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• Wednesday, January 7, 2009 04:44 PM

  Publicola

  "And Islamists - including Hamas - are indeed in a war against modernity."

  This is like saying the North Vietnamese were in a war against capitalism. Like Friedman, you misinterpret the ideology of Hamas as the basis for Hamas' struggle. Though Hamas does subscribe to many of the Islamist platforms [and the word itself is up for some debate, unless you can find it in a dictionary for me. My assumption is that it really does mean Islamic to Friedman given his racist writings and views]. Home grown movements like Hamas differ substantially from rootless trans-national movements such as Al Q'aeda. Hamas has priorities and objectives, and are obviously focused on objectives, not just battle with the West. The difference has been most recently on display in Hamas' pro-Democratic, pro-peace negotiation platform. Islamism, when used by the likes of Friedman, is an immutable appellation, used in the same way that previous American administration's used "communism'. Even Nixon learned that such simple-minded cookie cutter words were good for the military industrial complex, but ultimately bad for domestic security and foreign policy.

  All that having been said, you seem to share Friedman's fundamental disconnect from reality, which ignores the very real impact of settlement building, and of Israel's continued control of every aspect of Palestinian life in the West Bank and in Gaza, though less obviously (especially to people like yourself, who allow Friedman to direct their view of Arab history and current events). Certainly, Hamas has committed its share of antagonistic military activities, and against civilians. But Israel is more than a match for Hamas any day, at least in the eyes of Palestinians. Palestinians are continuously radicalized in each generation by Israel's exceptionalist bloody offensives and actions--first occupation; then self-serving land grabs in the form of peace talks; increased settlement building; dispossession of Jerusalemite Palestinians; the daily, grinding loss of life caused by the daily IDF occupation; and horrendous offensives causing vast amounts of Palestinian blood shed which seem to occur every two years nowadays. Each generation remembers these, though people like yourself and Friedman forget quite easily; each new generation experiences their own, such as Cast Lead.

  In short, you don't know jack about that which you are speaking.

  —omooex Read omooex's other letters
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