What About the 1993 WTC Bombing!?!
Reader comment on item: Hamas vs. America

Submitted by Alex (United States), May 6, 2005 at 00:49

Hamas is most definitely a threat to America, both indirectly, in its attacks on our ally Israel, and directly, in terms of the physical security of our citizens both at home and abroad. Nonetheless, even if Hamas were not a direct threat to America, America should still not only order it "dismantled," but also specify that it should be the Israelis who dismantle it. Anything less would be--as the old Right Guard deodorant commercial used to say--uncivilized.

But seriously, as former FBI official Oliver "Buck" Revell explained so well in Steve Emerson's documentary, "Jihad in America," any attempts by the United States to publicly distance itself from Israel in order to assuage (read: appease) Islamist hostility ignores the central fact that America, not Israel, is the one target that unites all Islamists.

They see Israel as America's puppet, as the "illegitimate offspring of the Great Satan," as the "head of the snake" (of which Israel is the tail).

Hence, they are likely to see American pressure on Israel as a ploy, a ploy that questions their "manliness" in a political culture that values fighting and that remains deeply suspicious of the intent of those who offer to negotiate (one is reminded here of Dr. Bernard Lewis' insight that it is the "tempter," not the warmonger, whom Khomeini fears in the United States).

Furthermore, the supposed "ideological" differences between Hamas and al-Qaida are really just a tribalistically-minded turf-war between local activists focused on "national liberation" and globalist-minded ideologues intent on world-wide revolution in which Palestine's "national liberation" is important only insofar as it accords with the movement's goals at any one moment (this could be said of any local Islamist outfit who clashes with bin Laden's/Khamenei's global aspirations).

My guess is that with the power vacuum created in Gaza by the death of Yassin, Rantisi and Arafat, the international Hamas leaders (Mashal, Marzook, Hamdan) more oriented toward and connected with international jihadists--and their sponsoring states--will increasingly dictate the Hamas agenda, thus further nullifying the argument that Hamas is Israel's problem, not that of the United States. Dream on...President Bush.

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