The hypocritical fashion in which the world, and in particular the international media, relate to the Israeli-Arab conflict was again demonstrated most vividly over the past several days. Continue reading »

Once again, the international media is breathless over what it perceives as the “moderating” of Hamas.

The source of their barely-contained excitement this time: An ostensibly conciliatory letter from Hamas Authority Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

First reports gleefully declared that in the letter, which was sent Tuesday, Zahar made mention of the “two-state solution,” a de facto recognition of Israel.

On Wednesday Zahar took some of the wind out of the media’s sails, insisting that “such a sentence was not used in the letter.”

He showed a copy to Reuters, which confirmed the letter made no such mention.

But still the media clings to its insistance Zahar is moderating, pointing to his written desire to live in peace with regional neighbors:

“Like all other people in the world, we look forward to live in peace and security for our people to live a dignified live in freedom and independence, side by side with our neighbors in this sacred part of the world.”

However, there is little reason to take this as evidence Hamas is suddenly willing to live in peaceful coexistence with the Jewish state, or is even moving in that direction.

The wording of the allegedly conciliatory portion of the letter doesn’t even mention Israel.

If Hamas were truly moderating then why not simply come out and say, “We no longer seek Israel’s destruction, and respect its right to exist side-by-side with us”?

Everyone insists the “Palestinians” voted for Hamas for purely socio-economic reasons anyway, so they certainly won’t be betraying their voters with such a policy shift.

Zahar’s interview with China’s Xinhua news agency earlier this week also makes it hard to believe he or his Hamas colleagues are undergoing a process of moderation.

“I dream of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home which does not show Israel on it. …our dream to have our independent state on all historic Palestine will become real one day. I’m certain of this because there is no place for the state of Israel on this land.”

Those remarks received considerably less coverage than Zahar’s letter to Annan, perhaps not surprisingly, as they obviously give the lie to claims that upon assuming power Hamas ceased to be a belligerent terrorist organization.

The honey-coated wording of the last sentence of Zahar’s letter is likely the product of Hamas’ growing adeptness at smooth-talking the Palestinian Authority’s financial benefactors, rather than some kind of conciliatory message.

In other words, its just a sales pitch. And a fairly transparent one at that.

Since Hamas’ overwhelming electoral victory in January, the international media has gone to great lengths to assuage global shock and dismay over this turn of events by insisting the Palestinian Arabs voted for the blood-soaked terrorists for purely socio-economic reasons.

The latest example of this self-delusion comes from the pen of chief CNN Palestinian-apologist Christiane Amanpour, who wrote in a piece titled “From terrorism to trash collection”:

“During this year’s election, Palestinians fed up with the rampant corruption and lawlessness of the late Yasser Arafat’s government turned to the only alternative, Hamas.”

This theory, however, was easily discredited by analyst Robert Satloff (via HonestReporting.com:

“Other parties on the ballot offered alternatives to Fatah, including the good-government Third Way, but Hamas won 74 seats and the squeaky-clean liberals just 2. Indeed, it is an uncomfortable truth that an absolute majority of Palestinians voted for parties publicly committed to the destruction of Israel… To suggest that Palestinians were oblivious to the political meaning of their votes is, as President Bush has argued in a different context, the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Even if the assertions of Amanpour and her colleagues did contain a hint of truth, it must be remembered that there are many other organizations besides Hamas providing charitable social services to the Palestinian Arabs - including the United States government.

So why is Washington so hated and Hamas is popular enough to become the sole ruling part of the “Palestinian” legislature?

The difference between Hamas and all these other groups, organizations and governments is one thing - Jewish body count.

Hamas is widely popular - far more so than any other humanitarian group - precisely because it has combined its social efforts with a successful campaign of mass murder against Israel’s Jews.

Without the blood is has spilled, Hamas could not stand out as it does today and could not have performed such a massive electoral coup.

The international media this week unsurprisingly and enthusiastically took Hamas’ desire to hold talks with the Middle East Quartet as proof of its assertion that the terror group had moderated upon assuming power.

Hamas it seems is doing a good job of following Arafat’s example of covering its blood-stained hands in silk gloves in its dealings with the outside world.

Very quickly will the international media start to totally ignore more hostile statements like this:

“The Koran is our constitution, Mohammed is our prophet, jihad [holy war] is our path and dying for the sake of Allah is our biggest wish.”

And this:

“We cannot recognize Israel. The land of Palestine is ours and not for the Jews.”

In favor of statements made for Western consumption, such as this:

Hamas “won’t spare any effort to reach a just peace in the region…we’re not warmongers and we don’t call for terrorism and bloodshed.”

Of course, none of the above statements, even the supposedly “moderate” one, says anything about peaceful coexistence with the Jewish state.

A “just peace” for Hamas means the eradication of Israel and its replacement with an Arab Muslim state.