Al-Ahram: "Whose resistance?"

Al-Ahram has certainly produced its share of overblown hysteria about the Gaza operation. One recent article quotes "ex-judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Fouad Riad" that Israel "'deliberately killed Palestinian children' with the aim of exterminating the population." "Exterminating the population"? The present article, "Whose resistance?" while offering the obligatory references to Israel's "customary violence and the brutality of its military machine," also observes, "Democratically elected or not, no one asked the Palestinian people if they wanted to confront Israel in the name of resistance." The author, Amr Hamzawy, offers some remarkable paragraphs denouncing Hamas:

From day one of the Israeli invasion, Hamas leaders excluded civilians from their calculations with their frequent cries of resistance to the bitter end, even if it means the annihilation of all the people in Gaza (according to Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Hamas government), their boasts of the legendary steadfastness of Gaza (Taher Al-Nunu, spokesman for the Hamas government), and their predictions of ultimate victory in spite of the death and bloodshed (Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal, head of Hamas's political bureau). The same essential arrogant indifference to the sanctity of civilian lives is also evidenced in commentaries on the part of many Arab intellectuals sympathetic with Hamas who portray the Hamas electoral victory in 2006 as a democratically-sanctioned mandate to wage resistance and a popular agreement in advance to accept the consequences of Hamas's subsequent decisions regardless of how calamitous the consequences.

What makes this even more regrettable is that these commentators have taken a very specific electoral moment, randomly lifted it from its social and political contexts, and implicitly elevated its results to the level of a carte blanche to make even the most fateful decisions which, in the true sense of democracy, would demand a renewed appeal to the public instead of the mere presumption of public approval. Since it took over power independently in Gaza in the summer of 2007, Hamas and the factions allied with it never held a general referendum or a truly public dialogue in the interest of determining popular preferences with regard to whether or not to continue with the relative calm with Israel regardless of the ongoing blockade or to escalate the confrontation with the occupation beneath the banner of resistance. No one asked the Palestinian people themselves. Rather Hamas, in an authoritarian manner, decided to end the truce and to visit the exorbitant costs of this decision upon the presumed supporters of its decision and upon objectors alike, without either of these bodies of opinion having a say in the matter. What kind of popular mandate are the Arab intellectuals who are supporting Hamas talking about? What kind of democracy do they have in mind? Democracy is not a once-and-for-all vote. Rather its strength resides in the principle of ongoing popular participation, which entails the periodic soliciting of public opinion and abiding by the consensus of the majority.

In conjunction with their haughty disregard for the lives and welfare of civilians, the producers of resistance narratives have totally suspended the requirements for a rational and objective assessment of the current political situation surrounding the Palestinian cause. [...]

You won't like the whole article, but that was a reasonably sustained display of good sense.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad