Hamas May Be Closer To Regional Legitimacy (Rashid Khalidi propaganda interview)

NPR ^ | November 19, 2012 | All Things Considered

[Qbert]

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

[Snip] For more on Hamas, we're joined now by Professor Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University. Welcome to the program once again.

[Snip]

SIEGEL: I mean, one reading of what's happening now is that Israel has demonstrated to Hamas that in exchange for rocket attacks on southern Israel, there will be the same kind of retaliation that there was at the end of 2008. How does that play with the Palestinian people? I mean, is Hamas regarded as a defender, as a resistant movement or is it in some way regarded as bringing down these terrible air attacks on them?

KHALIDI: Both. Ironically, when the Israelis do these kinds of things, it increases, in the short term, people's resentment of Israel, its occupation, its blockade, its siege, its incredible disproportionate use of firepower. I mean, you have a 30 to 1 kill ratio today.

SIEGEL: Although they would say, it's not for Hamas' lack of trying, they just haven't gotten better rockets yet.

KHALIDI: Absolutely. You have the iron dome system shooting down rockets. You have the complete inaccurately of many of the short range rockets. At the same time, everybody can see that the people who are getting hurt the most are Palestinians and that this resistance, so-called, is inflicting much more harm on the Palestinians than on the Israelis and is doing absolutely nothing to liberate Palestinian territory.

The calculus that it imposes on Hamas is also quite cruel. Either you sacrifice your own people, as they're doing in effect, or you take what the Israelis are dishing out in the form of siege and blockade and so forth. It's cruel, in particular, for the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, which is in the middle between these two rather cynical players.

[Qbert]

Obama's favorite Jew-hating professor weighs in...

[mojito]

NPR has a history of support for Hamas. I recall many years ago, before Hamas took over Gaza, hearing an NPR news report calling Hamas “an alleged terrorist organization.”

I did a spit take, and started yelling at the radio, “Alleged? Alleged!” It was really outrageous.

So I'm not surprised they're sucking up to an utter scumbag like Khalidi. They probably got a call from the WH asking if they'd put him on.

[richardtavor]

Israel should launch 11,000 rockets on hamas, to display a proportionate response...