Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

COLUMN: Hamas election hurts Palestinians
By Marlin Caddell
The Crimson White (U. Alabama)
02/01/2006

(U-WIRE) TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — As the 2006 election approaches in Alabama, let's just forget about voting for Bob Riley or Don Siegelman for governor. Let's find the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, elect him to office and ask him to help us form multicultural unity in our state.

What? That doesn't sound appealing to everybody? Well, that's basically what the Palestinians did just this past week by giving the terrorist organization Hamas 76 seats in their 132-member parliament.

Through the first democratic vote in the past decade, the Palestinian people voted an organization to power whose entire goal has been to wipe Israel off the map and annihilate the Jewish people.

In other words, they shot themselves in their collective foot. "Hey, I know what we should do. Let's elect terrorists to run our government. That'll get us some legitimacy. That'll make the world recognize us for the great seekers of peace we are."

All this election did for me was confirm my worst fears about the Palestinian people. The pretense is over.

Through the democratic process, the Palestinians just said they want Israel destroyed and the Israelis killed. Any hope for peace through this new government has been virtually squashed because world leaders are refusing to even deal with them.

The Jewish newspaper Haaretz reports that Hamas's political leader, Khaled Meshal, said the new government will only honor agreements made by the Palestinian Authority "if it serves our people."

Then he said something even more telling: "We will not recognize the Israeli occupation, but we are realistic and we know things are done gradually ... Being against occupation does not mean I can cancel Israel in moments."

Read the quote again. So Meshal is saying Hamas wants to destroy Israel, but realizes it doesn't have the power to destroy it immediately. So Hamas will destroy Israel gradually.

But things get even worse for the Palestinian people.

More than stopping the peace process dead in its tracks, the Palestinians have shot themselves again because they won't be getting any more money from the United States anytime soon.

This year, the U.S. government was scheduled to provide $150 million in assistance for Palestinian development and other needs, according to The Washington Post. Another $84 million was scheduled for distribution through the United Nations.

But that money just went bye-bye.

Some commentators have made statements to the effect that Hamas didn't necessarily win because of their stance on the destruction of Israel but because the vote is just "a huge Palestinian protest vote" against Fatah, another political party in Palestine.

London-based Council for Arab-British Understanding director Chris Doyle told the British Daily Star, "Palestinians clearly want to see a cleaner and more transparent government able to deliver on its promises."

Promises of what, I wonder. A promise for the destruction of Israel?

This may be the first time the world has gotten a glimpse of what the Palestinians really want. They didn't want the Oslo Peace Accords. They don't want the Roadmap to Peace.

They want war.

Like President Bush, I always thought that if people were given the ability to vote, they would always vote for peaceable solutions to problems - that the Palestinians would vote for peace if they were given the chance.

But I was wrong. The problem that exists in Palestine isn't just a government that wants to see Jewish blood run in the streets. Normal Palestinians would rather live in squalor without the world's monetary help just to see more Jews die.

That's really sad. I can't understand that kind of hate, and I never will.

I pity them.

[ Back to Student Voices ]