The Assault on Israel from the left - NY TIMES

HAMAS and Hizballah exist, we should talk, bubby

NY TIMES:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton grabbed headlines with an invitation to Iran to attend a conference on Afghanistan, but the significant Middle Eastern news last week came from Britain. It has "reconsidered" its position on Hezbollah and will open a direct channel to the militant group in Lebanon.Like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah has long been treated by the United States as a proscribed terrorist group. This narrow view has ignored the fact that both organizations are now entrenched political and social movements without whose involvement regional peace is impossible.

Hallelujah.

Britain aligned itself with the U.S. position on Hezbollah, but has now seen its error. Bill Marston, a Foreign Office spokesman, told Al Jazeera: "Hezbollah is a political phenomenon and part and parcel of the national fabric in Lebanon. We have to admit this."

One difference is that Hezbollah is in the Lebanese national unity government, whereas Hamas won the free and fair January 2006 elections to the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority, only to discover Middle Eastern democracy is only democracy if it produces the right result.

Well no, Hizballah, the product of Iran (in fact today it's military wing is lead by an Iranian), and HAMAS the economic creature of Iran, and the philosophical creature of Hassan Al Banna represent the accurate desire of the peoples in the area to KILL the Jews who will not be dhimmis in their fay land (conquered and forever a waqf for the Muslim peoples).

They all admit freely that any settlement can only be temporary since all of Israel is occupied land.

Postponing the inevitable in hopes that a future (never more than 10 years via hudna, or less a temporary 'cessation') merely ensures that on that future day, more deadly weapons will be available ensuring greater casualties.

The United States should follow the British example. It should initiate diplomatic contacts with the political wing of Hezbollah. The Obama administration should also look carefully at how to reach moderate Hamas elements and engineer a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation.

Once again the delusion, moderate genocidal Islamists. Moderate Taliban. Moderate Hizballah. We can find the moderates within HAMAS who stand up and disavow and repudiate the HAMAS charter at least IN PARTS. We can probably find them flying off rooftops.
I have so little patience left for these people. In this case it is Roger Cohen.
And then the attempt to administer the coup de main:

Israel, from the time of Ben Gurion, built its state by creating facts on the ground, not through semantics. Many of its leaders, including Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni, have been on wondrous political odysseys from absolutist rejection of division of the land to acceptance of a two-state solution. Yet they try to paint Hamas as irrevocably absolutist. Why should Arabs be any less pragmatic than Jews?

The QURAN, you utterly arrogant culturally ethnocentric fool. The others in this dispute have told you time and again.

FIFTH COLUMN by function if not cause.

Of course it's desirable that Hamas recognize Israel before negotiations. But is it essential? No. What is essential is that it renounces violence, in tandem with Israel, and the inculcation of hatred that feeds the violence.

Speaking of violence, it's worth recalling what Israel did in Gaza in response to sporadic Hamas rockets

SPORADIC? 5000 to 8000? in about 1000 days? That's not disingenuous, there's a far better word.

At this vast human, material and moral price, Israel achieved almost nothing beyond damage to its image throughout the world. Israel has the right to hit back when attacked, but any response should be proportional and governed by sober political calculation. The Gaza war was a travesty; I have never previously felt so shamed by Israel's actions.
No wonder Hamas and Hezbollah are seen throughout the Arab world as legitimate resistance movements.

SICK OF IT