This week many Hamas militants have proved themselves to be killers and thieves. How can they treat their Palestinian brethren with such hatred and contempt? And if they think what they're doing is right, why are they wearing black hoods over their heads and carrying guns, everywhere they go? Why won't they show their faces?
From the Jerusalem Post:
The Gaza Strip home of the late Yasser Arafat was ransacked on Saturday. Frenzied Hamas members carted away furniture, wall tiles and Arafat's personal belongings - even his cherished Nobel Peace Prize. "They stole almost everything inside the house," Fatah spokesman Ahmed Abdel Rahman told the Jerusalem Post," including Arafat's Nobel Peace Prize medal. "The Palestinian people will never forgive the Hamas gangs for looting the home of the Palestinian people's great leader Yasser Arafat."Six men who once worked in Arafat's presidential guard later came to protect their old leader's house from further damage. "[What's left] is all worthless, but I have to do something," said Abu Mustafa, tying the house's gates shut with string. "No one could stop them. ... We don't have weapons, and we have no power."
As a Canadian of Lebanese descent, I could not say it better than Michelle Sabeela.
Posted by: Colette | 17 June 2007 at 17:58
It is so terrible sad to hear the news from the Middle East and from Gaza these days. What can we do?????
Posted by: Britt-Arnhild | 17 June 2007 at 15:59
Hi Tara, It really saddens me to respond to this posting. As an Autralian of Lebanese decent, with an "ancestral-emotional" vested interest in a region that has been so besieged by hatred, bloodshed and suffering for so many years, I feel an overwhelming, gut wrenching, need to scream from roof tops that these people of Hamas DO NOT speak for the majority of ordinary Arabic people, be they Palestinian or Lebanese. Yet when you ask how could they turn their weapons on their own brethren? I feel it is in part from the ineptitude, the corruption and total disregard for the average person by the regimes and governments of all the Arabic nations that have played a part in bringing us to the situation, like a bad recording stuck on repeat, that we see played out before us this weekend. I agree with your point regarding the insidious Iranian and Syrian influences and I understand this is a multi layered and complex socio-political situation, with tentacles that cross international boundaries, that can't be addressed in a few lines on email, but unless Arabs (and thank you for pointing out that Iran is NOT an Arab nation) with power come together to pursue a real Peace for the region, and to borrow an Americanism, 'get tough on' the zealots and fanatical perpetrators who would undermine negotiations and any possibility of a lasting Israeli-Arab peace accord, I find it difficult to see a happy ending anytime soon...
Thank you Tara for your prosaic writing in a blog that blends international politics, cross cultural living and whimsical shopping, can't wait to read the novel.....Michelle :)
Posted by: Michelle Saleeba | 17 June 2007 at 15:21