Thursday, July 5, 2007
Some good behind-the-scenes stuff by Avi Issacharoff: Analysis: Lucky for Johnston, Hamas kept its promise
Hamas used the Doghmush gunmen as contract killers against Fatah (in the murder of Mousa Arafat), for the launching of Qassam rockets against Israel while declaring it was adhering to a cease-fire and, of course, for the abduction of Gilad Shalit.
The leader of the Army of Islam, Mumtaz Doghmush, used to spend time with the heads of the Hamas military wing, Ahmed al-Ja'abari, Ahmed al A'ndur and others...
...etc... Musing: One wonders how far democracy would have gotten in America if, instead of Republicans and Democrats, we had Republicans, Democrats, Hatfields and McCoys. A hardy "good luck" to democracy in the Middle East outside of Israel.
One wonders how far democracy would have gotten in America if, instead of Republicans and Democrats, we had Republicans, Democrats, Hatfields and McCoys.
As the article says, Hamas is pretty much solving that problem. Being a Hatfield doesn't seem like such an attractive plan anymore. Besides, you're forgetting the Whigs!
What I thought was the most interesting observation on this whole Johnston business came from, of all places, the mental ward of Haaretz comments: You certainly wouldn't have known that this Doghmush clan exerted so much power in Gaza from any of Alan Johnston's supposedly fantastic reporting!
Good on that last point!
I think that really the idea that the period of tribalism is over is a bit wishful if that's what anyone thinks. I'm more thinking not only of Gaza, but of the Middle East generally that clan and tribalism hold great sway. Western democratic normalcy is against the state of nature, and the more against nature a thing is, the more force is required to maintain the system -- as Hamas is in the process of demonstrating.