So, the inmates are running the asylum.

[gregimotis]

When the Palestinians elected Hamas to help run their (semi)country, I was curious to see what would happen.

The last few days have been great (from my not-living-anywhere-near-the-actual-bullets point of view). Hamas takes over half of the Palestinian 'state' and Fatah in the other half. The sane world moving to quarantine the Hamas infection and try to treat Fatah as a workable party in it's own little fiefdom.
Interesting times

[gregimotis]

Unless you listen to Jimmy Carter

I keep trying to reply to this, and stopping because there's just too much to address - starting with this:


Sure Hamas was democratically elected - so what? If a people democratically elect a terrorist group to run the government, does Carter think we should accept the will of the Palestinians and declare war on the citizenry? I'm sure not. We have to either accept the election and begin the bombing in five minutes (to paraphrase Reagan) or ignore the election and continue treating Hamas as an outlaw.

At some point (as our own Mike Brewer said) you have to decide what side your on. I still believe Israel has made a lot of this trouble themselves, but Hamas has done a fantastic job for the Israeli PR department. Every time it's starts to look like something is going to work out, they blow somebody up. Lately they've taken to killing their own as often as not.

So maybe the Israelis have done some double dealing and maybe they've been a little quick on the trigger more than once (or twice). It used to be I was the first to point out the ugly conditions the Israelis impose on the occupied territories. Man I tell you though; the Israelis may be hard people, but those Palestinians elected suicide bombers to government and Jimmy Carter himself will tell you it was an honest vote.


It's not an accident that the thought process in my third paragraph contradicts my first - this is the way my thinking has been going the last year or so. I want to believe that the middle east is a few crazies, and a few dictators and a lot of helpless civilians who'd just as soon be left alone. Increasingly though, I see a whole culture of insanity. To the discomfort of my normally liberal leanings, the Palestinians themselves (and by extension Iran, Iraq, Syria, etc.) have been changing my mind. I still don't like the way the administration has handled it and I still suspect many Israelis would just as soon push the Palestinians into the sea as vice-versa. Still, the Jihad seems to be on and it's high time to quit pretending it isn't.