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Are the Gazans Who Voted for Hamas Ever Responsible for their Actions?
FrontPage Magazine ^ | July 21, 2014 | Daniel Greenfield

Posted on 07/22/2014 6:03:12 AM PDT by SJackson

Are the Gazans Who Voted for Hamas Ever Responsible for their Actions?

Posted By Daniel Greenfield On July 21, 2014 @ 8:14 pm In The Point | 13 Comments

Hamas didn’t just take power. It won an election. There was never any doubt then or before what its favorite tactics involved.

The media acts as if the Muslims in Gaza are in a category apart from Hamas, but they’re no more separate than the Japanese were from their government or the Germans were from their government. Less so since Hamas did win an election.

That’s the question that Thane Rosenbaum raises.

The people of Gaza overwhelmingly elected Hamas, a terrorist outfit dedicated to the destruction of Israel, as their designated representatives. Almost instantly Hamas began stockpiling weapons and using them against a more powerful foe with a solid track record of retaliation.

What did Gazans think was going to happen? Surely they must have understood on election night that their lives would now be suspended in a state of utter chaos. Life expectancy would be miserably low; children would be without a future. Staying alive would be a challenge, if staying alive even mattered anymore.

To make matters worse, Gazans sheltered terrorists and their weapons in their homes, right beside ottoman sofas and dirty diapers. When Israel warned them of impending attacks, the inhabitants defiantly refused to leave.

On some basic level, you forfeit your right to be called civilians when you freely elect members of a terrorist organization as statesmen, invite them to dinner with blood on their hands and allow them to set up shop in your living room as their base of operations. At that point you begin to look a lot more like conscripted soldiers than innocent civilians.

The soldier-civilian distinction has never mattered to the other side. As I’ve already documented, there are numerous Fatwas defining all Israelis as soldiers.  And Hamas and its supporters insist on defining all civilians as Jihadists.

Hamas does not recognize the distinction between fighters and civilians either on its side or on the Israeli side. That makes the conventional laws of wars useless.

I had discussed this topic earlier in The Myth of Collective Punishment.

When the Palestinian Authority unity government of Hamas and the PLO wants to go to the UN, it is said to represent the political will of a populace. But when Hamas attacks Israel, suddenly it’s not a collective act, but an individual crime. If Israel targets Hamas leaders, then it’s attacking political representatives. But if Israel blockades an area run by terrorists who claim to be a state, it’s accused of engaging in collective punishment. The terrorists claim political immunity as leaders of a collective and immunity from collective attack as individuals, rather than leaders and citizens of a political entity.

The terrorists use rules that they don’t believe in and don’t follow against their enemies.

We have to come to terms with the fact that many of the rules of warfare that we follow have no application when fighting terrorists not only because the terrorists violate them, but because these rules are alien to them.



TOPICS: Editorial; Israel; War on Terror
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 07/22/2014 6:03:12 AM PDT by SJackson
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To: SJackson

Yes, time to accept RESPONSIBILITY for a change.


2 posted on 07/22/2014 6:05:17 AM PDT by Biggirl (“Go, do not be afraid, and serve”-Pope Francis)
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To: SJackson
Are the Gazans Who Voted for Hamas Ever Responsible for their Actions?

Probably not.

Sort of like Libs -- 'It was a good idea -- on paper' -- who do not take responsibility for their failed ideas or unintended consequences.
3 posted on 07/22/2014 6:06:09 AM PDT by TomGuy
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To: SJackson

No more so than obama voters are responsible for his actions...


4 posted on 07/22/2014 6:06:11 AM PDT by null and void (If Bill Clinton was the first black president, why isn't Barack Obama the first woman president?)
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

..................

5 posted on 07/22/2014 6:06:35 AM PDT by SJackson (government tampers with a freedom so fundamental, one shudders to think what lies ahead. Card Dolan)
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To: SJackson

To me, an innocent Gazan is the same as an innocent German in Nazi Germany: Probably destined to be collateral damage.


6 posted on 07/22/2014 6:07:22 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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To: SJackson
The Gazans voted for CHANGE and got HAMAS. They wanted to toss out the old PLO-FATAH guard. Then HAMAS staged a violent coup.
Now Gazans are paying for their mistake.

The Americans voted for CHANGE and got HAMAS...oops, I mean Barak Obama. They wanted to toss out the old (white, male) capitalist guard. Then the Muslim Brotherhood staged a quiet coup.
Now Americans are paying for their mistake.

7 posted on 07/22/2014 6:13:30 AM PDT by Netz
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To: SJackson

Rename Gaza to HAMASTAN!


8 posted on 07/22/2014 6:14:04 AM PDT by missnry (The truth will set you free ... and drive liberals crazy!)
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To: TomGuy

Kind of like fat people who blame McDonald’s for making them fat.


9 posted on 07/22/2014 6:15:07 AM PDT by mothball
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To: SJackson

How can they not be? The Hamas charter specifically calls for the destruction of Israel.


10 posted on 07/22/2014 6:23:49 AM PDT by edpc (Wilby 2016)
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To: SJackson

The majority of them, yes.


11 posted on 07/22/2014 6:26:36 AM PDT by sarasota
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To: missnry

I’d go for renaming it Glass Parking Lotistan, but that’s just me and I can dream.


12 posted on 07/22/2014 6:42:24 AM PDT by mikefive (RLTW)
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To: SJackson

They were giving out free disposable diapers to the nisaa’. Did Fatah give anyone free diapers? It was a no-brainer. Like free cell phones.


13 posted on 07/22/2014 7:11:48 AM PDT by Eleutheria5 (End the occupation. Annex today.)
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To: SJackson

Please add me to the ping list


14 posted on 07/22/2014 7:12:04 AM PDT by The Californian (The door to the room of success swings on the hinges of opposition. Bob Jones, Sr.)
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To: sarasota

15 posted on 07/22/2014 7:15:51 AM PDT by onedoug
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To: Netz

“Now Americans are paying for their mistake. “

Not even the first installment, yet. There’s interest on these things, you know.


16 posted on 07/22/2014 7:16:52 AM PDT by Eleutheria5 (End the occupation. Annex today.)
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To: Eleutheria5

Are US voters who voted for Obama responsible for their mistake?


17 posted on 07/22/2014 7:18:45 AM PDT by Eva
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To: SJackson
The terrorists use rules that they don’t believe in and don’t follow against their enemies.

Just like democrats.....

18 posted on 07/22/2014 7:18:56 AM PDT by papertyger
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To: onedoug

That’s the irony of it all.


19 posted on 07/22/2014 7:29:00 AM PDT by sarasota
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To: Eva

Damned straight. If they were merely misled by the media, it would be one thing. But they wanted the @#$@#ing free cell phones. THEY WANTED TO BELIEVE HIS LIES!


20 posted on 07/22/2014 8:28:22 AM PDT by Eleutheria5 (End the occupation. Annex today.)
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