At Cairo Hospital, Injured Palestinians Increasingly Voice Support for Hamas - WaPo

[DogPoundPup]

At Nasser hospital here in the Egyptian capital, the sound of Palestinian Arabic spills out from rooms and floats through the corridors of the fourth floor. "God is great, God is great," Ahmed Hussein, 25, said to a weeping Egyptian woman, one of a stream of visitors coming to pay their respects to those injured by Israeli airstrikes.

"May God make you be victorious," she said. "I cannot stand what is happening to your people."

Neither, apparently, can Hussein, a Palestinian policeman whose right arm was broken when Israeli missiles hit his police academy Dec. 27. Hussein voted for Hamas in the last election but said he never joined their militia. That's about to change.

"I want to go back and fight with Hamas," he said.

A cornerstone of Israel's strategy in Gaza is to crush Hamas's will to fight, especially its determination to fire rockets into southern Israel. But in interviews here with wounded supporters of the Islamist militia, Israel's assaults appear to be breeding more recruits and more popular support for Hamas.

Read entire article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/13/AR2009011302786.html

[Alamuti Lotus]

1. "how to win friends and...and..

aw fuck, how does that go again?!"

[applegrove]

2. Maybe that is what Hamas wanted when they provoked the Israelis. They want

to have it seared into Palestinian minds that they are one with each other (the enemy of my enemy is my friend).

[Larkspur]

3. Hamas didn't provoke Israel. Israel broke the truce when they arrested Hamas members

in Gaza. And of course Israel kept blockading Gaza in an attempt to starve the people there.

Hamas actually showed restraint after those arrests but that could hold only so long.

[applegrove]

4. Why the rockets? Israel is pretty predictable in its responce. I'm just saying

the civilians are the only ones who are innocent. Hamas certainly isn't either.

[Larkspur]

5. Hamas is not an alien race from another planet. They are made up of Palestinians

The pro-Israel media treats Hamas like an alien power that has enslaved the Palestinians, but that is not true. Hamas, like the I.R.A., is made up of the people they represent. Those civilians VOTED for Hamas in the last election because they saw Fatah selling out to Israel. Israel wants a Vichy style Palestinian government that will allow Israel to do whatever it wants, including building more illegal settlements on Palestinian land.

Those rockets are glorified fireworks. They have no guidance system, so Hamas is hoping for the best when they fire them off. Hamas fired those rockets this round because Israel was literally starving the people of Gaza to death because those people had the audacity to vote Hamas into power. In the last 2 years less than 20 Israelis have died from them, but in the same time frame over a thousand Palestinians have died or been injured. Hamas' rocket attacks did not deserve an invasion and brutal attacks by Israel on the Palestinian people.