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Larry King interviewed the spokesman for the 396 deported
Hamas terrorists last night, and also had on as a counter-point
Sen. Lautenberg.
I watched the show, and taped it, wondering what it was going
to be like, given the CNN bias and yet having heard Larry King, on his
return from a trip to Israel in 92, saying how moved he was by being
there.
1. Initial live interview with CNN correspondent (british
national) was twisted -- correspondent was talking of
brutal weather conditions, primitive, etc. Very
one-sided view of conditions, without addressing facts
of 1. they could be in jail or dead if they were anti-
arab terrorists living in surrounding arab countries and
2. Lebanon is the country that wont let them in.
2. Hamas spokesman never directly answered questions -- he would
use time on the mike to talk about missing his family
or about thousands of arabs killed by Israelis or
millions of refugees made by Israel, etc. etc. etc.
He couldnt understand why he was deported from a
democratic country, having been a Univ. of Nablus
geography professor who only happened to speak out
against the Israelis.
3. Hamas spokesman evaded the questions repeatedly : "Are you
a supporter of Hamas?" He would not answer - always
saying "I support Islam, which means peace in Arabic"
(I thought it meant submission, which in my book is not
peace).
Larry refused to buy in, and said, I assume that by
your statements you mean "Yes"
4. Spokesman also refused repeatedly to answer if he wanted to
drive all Israelis out of the land.
5. Lautenberg was great! He was able to state the truths and
counterbalance the lies and evasions spoken by the
Hamas, reading from Hamas charter, stating that Hamas
even plotted to kill the Answari (sp?} the neogtiator,
reminding Larry that the spokesman himself probably
knew the name of the murderers of the Israelis, etc.
He had the facts and was just GREAT.
6. By the end of the 40 minutes it was obvious that Larry was
tired of the evasions and the platform speaking, that the
bleeding heart story was just bull, because Larry kept
cutting in on the spokesman and then letting Lautenberg
talk.
I believe that anyone with a half brain who watched it all would
be able to see the truth of the matter.
I wonder how much heat there is on Larry when he isnt politically
correct?
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| Why I Hate Hamas
Zeev Chafets
(Reprinted without permission from "The Jerusalem Report", 25 Feb.
1993)
When Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin gave the order to dump 415 Hamas activists
into Lebanon, almost two months ago, a Yediot Aharonot poll showed that 91
percent of the public supported the decision. Since then, however, it has
become apparent that the deportation is, from the Israeli perspective, a
classic example of Murphy's law - every conceivable thing that could go
wrong, has.
First, the Lebanese government, asserting itself for the first time in 20
years, trapped the Hamasites in a telegenic no man's land. Next, CNN and
other international news outfits decided to treat the expulsion as a major
crime against humanity, lavishing the deportees with constant, largely
sympathetic coverage. Meanwhile, mainstream Palestinians, who were supposed
to be secretly pleased at the blow to Hamas, rallied behind the organization
and are now boycotting the peace talks until the deportees are allowed to
return; and the United Nations threatened sanctions, enabling the Americans
to browbeat Rabin into a "compromise" which is nothing more than a
transparent, and humiliating, retreat.
As if all this weren't enough, the botched deportation has deeply divided
the Rabin government. Even the foreign minister, whose job it is to defend
the action, has all but disappeared, leaving the task to hapless Haim Ramon
(who in a recent CNN interview, said that since Israel is a nation of laws
and since there is no proof that would hold up in court that the deportees
did anything wrong, the government had no choice but to expel them; at least
I think that's what he said, he was speaking in a language resembling
English.)
All this is well known, but worth recalling in light of a new poll published
in Yediot Aharonot on February 5 which shows that, after almost seven weeks
of international opprobrium, diplomatic defeat, and domestic turmoil, 77
percent of Israelis still support the expulsion. This is, on its face, an
amazing statistic. And since I am among the 77 percent, I would like to try
to explain it.
First of all, most Israelis understand, as foreigners apparently do not,
what Hamas is and what it wants to do. Simply put (and the Hamas charter
puts it simply) the intention of the organization is to destroy the State of
Israel and to kill as many Jews as possible in the process. For this
reason, Hamas opposes any conceivable compromise with us, and is determined
to block the hope of reaching such a compromise with the PLO.
Second, there is no policy short of mass conversion to Islam that would
satisfy Hamas. This is because it is an organization of religious lunatics
who believe that Allah wants them to wage holy war against all Jews.
Third, legalities aside, few of us would doubt that the benign-looking
characters we see on television every day, pelting each other with snowballs
or wishing the world a Merry Christmas are, indeed, Hamas activists. The
other night Larry King actually had the temerity to ask the group's
spokesman, a _Nana_ League professor of geography named Douweik, if he and
his fellows belonged to that organization. After pointedly evading the
question three times, an exasperated Larry told him, "I'll take that to mean
yes," and the spokesman didn't contradict him. Nor was Prof. Douweik willing
to accept King's invitation to denounce the killing of Jews or to agree that
Israel has the right to exist in some form, some place in the Middle East.
Now, many Israelis are understandably unsympathetic to people who advocate
their mass murder. And we are also upset by the fact that the international
reaction to the Hamasites on the hill has been so notably devoid of moral
outrage. I, for one, suspect that if the Germans, for example, rounded up
400 violent skin-heads and dumped them temporarily in, say, Poland, the
world might react differently. I have no doubt that some governments would
find it unseemly to be seen as patrons of Nazis, and there are probably
journalists who might not display the same fine concern for the comfort of the
deportees, or treat their ideology with such even-handed respect.
The world's somewhat suspicious overreaction to the expulsion of Hamas
activists helps to explain why such an overwhelming majority of Israelis
support it. It underlines for us the fact that we are more or less alone in
the struggle against these people. And it also taps into a deep impatience
with the "rights" of fundamentalist geeks - Nazi, Saddamite or Islamic - who
feel that they have a divine mandate to shovel Jews into ovens, fire
missiles at our homes, or destroy this country as a favor to God. Are the
Hamasites cold at night in their tents? Tough. Is the world sympathetic to
the plight of these fanatical Jew-haters? Well, now, what does that tell us?
In the coming weeks and months, Rabin will be pressed to make further
concessions to the Hamas deportees. He should resist, even if there is a
diplomatic or economic price to pay. Unfortunately, a government as
inarticulate as his will probably never be able to "explain" to the world
why it is both right and reasonable to fight back against Hamas by whatever
means are necessary. Luck for him, 77 percent of us understand even without
an explanation. And that, especially in a democracy, speaks for itself.
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| And speaking about not having their charter....
How does one go about getting the charters of these groups? I like to
speak factually about groups like this, and yet I've never written to
them to get information from them because 1) I don't want them to think
they have another supporter, and 2), I don't want to continually
receive their vitriolic literature.
Now of course - without having their charters, isn't it a bit
hypocritical of me to call their literature "vitriolic"? Well in a
way, sure - but then again, as a friend of mine once told me, "...if
it's plainly labelled 'HORSEPUCKIE', you don't have to eat it...".
I've wanted to read "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" to know what
it is they (who are they?) are saying about Jewish people and Israel.
But I don't want to have that book in my possession - any more than I
want to have "Mein Kampf" in my possession...yet, I think on one level,
these are very important books to read - just as important as it is to
read the excerpts from the Hamas charter that Don posted a few replies
back.
Any comments, suggestions?
Steve
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