You're going to hear this a lot, even on the Israeli side of the story. In the constant dehumanization campaign against the Palestinian people, who have become the victims of the largest colonially racist ethnic cleansing operations of the 20th Century, the Palestinians themselves have been painted time and time again as inheritors of the Nazi master plan to destroy and massacre the Jewish people. This reduces the status of Palestinians to SS Waffen troops, and their leaders to Hitlers, Goerings and Himmlers, so therefore they are war criminals and terrorists and must be killed... or the killing of Palestinian people should not be atoned for because they were probably going to be terrorists anyways. The fact of the matter is that Israel's ongoing military operations against the Palestinian people and their livelihoods and homes over the past 50 years have created new generations of anti-Semites amongst the Palestinian youth, though I doubt that there are a lot of them out there. It's just that their voices get heard quite often by the Western media.

The prime explanation comes from the notion that the first Palestinian resistance movements, while socialist, were also national socialist, and therefore "fascist". While Labor Zionism may actually be viewed as such, I don't tend to be a violator of Godwin's Law. Now that these resistance groups have either diminished in power or have become suckups to Israel, like Fatah, there is one other group that is still being branded as some sort of Palestinian "Nazi" group: Hamas. While I despise Hamas's military operations, Hamas has done much to help the Palestinian people by providing aid and money to Palestinian families, while Fatah keeps sinking into fiscal and moral corruption. Yet we still view videos of Hamas militants who spew out seemingly disgusting anti-Semitic slurs and threats, such as "we will drink the blood of the Yahood" (Yahood literally translates as "Jews", but it has been sadly become almost interchangeable with "Zionists", for most Jews that many Middle Easterners come across in the media are Zionist).

But is Hamas seriously anti-Semitic? I was surfing the net the other day, and came across a lot of articles that had a lot to do with relations between Hamas senior officials and Jewish rabbis from all sorts of groups. I will point out a couple. For example, there was an article by Arthur Nelsen, which talks about the acclaimed rabbi of Tekoa, Menachem Froman (As a side note, I read about rabbi Froman in Richard Ben Cramer's book, How Israel Lost. From what I read, Froman is a likeable guy. He is a very moderate rabbi, and actually has had several interfaith sessions with Muslim clerics, and is one of the several Jewish, and Zionist, figures who have come out in support of better Jewish-Muslim relations.). Nelsen mentions that,

The initiative was drawn up by Menachem Froman, the rabbi of Tekoa, a friend and associate of Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian president, and Sheikh Ahmad Yasin, the spiritual leader of Hamas assassinated by Israel in 2004. The plan was submitted to the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip and Damascus in July. It has the blessing of senior Jewish religious figures, including Shlomo Amar, the chief rabbi of Israel, and Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of the Shas party.

Ovadia Yosef, an Iraqi Jew, has been openly advocating for better relations with the Palestinians, and a more flexible policy with transfer committees and the such, though Shas has some overtly right-wing members. But what really got me there was that Froman was actually a friend of Sheikh Ahmad Yasin, the late Hamas leader. However, there are obstacles to this plan:

The peace initiative envisions a face-to-face meeting in Gaza between Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister, a delegation of rabbis and Muhammed Darwish, the spiritual leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel. This would provide a crucial springboard for the plan because the Israeli and Hamas administrations are politically unable to meet each other.

A formal ceasefire announcement would then be accompanied by a form of prisoner exchange involving women and those needing medical attention currently being held in Israel. That would lead to a full negotiating process covering settlements, Jerusalem, refugees and the establishment of a free Palestinian state. However, Hamas says that Israel's ongoing military operation in the Gaza Strip is preventing progress.

Phase C, anyone? Anyways, Hamas officials have been optimistic regarding this plan, and said that they would accept this incentive. The whole point here, however, is to provide ground for these relations. Hamas is not an anti-Semitic party, from what we have seen. If it were, it would have rejected Froman's offer. But get this: Froman already has several connections with Hamas and other Islamic officials, and they see such a connection as positive.

There's also the press release about a meeting with Neturei Karta, a controversial yet prominent anti-Zionist Jewish group. Why, then, has Hamas allowed them to speak and mingle with them? There can be only one explanation, and that is that the movement known as Hamas is far from anti-Semitic, but anti-Zionist. Hamas has even said it before, that it has shown that through its meetings with Jewish officials, both Zionist (like Froman) and anti-Zionist (like Neturei Karta), its actions, while despicable, are meant to drive out the Zionist occupier, but are in no way against the Jewish religion.

Take note: I deplore Hamas's actions against innocent Israelis, but one can see that after 50 years of brutal occupation, a state like Israel creates "monsters" out of its own monstrous actions. Does this make Hamas's actions justified? Not one bit when it involves innocent blood being wasted. I just hope that the abovementioned peace initiative works out should Israel want to continue existing, and a peaceful solution is implemented.

source: www.saracenarabianknight.blogspot.com

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