You Seem So Out of Context
From a chat today at WashingtonPost.com with Daniel Byman, author of a new book entitled “Deadly Connections: States That Sponsor Terrorism”.
Owings Mills, Md.: Professor,
How would you fit Hamas’s (admittedly Democratic) takeover of the Palestinian Authority into your functional theory of terrorist-state connections? Hamas is likely to funnel any foreign aid to their terrorist infrastructure; does that make accomplices of any foreign donors? What tactics would you propose to Israel, the E.U., and the U.S. for diminishing Hamas’s capability for harm?
Daniel Byman: This is the question of the day.
Now that Hamas has won, it faces a whole new range of challenges — and thus a whole new range of potential pressure points. The effort so far to deny Hamas any financial support until it renounces terrorism and accepts the idea of Israel is a good first start. Hamas now has to deal with the huge host of problems the PA had, and money is essential for its survival. Moreover, if Hamas breaks the ceasefire and Israel responds the Palestinian people will hold Hamas responsible in a way they never did before.
That said, terrorist groups, including Hamas, have a remarkable propensity for illogic.
Gee, that sure was insightful Mr. Byman, did you copy and paste that response directly from Condy Rice? The one position that seems to be gaining popularity over ‘blowhard politician’ in Washington is ‘Israeli-state sponsored academic’ and Mr. Byman is the perfect proof.
Washington, D.C.: Most people of the world view Hamas as leading a legitimate fight against a brutal Israeli occupation. Don’t you agree that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians has been extremely harsh and barbaric (c’mon, which civilized nation can carry of extra judicial killings)? Why doesn’t the US and Britain work to moderate Israel’s treatment of Palestinians? Maybe that would be the most effective antidote to terrorism rather than bombing people to submission, which we tried in Iraq and doesn’t seem to be working real well.
Daniel Byman: We disagree on this. Hamas has repeatedly targeted noncombatants in its fight against Israel. While targeted killings have at times led to the deaths of innocents, this has not been their purpose and Israel has tried to minimize this.
Oh, thank you oh so much for clarifying! See, if the United States provides the bulk of Israel’s weapons, and then Israel uses its military to blow up a few people… well that’s not terrorism, that’s just combatting terrorism! It’s the civilized version of capitol punishment, and we should all be thankful that such a refined pencil pusher like Daniel Byman can help us differentiate between blowing up people intentionally and blowing up people accidentally.
Oh, and Mr. Byman, I really enjoyed your 2003 article about democracy in Iraq, where once again you show your propensity to copy and paste with more ‘stay the course’ rhetoric. Did Dick Cheney show up to your house with a barrel full of petro after you had the opportunity to pass your thinly-guised bull shit into academia?
While I disagree with Israel’s policy, you have to admit there is a difference between targetting women and children, and collateral damage. Not to the families of those killed of course, but there is a difference. However, if you compare how many Israelis have been killed to the number of Palestinians, then it’s clear that, even as collateral damage, their policies are immoral:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4294502.stm
I think a healthy dose of Chuck Norris is all that region needs.
That page is really good Kit. I had no idea that statistics like that exist. I think there are a lot of apologists in Washington and in the mainstream media for Israel which are a consequence of the influence of Israel and the industrial-military complex. Israel still receives 1 billion of aid a YEAR. And why? It is not a third world country and we already hand them millions in weapons a year. It’s not that I’m anti-Israel or anti-Semitic, but I get fed up with having to hear this bull shit time and time again: Israel is a state defending itself from terrorism. It is sometimes, but it is not displaying any discretion in its actions — and at times it basically inflicting ‘organized’ terrorism on Arabs/Palestinian’s.
I think this is will change in a generation though. The people in power are the generation who are either a) alive during the holocaust b) one generation removed from the holocaust, so they are more (blindly) sympathetic to Israel, almost to all costs. I think the current generation is far enough removed from the holocaust to make objective opinions about the status of the Middle East. I think this goes for a lot of Israeli’s and Jewish-Americans as well — they don’t see the black-and-white that their parents & grand-parents see. And at a certain point, I think all people will come to the rational that ‘yes, the holocaust was really, really bad, and Israel as a state has the right to exist, but the United Nations basically usurped land and allowed Israel to be formed and there have been atrocities on both sides that are not justified by any logic.’ And by the way (though I have heard the beaches of Israel are beautiful), most of the Middle East is baron, untenable DESERT. At times, I think that this is like two children fighting over a deflated basketball. You may win the tug of war, but you’re prize isn’t much.