Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

COLUMN: American citizenry oblivious to Hamas
By Don Donelson
Old Gold and Black (Wake Forest U.)
02/03/2006

(U-WIRE) WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Before he died, Americans could have elected Timothy McVeigh, a Nazi sympathizing, Oklahoma City Bombing whack job, and it would not have been as horrid as the recent election in the territory of Israel often referred to as Palestine. In case anyone wasn't paying attention, last week Palestinians gave a political mandate to a terrorist group. Hamas is now in legitimate control of the Palestinian Parliament, and in effect, the entire government.

In case you aren't familiar with the Hamas resume, they are a terrorist group of Muslim extremists that are responsible for uprisings causing over 4,500 deaths since 2000 alone.

Their niche is suicide bombings. In one eight-day span in 1996, Hamas carried out a string of suicide bombings that killed 60 innocent Israelis.

The people of Palestine voted 76 members of this cheery bunch to represent them in Parliament, giving them a substantial political majority.

If this isn't all the evidence we need to know exactly what kind of enemy we are up against, nothing short of Saddam Hussein rough-riding on the back of a nuke into Times Square will wake this country up.

This election should be sending a shockwave through our country, and no one is even talking about it. This election was a very loud, very clear message. There was a completely legitimate, democratic election, and the terrorists were given control of their government. What is next, al-Qaeda in 2008?

Suicide bombers are winning massive political victories in the Middle East, and all we care to do over here in the heartland is complain and moan about President George W. Bush wire-tapping some phones.

We need to wake up. Muslim extremists declared war on the west decades ago, and it is a zero-sum game for them. We need to understand exactly what is meant when we say extremists, as this isn't the same extreme as the Branch Davidians. It is not an isolated sect. Don't tell me the religion doesn't condone violence; it really doesn't make a bit of difference if it does or not.

The important fact is enough of the people practicing the religion believe it does. Seventy-seven point seven percent of able voters in Palestine cast votes, and they voted in support of extremist terrorists - seventy-seven percent! Here is what you need to do: read that last sentence again, take off your tie-dye Grateful Dead T-shirt and try to grasp the concept.

Appeasing and ignoring the terrorists is a failed experiment, with two presidents having tried it to varying degrees. President George H.W. Bush didn't take the threat seriously enough and the result was four outright attacks on America during the Bill Clinton presidency.

Clinton wholly ignored those attacks, and the result was a Tom Clancy novel played out for us on live television on Sept. 11.

I thought we would learn the lesson on that day, but clearly we have not. We assemble mass panels of bureaucrats to compile reports on why intelligence failed to prevent Sept. 11, and then with the other face scream bloody murder when our intelligence services taps a few phones to try and prevent the next one.

We don't need bureaucrats to tell us why the attacks weren't prevented. The answer is simple - not enough Americans have the stomach to do what is necessary. Want my suggestion? Take some Pepto Bismol.

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