Day By Day© by Chris Muir.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Be careful what you ask for....

Palestinians may be in for some unpleasantness in the future:

As the world focuses on the Israeli disengagement from Gaza, what's really happening in Gaza does not get much press. Indeed, with the terrorist organization Hamas very much in control of that area, Palestinians are getting a preview of might be in store for them after the Israeli withdrawal. *** [Hamas'] charter spells out its identity and goals: first, it is “one of the wings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine.” Then the “movement program is Islam. From it, it draws its ideas, ways of thinking and understanding of the universe, life and man.” Also, “Allah is its target, the prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.” *** Interestingly enough, as shown at length by famous Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes in a recent article of the Middle East Quarterly, some Palestinians have been realists about their fates. As one of them said: “The Hell of Israel is better than the paradise of Arafat.” A Gaza resident told her friend from the West Bank: “I can only tell you to pray that the Israelis don’t leave your town because the Jews are more human than Palestinians.” Also, in 2000 many Palestinians residing in East Jerusalem rushed to ask for Israeli citizenship to avoid being part of any future Palestinian entity.