Blog Roundup: Hamas Edition

Todays Blogroundup focuses on Hamas. As we all know, this is a tiny minority of extremists so there is nothing to worry about, right!

*Damian Penny reports:

A Beeb report on a letter from the Hamas government's foreign minister to UN Secretary-General Koffi Annan cites a priceless excerpt:

The new Hamas-led Palestinian government has told the UN it wants to live in "freedom and independence side by side with our neighbours".

Unlike the hapless recipient of this missive, we can only surmise that by "neighbours", Mahmoud Zahar means Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Period. [Penny]

*Little Green Footballs on Terrorists who know how to work their audience. Charles points out that the above letter to Kofi Anan is in direct contrast to comments made a couple of days earlier by Hamas leaders regarding their genocidal dreams:

“I dreams of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home which does not show Israel on it,” he said. “I hope that our dream to have our independent state on all historic Palestine (including Israel).”

*A Western Heart has some interesting commentarty on Hamas. The following is from a Caroline Glick column in the Jerusalem Post with commentary in square brackets by MathewK.

In promoting and proselytizing jihad, Hamas will "support mosques and mosque facilities" and "ensure that places of worship serve both a missionary [jihad jihad jihad] and educational [careful with those wires, boys and girls] role in society." And the educational role of the mosques, like the role of schools and the media, will be to preach jihad. Hamas explains that its goal is to "improve our citizenry" with the goal of helping them "resist cultural normalization." The media under Hamas will receive "guidance... [similar to that dished out to western media, by associated Islamists, who flirted with publishing certain cartoons] so that they serve to elevate the Palestinian people and foster their perseverance and resistance."

*Hugh from "But I am a Liberal" offers a great critique of an idiotic indymedia article. Hugh asks why should we financially prop up a government that is hostile to us? .... Dictators and totalitarian regimes from around the region constantly talk about the oppression and poverty of the Palestinian people, so why don’t they contribute more to their cause?

Because it serves their interests to have Palestinians living in poverty. Otherwise who would they point their fingers at?

Speaking of funding the Palestinians, I noted in an earlier post an article by Jimmy Carter in which he says:

Abbas informed me after the election that the Palestinian Authority was $900 million in debt and that he would be unable to meet payrolls during February.

Lets see if we can find an extra $900m: A 2003 report by the International Monetary Fund revealed that Yasser Arafat diverted approximately $900 million from the PA Finance Ministry into secret accounts that he alone controlled. Forbes ranked Arafat number 6 on a list of the richest “kings, queens, and despots” with a fortune of $300 million.