I thought I’d make a brief analogy to explain why CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour’s defense of Hamas’s recent election victory in the Palestinian Authority was intellectually dishonest, and completely repulsive. Amanpour makes the ridiculous argument that the Palestinians didn’t vote for Hamas because they were a terrorist group that was dedicated to wiping Israel off of the map, but because they were frustrated with how corrupt the ruling Fatah Party was, and because Hamas has built schools, and health clinics etc.
Hamas gained support among Palestinians through two decades of building an effective and affordable social welfare system in Gaza. It runs most of the kindergartens, funds health clinics, provides welfare checks to widows and orphans, and yes, even stages mass weddings to help unemployed young men get married.
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.
So when people ask: “Why did the Palestinian people elect a terrorist group?” The answer is because they see them as a lifeline.
Now, by Amanpour’s rationale it would be perfectly acceptable for the American people to elect a neo-Nazi third party candidate, running on a platform of exterminating all Jews from the country, to the presidency of the United States as long as we were sufficiently disillusioned with the Democratic and Republican parties. But, it would clearly be very wrong to do so, and as such Amanpour’s argument doesn’t hold water.
