Rival faction accuses Hamas of bringing upon a ‘worst catastrophe than 1948,’ pointing out the bloody 2007 coup and wondering if Hamas would be interested in appointing a Prime Minister from Iran.
Remember that Hamas and Fatah were opposing parties in the Palestinian political landscape. When Hamas won the election in 2005, it was very clear who the West preferred. Fatah criticizing Hamas is nothing new, and in fact is in line with what to expect, given western support is conditional on them condemning Hamas.
I feel like this paints Hamas in a much more forgiving light that it deserves. Hamas "won" the election after a violent campaign of intimidation and even then only by a plurality. While Fatah has many flaws, it's not a religio-fascist organization prone to arbitrary violent cruelty. Yes, Fatah criticizing Hamas is nothing new, but more because they're fundamentally opposed groups than Western preferences.
EDIT: It's been pointed out to me that I was wrong about the context of Hamas' election and sources seem to back this up. While Hamas IS a violent religio-fascist organization, its violence against its electorate and opposition parties did not escalate until a few years after they were elected to a clear majority.
It seems to be inconsistent with election monitoring statements at the time.
It seemed obvious to us and other observers that the election was orderly and peaceful and that there was a clear preference for Hamas candidates even in historically strong Fatah communities. Even so, we were all surprised at the enormity of the Hamas victory.
Thanks there is so much misinformation flying with respect to this conflict it can be hard to make sense of things. But the fact that several respected authors I had read on this election did not mention it made me skeptical.
I would not say “the left” as a whole defends them although there are some small factions that do.
I feel like you’re trying to gotcha me here but I’m not trying to defend Hamas, just help people understand the real history. False claims demonizing various groups and then generalized to whole ethnicities are a major cause of violence around this issue right now.
If people understood the real history, they would see that this conflict, like all conflicts has nuance to it and the various actors are all just people, not inhuman demons. This understanding will be key if we want to achieve a lasting peace.
In the 25 January 2006 Palestinian legislative election, Hamas won 74 or 76 seats of the 132 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, an absolute majority. Fatah only won 43, four seats went to independents supporting Hamas.[187] The elections were judged by international observers to have been "competitive and genuinely democratic". The EU said that they had been run better than elections in some member countries of the EU.
Maybe the upvotes have nothing to do with the statement about how Hamas was elected, which is frankly not that interesting, and everything to do with the fact that the commenter correctly identified Hamas as a religio-fascist organization. You can disagree without calling someone a liar. It is more conducive to conversation to assume that someone is mistaken or has different information than you do. Calling someone a liar is contrary to the spirit of good faith debate.
No, calling someone a liar is making an assumption about their intentions,
which, in most cases, you do not know.
Sure, when you hear false statements from a public figure all the time, like Trump for example, you can eventually have enough data to conclude that he is a liar. Do you have that kind of data on the commenter you replied to? No? Well, then it is more appropriate to assume they are mistaken. At least in English, calling someone a liar is very, very aggressive.
Anyway, you being a silly dickhead aside, I corrected my post because it turns out that you were at least correct about the context of the elections. It's a good thing I'm more interested in getting clear and contextually correct information out there or you being such a shit head might've caused me to dig my heels in deeper, which literally would be counter to your purported intent (though I suspect you just want to be right and yell at people, and don't give a shit at all about much beyond that). Have a shit day. :)
Hamas was a protest vote because Fatah is basically letting israel govern and terrorize you.
As we can observe from the West Bank, Fatah lets israel do terrorism in hospitals and helps israel arrest anyone fighting back against the illegal occupation.