions as particular examples of violations of the rules of warfare, including the case of Muhammad Swairki, 28, a cook for Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's presidential guard, who was thrown to his death, with his hands and legs tied, from a 15-story apartment building in Gaza City.[370] Hamas security forces reportedly shoot and torture Palestinians who opposed Hamas rule in Gaza.[371] In one case, a Palestinian had criticized Hamas in a conversation on the street with some friends. Later that day, more than a dozen armed men with black masks and red kaffiyeh took the man from his home, and brought him to a solitary area where they shot him three times in the lower legs and ankles. The man told Human Rights Watch that he was not politically active.[360] On 14 August 2009, Hamas fighters stormed the Mosque of extremist cleric Abdel-Latif Moussa.[372] The cleric was protected by at least 100 fighters from Jund Ansar Allah ("Army of the Helpers of God"), an Islamist group with links to Al-Qaeda. The resulting battle left at least 13 people dead, including Moussa and six Hamas fighters, and 120 people injured.[373] According to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, during 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, Hamas killed more than 120 Palestinian youths for defying house arrest imposed on them by Hamas, in addition to 30–40 Palestinians killed by Hamas in extrajudicial executions after accusing them of being collaborators with Israel.[374] Referring to the killing of suspected collaborators, a Shin Bet official stated that "not even one" of those executed by Hamas provided any intelligence to Israel, while the Shin Bet officially "confirmed that those executed during Operation Protective Edge had all been held in prison in Gaza in the course of the hostilities".[367]
I am glad you finally recognize this. This is why Hamas are called TERRORISTS. For the sake of the civilians in Gaza, I hope the ceasefire holds and phases 2 & 3 move forward. The civilians in Gaza have endure quite a bit -- being governed by a terrorist organization and being stuck in the middle of a war between Hamas & the IDF -- many times being used as human shields by the terrorist group. It appears that Netanyahu is already back-peddling and seeking the least bit of an excuse to resume the offense. I would not bet on this ceasefire lasting on a gambling site. Netanyahu says Israel 'reserves right to resume war' and calls first phase a 'temporary ceasefire' https://www.bbc.com/news/live/crlkkdjw330t
I'm sorry you didn't detect the sarcasm. Both sides at fault, both sides are victims of their own foolishness. It's just that imo that I was hoping to expect better standards from the goody goods west, you know, the west with all the money, power, influence and God's bombs.
I can agree with you that both sides are victims of their own foolishness. Unfortunately I don't believe that Hamas will give up on their terrorist objectives and behavior. And I don't believe the Netanyahu right-wing government is interested in a longer-term ceasefire whatsoever; they will find some way to undermine it and start on the offense again in Gaza. IMO we will not see peace in Gaza until a more moderate government is put in place in Israel. The entire thing is a bloody mess and the victims are the civilians in Gaza.
100% Unfortunately imo American meddling is aggravating the situation. Israel feel emboldened and entitled. If America were to step away ............. oh wait, this will never happen because of religion. And so we continue to go around and around in circles, never learning, never progressing.