2 Key differences between Hamas and PLO
Reader comment on item: No Pipe Dream

Submitted by Charles Martel (United States), Oct 22, 2007 at 13:47

I don't agree with Dr Pipes in being indifferent between PLO and Hamas. I agree with every Israeli government in preferring the PLO.

There are two important differences between secular nationalists like the PLO and Hamas:

1. As secular nationalists (albeit with an Islamist veneer and some reality) the PLO are more rational that Hamas -- which is why Israel prefers the PLO of the two.

2. The PLO is more like Algeria's FLN, or Nasserists or Baathists -- they have a specific but limited agenda of getting Westerners out of their land. When the FLN threw the French out of Algeria, that was absolutely, cold turkey, the end of the FLN as a terrorism issue (for France or anyone else.) Algeria has been a model third-world country, and a bulwark against Islamic radicalism.

I hope Israel survives, but I'm not optimistic (demographics are destiny and they're not pretty for Israel).

If Israel survives, great, but if Israel doesn't survive, I as an American would much rather deal with a PLO Palestine (ala FLN Algeria, Nasserist Egypt, Baathist Syria or Iraq) rather than a Hamas Palestine (ala Taliban, Saudi, Pakistan).

Unless we have been taken over by Moslems in the meantime (due to the good work of our current and future Idiots-in-Chief) we will certainly let Israelis come here, and although a defeat and disappointment, it won't be a second Holocaust.

[I (apparently like all Israeli governments so far) would rather deal with a (at least semi-) rational materialist like a Communist or a Nazi than someone who may genuinely believe Allah is whispering in their ear commanding them to destroy me.]

Hitler and Ahmedinijad might be equally dedicated to killing Jews, but only Ahmedinijad could possibly consider killing Jews more important than protecting Iranians. (Hitler didn't value German lives compared to his own as he was losing the war, but he would not have accepted a nuclear strike from Israel on Germany just to be killing Jews.)

Nazis or Communists (and the secular Arab nationalists are somewhere on that continuum) are materialists who may be deterred more reliably than the meta-rational Moslem.

Therefore, I strongly prefer the secular nationalist as the lesser of two evils.

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