Scientific Observations on the Growth of Islamist Infection in Gaza
Laboratory in which to experiment or petri dish in which the evolution of infection can be observed? At Small Wars Journal, former UN observer in Lebanon and Gaza and former DoD counter-insurgency advisor Gary Anderson, thinks laboratory:
The current situation in Gaza is a laboratory for the kind of conflicts that we are likely to see in the immediate future throughout the world. The best case solution would be to broker an agreement where the Hamas radicals and the more moderate Fatah faction can agree to accept that the existence of Israel is a fact and for Hamas to stop shooting rockets at the Israelis and threatening to annihilate them, which Hamas is not in a position to do in any case. If that fails, the big question for America and her allies is whether or not to support a Fatah military attempt to retake Gaza.
Anderson goes on to discuss what Fatah needs to do, and what Israel and the United States need to do to help Fatah do that.
I’d suggest the notion that Fatah will either accomplish any kind of fundamental reform or be in any position in a year’s time to militarily take Gaza, which at this point would require either an overland, amphibious or airborne assault, is absurd. The idea that it might accomplish any of that as anything more than the window dressing in a U.S./Israeli storefront … anyway, here is the most sensible and realistic thing in this essay:
The Hamas victory in Gaza was not necessarily a bad thing. The Palestinians have long needed a dash of cold water. Their great weakness is that the Palestinians have always found others to blame. To be sure, they will still try to do so. Until they realize that their future is in their own hands, they will never be a viable society.
I’d further suggest that rather than a laboratory in which we should tinker, Gaza is better viewed as a petri dish, in which the world and Muslims in particular, can observe the stunted and festering growth of an Islamic extremist infection in isolation, and the consequences of poor use of the ballot box.
Rather than attempting some kind of Bay of Pigs invasion, I’d suggest that Gaza can be left alone. That is to say, contained, fed, and subjected to attack as needed. It will be a nightmare for those Palestinians who are trapped there. Let those who want to migrate to the West Bank do so, if they can be determined not to be Hamas operatives. Keep rewarding West Bank Palestinians for good behavior, and make payments to Fatah subject to good goverance and anti-corruption measures. Let the West Bank be the laboratory. Let the Palestinians, in Gaza and in the West Bank, and the Arab world in general, figure out for themselves that honest government and a recognition of basic facts will better serve their interests. State ostensibly that this is the expectation, and leave it to the Arabs to figure out if they want to begin acting rationally, or keep blaming Israel and the United States while Palestinians suffer in Gaza.
Topics: Palestinians
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:50 am on Saturday, July 7, 2007
25 Responses to “Scientific Observations on the Growth of Islamist Infection in Gaza”
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July 7th, 2007 at 9:54 am
“…to broker an agreement where the Hamas radicals and the more moderate Fatah faction can agree to accept that the existence of Israel”
I always think that’s funny (sad funny) when someone writes words like that. The contradiction between Hamas’ training videos, supply routes, focus on training and technology and longer range rockets & missiles to reach even further into Israel, Hamas’ raison d’être being the destruction of the Israeli state, and that alone.
Hamas in Gaza is more or less an extension of Palestine under Yasir Arafat. Recently I read that Arafat “…used nationalism to promote terrorism.”
Hamas is no different. The notion that its main goal is a viable state for the beleaguered Palestinians should be recognized as nothing more than the convenient lie, simply the remaining vestiges of legitimacy, but somewhat beside the point .
As empty as those endless diplomatic encounters with the terrorist Arafat to “broker” a peace in the region.
I was slightly relieved at the recent exposure of the petri dish that is Hamas in Gaza.
At least it clears up the r fuzziness around the edges. Or should.
July 7th, 2007 at 10:28 am
I’m struck by Mr. Anderson’s calm assumption that Fatah, given the right support and then left more or less to its own devices, will “do the right thing”. My own feeling is yours: wall Gaza off and let them lie in the bed they made, and let the West Bank and the rest of the Arab world observe what happens. If reasonable people emerge, at last, then so be it, but don’t hold your breath.
July 7th, 2007 at 10:59 am
I agree with the “isolate and observe” part of your suggestion; I disagree with the “feed, etc.” part. Put a lid on the petri dish, i.e., seal it off from access to Israel; add nothing. Let the “peaceful, moderate” muslims from the surrounding islamia add what they want, with the caveat that if they add violence toward Israel or The West, America will add violence-squared to them. If the muslim nations want closed, sharia-lite or sharia-supersized, societies with stoneage cultures, The West must put these CDC category B biohazards in a heavily isolated situation with equipment in place for rapid extermination of the “culture”. The bad news for The West and Christianity, is that this “virus” follows the same historical path epidemiologically, politically, emotionally, as HIV did 25 years ago, and with the same protected media- created victim class status,
July 7th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Excellent counterargument, Jules. Mr. Anderson still subscribes to the fantasy that Fatah is some sort of competent government, which they never were. Fatah’s one saving grace is that it is primarily secular in nature. And that may not be enough.
July 7th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
“Keep rewarding West Bank Palestinians for good behavior, and make payments to Fatah subject to good governance and anti-corruption measures.”
What part of the past leads you to believe that this will have a positive effect?
July 7th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
By cutting off funds to Hamas, we’ve just given Iran a reason to fund (and influence) them.
Another neocon triumph.
July 7th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
So you admit Iran is the enemy, alphie. By all means, let Iran fund them and reveal itself in all its murderous colors.
July 7th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Nice try, Reb.
Trying to starve 1.5 million people to death simply because you don’t care for their leaders’ politics is hardly the road to the moral high ground.
Providing relief to those people is, though.
Too late to change that now.
July 7th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
I think Iran already does fund Hamas.
At the very least, enable it.
Maybe with some of those weapons it buys from its oil buddy, China.
Claiming starvation in Gaza as (largely) a function of shutting off the spigot of sundry “entitlement” payments doesn’t really wash.
July 7th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Nice sidestep, alphie. Israel has already pledged to let food shipments into Gaza. And Iran is still the enemy.
July 7th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
By cutting off funds to Hamas, we’ve just given Iran a reason to fund (and influence) them.
Like Iran isn’t funding Hamas already, so that’s not a big deal, ALPHTARD™.
July 8th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
The sum of Alphie’s comments amount to farts in a crowded elevator. I suspect that’s what he does when not mashing his keyboard at people here.
An islamist cripple in a elevator would rupture his colostomy bag a hurl his infectious human waste at his/her fellow occupants. That all radical islam has to offer humanity.
All Islamists are emotional, mental, devepmental cripples–stifled by hate and unable to comprehend the world of tolerance and progress that has their backward selfs behind. A degree in medicine does not denote worldly intelligence. It can have a wounded child-like view of world behind it–Qutb, Zawahiri, and now the London plot prove this.
All Islamists are metaphorical grossly deformed quadriplegics. Like all ethnic cleansing hate groups they have forfeited their claim to calling themselves “human”.
Flagellums. Amoebas. Alphagellum.
July 8th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
A curious post for someone who claims to be “4Iraq.”
Methinks your geographical mask is slipping….
July 8th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
ALF,
Being anti-Islamist is a prerequisite for being pro-Iraqi.
July 8th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Come on, jrv,
Like a real Iraqi would give a rat’s ass about Hamas.
You guys have become so transparent you’re invisible.
July 8th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
ALF,
4iraqisfuture’s post did not mention Hamas in particular. It was a general statement against Islamism. I post very rarely here and I don’t know if 4iraqisfuture has claimed to be an actual Iraqi or not. One doesn’t have to be an Iraqi to be for it’s future, does one?
I assure you that real Iraqi’s are very much concerned by Islamism. Just ask the Iraqis whose relatives have been beheaded by al-Queda. Or ask the mother and father whose 11 year old son was baked in an oven and served to them at dinner as an al-Queda warning to others.
July 8th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
jrv,
Almost all Iraqis are anti-terrorist.
They are rather pro-Islam, though.
Brush up them propaganda skills, guys.
You are currently about as believable as that phony Arabic news channel Bush gave his pals millions of dollars to start.
July 8th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
ALF,
Followers of Islam are NOT all Islamists. Granted a meaningful proportion of them are. However most want to go about their lives just as you and I do.
What is not believable? Educate yourself here:
http://michaelyon-online.com/wp/baqubah-update-05-july-2007.htm
or here:
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/bless-the-beasts-and-children.htm
This is not propaganda, but the reality of the horrors that al-Queda has perpetrated on the innocents in Iraq.
Ah, the left…
Drink the Kool Aid and you instantly become endowed with superior mental abilities and an ironic sense of humor that your inferiors can’t comprehend.
That gives you the right, no the obligation, to let others know that you are better in every way to them.
Then you can start a fifth rate blog with as much traffic as Butte, Montana during a blizzard. In the words of Carl the Caddyshack greens keeper “So I got that goin’ for me.”
Three posts, and three lame put downs. Ignore the issues, logic be damned, and all bullshit all the time. Hallmarks of left-wing moonbats.
July 8th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Hey people, please don’t feed the troll so much. It gets hard to find the sense among the responses to troll droppings.
Giving people in the Middle East a chance to learn “the consequences of poor use of the ballot box” would be a good thing. A very good thing. Islamists want people to use it AND loose it, to Taliban style rule by thuggery.
Isn’t it strange how we have to care about feeding 1.5 million people in Gaza, but Hamas and Fatah didn’t? I ithink that 40/60 years (six day war / 1948 independance war) is long enough for refugee aid to stop. I do care about the people in Gaza, but 60 years of handouts is no way to build a healthy society.
July 8th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
As if the deaths suffered by the people in Yon’s report were in some way more horrible than the ones suffered by the victims of a mis-targeted bomb or a bullet fired by a nervous checkpoint guard, jrv.
The deaths of innocents are the reason America and her allies are so unpopular in the Middle East.
It’s only arrogance that let’s you believe we still have the right to have any say there.
We don’t.
it’s time to go.
July 8th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
DavidP,
You are right of course. I can’t help myself from responding to vapid posts from “useful idiots”. As usual, they always have the last word…no matter how lame it is.
July 8th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Aphie,
Apparently you didn’t read the entire dispatch by Yon. The American Army is wildly popular in areas that have been secured from al-Queda atrocities. We were unpopular before Iraq. Think Khobar Towers, the first and second WTC bombings, the USS Cole, the African embassy bombings and other atrocities. It is the Islamist mentality that is to blame, not US policy. The occasional casualty from American forces is horrible and regrettable. But comparing them to the monstrous atrocities committed as deliberate acts by al-Queda is the product of a misinformed person. I will pray for you, my friend. I mean that sincerely. My apologies for any previous remarks that were offensive.
Shalom
July 8th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
jrv11–Thanks for you insights and interpretations. I could not have responded better myself. I was about to quote Gordon from the NYT for Islamist atrocities in Diyala. Yon’s account is better, grittier.
From my perspective there is no point in being civil with the fart in the elevator. It has shown nothing but disrespect to those who come here and sincerely care about Iraq and humanity at large. If the fart in the elevator were to READ Michael Yon or even Gordon from the NYT they could provide it with these facts of Islamist atrocities.
But the fart in elevator does not read, or learn, or bring anything to table but corrosive bile and verbal diarrhea. The fart follows a predicable pattern; it merely denies, blames bush/the US, or takes a contrary stance to any argument. Any stance taken is usually a moral equivalent stance like the one finally did it for you—comparing AQ atrocities, random car bombs deliberately targeting civilians, to civilian deaths that occur in course of US or NATO actions that we show regret for and will avoid collateral damage at all costs.
The fart in the elevator actually delights in playing the “uniformed moral equivalent” dupe. This draws some people out into providing links and facts, which are of no use of course to a fart in the wind whose “mind” is made up and doesn’t read anyway.
The fart in the elevator has always been rooting for the terrorists. So has the NYT. Now it is out in the open. Pure unadulterated gore awaits us if we follow their “plan”. Their pathetic plea put forth so they can stop reading about “bush’s war” and start reading about “bush’s retreat”. The fart in elevator needs some serious face time with victims of terrorism and their families, in room without windows.
American stock is on the rise in the Mideast by word of mouth–not by some poorly conceived propaganda radio channel. We have fought and died together for their freedoms. As stated in Yon’s article I believe ‘they know now we are not there for their oil’. They see we want to win and go home. This was never about stealing Iraq’s oil.
Saddam and sons stole Iraq’s oil. Saddam and his Sunni cronies wrecked Iraq.
July 9th, 2007 at 5:42 am
Yon’s account also relies on a great deal of…trust, 4Somewhere.
Trust most Americans lost somewhere around Abu Ghraib.
July 9th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
jihad boy, don’t ever presume to speak for or understand most Americans. If there’s one thing you’ve demonstrated ad nauseum, it’s that you haven’t a clue about what what most Americans think.