[Peace-discuss] "I like this violence"

[David Green]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20070704/wl_mcclatchy/20070704bcmideastgaza_attn_national_foreign_editors_ytop
   
  This article, which appeared on the front page of the N-G Commentary section on Sunday, explains (unintentionally) a lot about why Americans are so "confused" about the Israel-Palestine conflict. It simply takes for granted that it's acceptable for the most powerful country in the world to violently overthrow a democratically-elected leadership in the weakest non-country in the world. It implies that this is a moral choice on the part of U.S. leaders, because Hamas is defined as a violent Islamist movement that wants to overthrow Israel. The rest of the article assumes that the U.S. would have wished for Fatah to dominate Gaza, which is not at all apparent. They simply wish for there to be ongoing chaos, with the focus on inter-Palestinian conflict rather than on Israel of the U.S.

"C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
  "The US clearly pushed for a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas, so 
much so that, a week before Mecca [where the two factions met in 
February 2007 and under the auspices of King Abdullah agreed to a unity 
government] the US envoy declared twice in an envoys' meeting in 
Washington how much 'I like this violence,' referring to the near civil 
war that was erupting in Gaza, in which civilians were being regularly 
killed and injured, because 'it means that other Palestinians are 
resisting Hamas.'"

--Alvaro de Soto, UN Special Co-ordinator for the Middle East Peace 
Process, in the final report he wrote before resigning in May 2007; 
Hamas won a democratic election in January of 2006 but didn't exactly 
benefit from the Bush administration's brave attempt to bring democracy 
to the Middle East.

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