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Roslyn Ross's avatar

Most things the Israelis say about Hamas are propaganda. Even if the faction, one of a dozen in the Palestinian Resistance, were as corrupt and violent as the Israelis claim, the reality is that in the 2006 Legislative Election, Palestinians voted for Hamas because they were considered to be less corrupt and more efficient than the PLO. The Israeli colonial Government overturned that election result with the help of the US.

Most Hamas senior figures have been in prison in Israel for decades and Israel needed to keep the group functional in Gaza so it had an excuse to turn it into a concentration camp and use the prisoners to test its weapons, for sale to the world.

The reason why Israel helped create Hamas in the late 80's was because the PLO was secular and Israel wanted/needed a group with Islamic fundamentalist connections so it could wave its flag that poor little Israel was threatened by the entire fanatical Islamic world. In that colonial way of things the Israelis used Hamas as a foil against the PLO, eventually murdering Yasser Arafat.

Israel needs an enemy it can call terrorist and if they do not exist, Israel invents them, with the help of the US.

It is worth noting that the UN and other international aid agencies have stated that Hamas has been remarkably efficient in easing the horrors of life for the prisoners in Gaza and while accused of setting up a defacto Government, with no other choices available, was instrumental in creating levels of order in daily life and Government institutions which helped maintain them.

Of course Hamas, which works with other factions in the Palestinian resistance would take any money the Israelis allowed to dribble through to them in order to survive.

The simple reality is that Israel has no right to occupy Gaza or the rest of Palestine beyond pre-67 borders and as the occupier, colonial ruler and aggressor, the focus must totally be on Israel. Whatever sins Hamas may have committed can be dealt with once the Occupation of Palestine ends. Until then it is irrelevant.

As Gabor Mate said, take the worst things that have been said about Hamas, multiply it by a thousand times and it would still not come close to the atrocities committed by the Israelis.

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