Hamas, Terrorism and Media Complicity

Hamas is a terrorist organisation. It is backed by Iran which sends it arms via Egypt. It has been waging a double war: a war against Israel and a war against the Palestinian people. It cares little about the Palestinian people, but cares much about its number one goal: the destruction of Israel.

Yet the Western media is guilty of complicity in Hamas terrorism. This is so in at least two ways. One, by misrepresenting what the aims and objectives of Hamas are really about – and ignoring or distorting the situation Israel faces in this conflict – the mainstream media in the West is in fact siding with Hamas.

And by the way it covers the actual conflict – both current and recent – it also is in effect aiding and abetting the enemy. Let me examine the first point in a bit more detail. The Western MSM seems to want to conceal the real purposes of Hamas – which is the elimination of the State of Israel. And it wants us to believe a number of myths, including the idea that if Israel would stop its “aggression” and sit down and negotiate with Hamas, a peaceful solution could be found.

But is that in fact the case? Is Hamas eager to try diplomatic measures to deal with the Palestinian situation? Simply reading the Hamas Charter would dispel this foolish idea. The Charter (The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement), issued in August of 1988, not only declares its intentions regarding the destruction of Israel, but makes it quite plain that negotiations and diplomacy are out of bounds for Hamas. Let me simply offer you in full Article Thirteen of the Charter:

“Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight. ‘Allah will be prominent, but most people do not know.’

“Now and then the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question. Some accept, others reject the idea, for this or other reason, with one stipulation or more for consent to convening the conference and participating in it. Knowing the parties constituting the conference, their past and present attitudes towards Muslim problems, the Islamic Resistance Movement does not consider these conferences capable of realising the demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. These conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Muslims as arbitraters. When did the infidels do justice to the believers?

“‘But the Jews will not be pleased with thee, neither the Christians, until thou follow their religion; say, The direction of Allah is the true direction. And verily if thou follow their desires, after the knowledge which hath been given thee, thou shalt find no patron or protector against Allah.’ (The Cow – verse 120).

“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with. As is said in the honourable Hadith:

“‘The people of Syria are Allah’s lash in His land. He wreaks His vengeance through them against whomsoever He wishes among His slaves. It is unthinkable that those who are double-faced among them should prosper over the faithful. They will certainly die out of grief and desperation’.”

Plenty of other media myths about Hamas could be discussed here. But let me now focus on the second point I raised: the way in which the Western media portrays the conflict, and how it really is siding with the enemy here. Consider its coverage of civilian casualties in Gaza.

As has been noted time and time again, Hamas is quite happy to imbed itself in residential and civilian areas (hospitals, schools, mosques, etc). Thus any move by Israel to take out Hamas militants will almost certainly result in some unintended civilian casualties. Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields, and so the death of Palestinian civilians is the deliberate and wilful intention of the Hamas terrorists.

Dennis Prager picks up this theme in his opinion column today. He uses the last Great War as an example: “If during World War II, Western news media had reported German and Japanese civilian casualties in the same detail and with the same sympathy they report Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza, it is doubtful that the Nazis and the Japanese militarists would have lost that war. Certainly, at the very least, the anti-Nazi, anti-Fascist war effort would have been severely compromised.”

“The analogy is entirely apt. Hamas is on the same moral level as the two World War II enemies. Do those who condemn Israel for its attacks on Hamas fighters that have tragically resulted in hundreds of civilian Palestinian deaths also condemn the Allied bombings of German and Japanese military targets that resulted in far more civilian deaths? I suspect not since most critics of Israel still regard World War II as a moral war. The overriding issue, therefore, is whether fighting Hamas is moral. If it is, then the unintended death of Palestinian civilians is a tragedy, not an evil (except on the part of Hamas, because it situates its fighters and its missiles among civilians, including schools).”

Thus Hamas is not at all concerned about the death of Palestinian civilians. But what about Israel? Says Prager, it “would be difficult nearly to the point of impossibility, to find Israeli or other Jews who celebrate the deaths of Palestinian civilians. Jews both within and outside of Israel cringe when they see pictures of dead Palestinian men, women, and children in Gaza. For thousands of years at their Passover seders, Jews have removed wine from their cups to ceremonially weep for the Egyptians – their erstwhile slave owners for 400 years – who died during the Jews exodus. Jews have never stopped weeping for enemies.”

“The opposite is the case with the large majority of Palestinians. It would be quite difficult to find many Palestinians who do not celebrate the deaths of Israeli Jews or non-Israeli Jews. This is not only reflected in Palestinian polls that show majority support for terrorism – and terrorism means killing innocent Jews – it is also reflected in Palestinian media, Palestinian schools, and Palestinian mosques that routinely glorify murderers of Jews, and refer to all Jews as monkeys and the like.”

James Lewis raises similar concerns about the media jumping in bed with Hamas: “The Hamas War is now beginning to look like a ritual Kabuki play. We know all the moves — all we can do is watch how well the actors play out their well-worn moves. Except that this is not a play, and real lives are being lost. The key is not the terrorists. They are stuck in their ways. The real key is the international media – who are hardly neutral observers as they like to pretend. The international leftist media are essential players in this melodrama.”

“Put it this way – do you really think that the Arab civilians in Gaza are volunteering to be human shields for Hamas? Some of the biggest fanatics, maybe – but how many of Gaza’s 1.4 million civilians are really prepared to die, along with their families, when Israel inevitably retaliates against thousands of Hamas rockets? How many Gaza Arabs care less for their children than for their masters? How many would flee from Gaza if Hamas let them?”

He concludes: “The media-terrorist collusion is completely symbiotic – they are both essential for the drama to work. Separate the terrorists from the media, and you have heat without oxygen – no explosion. The simple fact is that we are seeing repeated crimes against humanity, an endless collusion between the terror masters and the dominant media, resulting in a reign of terror that blights the lives of millions of people and kills unforgiveable numbers, both in Israel and its neighbors. Media + terrorism = death and destruction. Maybe we can’t change the terrorists, but Americans can hold their media responsible. It’s time to choke off their supply of oxygen.”

The Western MSM has a lot to answer for in this awful conflict. This is not to say that Israel is perfect or free of its own moral shortcomings. But there is no moral equivalence between the only democracy in the Middle East – Israel – and a bloodthirsty terrorist organisation which has not the slightest desire of sitting down and talking with Israel, but seeks instead its elimination. Hamas is largely to blame for this mess, yet the MSM manages to turn this completely around and make Israel out to be the guilty ogre. As Lewis says, we must stand against this media complicity with terrorism.

http://townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2009/01/13/guess_who_cares_about_dead_palestinians_jews!
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/01/the_media_collude_in_terrorist.html

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