CloseTheSOA
29-12-2005, 18:52
Oddly, Erlanger failed to quote prominent Israeli politicians who criticized Israel as the election story broke. The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz Daily paraphrased Yossi Beilin, Chairman of the left of center Meretz-Yahad party, saying “Hamas' strong showing in the elections is the "rotten fruit" of the Israeli government's policy, which has destroyed the ruling infrastructure of the Palestinian Authority over the past five years.”
Ami Ayalon, a former head of Israel’s powerful domestic intelligence services the Shin Bet, told Le Figaro in France, “Hamas' victory on Thursday in the West Bank is the result of Sharon's policy." Because of Sharon's treatment of Fatah and the PA, "most Palestinians are convinced that the Fatah has failed and Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip is the result of terror."
Israel originally supported Hamas when it was founded in 1987 as an alternative to the PLO, another fact ignored by the media. Nonetheless, Fateh, the lead party in the PLO, gambled that it would be possible to negotiate a peace agreement with Israel that would allow the creation of a viable Palestinian state. So far Fateh has lost. A succession of Israeli governments has instead often seemed intent on proving correct Hamas’ assertion that Israel only understands force.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=9367
The US corporate media has started to examine Hamas’ victories in Palestinian municipal elections last Thursday. However, if the New York Times’ coverage is any indication, an honest evaluation of Israel’s role in increasing Hamas’ popularity is unlikely. Revelations over the last year have forced the US corporate media, with the New York Times at the forefront, to re-evaluate their role in promoting the Iraq war and occupation. Sadly, no such re-evaluation is underway with respect to Israel/Palestine. Israeli occupation, expansionism and human rights abuses still generally pass without comment.
On Sunday, the New York Times published one of the first analytical articles by a US newspaper on Hamas’ Thursday municipal election successes, Jerusalem Bureau Chief Steven Erlanger’s “In Era After Arafat, Islamic Militants are Edging into Power” (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/international/middleeast/18mideast.html). Erlanger explains Fateh’s losses and Hamas’ gains as purely a function of internal Palestinian politics. He gives no indication that Israeli violence and refusal to negotiate helped to radicalize Palestinians by undermining Fateh, the secular, centrist party that attempted to negotiate peace, and thereby strengthening Hamas, a religious party which has tended to reject negotiation and favor armed struggle.
Erlanger blames Hamas’ gains on a laundry list of Fateh’s failures - the “uninspiring personality” of Yasser Arafat’s successor Mahmoud Abbas, Abbas’ “lack of ability or will to use his [Arafat’s] aggressive tactics”, Abbas’ refusal “to jettison the old guard or to crack down and provide law and order in the streets”, the reality that Arafat’s “Palestinian Authority was criticized for corruption, indolence and a failure to care about ordinary Palestinians”, and the “generational struggle between those who were Arafat cronies and went into exile with him and those in their 40's who grew up at home after the 1967 war, under Israeli occupation.” These crucial factors deserve readers’ attention, but they are only half the story.
Ami Ayalon, a former head of Israel’s powerful domestic intelligence services the Shin Bet, told Le Figaro in France, “Hamas' victory on Thursday in the West Bank is the result of Sharon's policy." Because of Sharon's treatment of Fatah and the PA, "most Palestinians are convinced that the Fatah has failed and Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip is the result of terror."
Israel originally supported Hamas when it was founded in 1987 as an alternative to the PLO, another fact ignored by the media. Nonetheless, Fateh, the lead party in the PLO, gambled that it would be possible to negotiate a peace agreement with Israel that would allow the creation of a viable Palestinian state. So far Fateh has lost. A succession of Israeli governments has instead often seemed intent on proving correct Hamas’ assertion that Israel only understands force.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=9367
The US corporate media has started to examine Hamas’ victories in Palestinian municipal elections last Thursday. However, if the New York Times’ coverage is any indication, an honest evaluation of Israel’s role in increasing Hamas’ popularity is unlikely. Revelations over the last year have forced the US corporate media, with the New York Times at the forefront, to re-evaluate their role in promoting the Iraq war and occupation. Sadly, no such re-evaluation is underway with respect to Israel/Palestine. Israeli occupation, expansionism and human rights abuses still generally pass without comment.
On Sunday, the New York Times published one of the first analytical articles by a US newspaper on Hamas’ Thursday municipal election successes, Jerusalem Bureau Chief Steven Erlanger’s “In Era After Arafat, Islamic Militants are Edging into Power” (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/international/middleeast/18mideast.html). Erlanger explains Fateh’s losses and Hamas’ gains as purely a function of internal Palestinian politics. He gives no indication that Israeli violence and refusal to negotiate helped to radicalize Palestinians by undermining Fateh, the secular, centrist party that attempted to negotiate peace, and thereby strengthening Hamas, a religious party which has tended to reject negotiation and favor armed struggle.
Erlanger blames Hamas’ gains on a laundry list of Fateh’s failures - the “uninspiring personality” of Yasser Arafat’s successor Mahmoud Abbas, Abbas’ “lack of ability or will to use his [Arafat’s] aggressive tactics”, Abbas’ refusal “to jettison the old guard or to crack down and provide law and order in the streets”, the reality that Arafat’s “Palestinian Authority was criticized for corruption, indolence and a failure to care about ordinary Palestinians”, and the “generational struggle between those who were Arafat cronies and went into exile with him and those in their 40's who grew up at home after the 1967 war, under Israeli occupation.” These crucial factors deserve readers’ attention, but they are only half the story.