Hamas Times

Filed under: Fatah, Hamas, New York Times — Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief on June 20, 2007 @ 5:07 pm CEST

Ahmed Yousef wrote an op-ed for the New York Times about the situation in Gaza. Strangely, Yousef defends Hamas - in the very first paragraph he explains why, according to him, Hamas’ take-over of Gaza was not a “coup.” At the very end of the op-ed all becomes clear: “Ahmed Yousef is the political adviser to Ismail Haniya, who became the Palestinian prime minister last year.”

Ah, that explains it then.

Lawhawk at A Blog For All says it all:

Let’s just ignore all the assassination attempts by Hamas on Fatah’s Abbas and other top leaders, both in Gaza and the West Bank. Let’s ignore the Hamas thugs throwing Fatah thugs off rooftops or executing them in hospitals or firing on crowds of Fatah thugs seeking to flee Gaza to Israel.

Hamas isn’t providing political stability. It’s enforcing its brand of law and order according to Islamist precepts. If you’re a member of Fatah, you’re toast. Law and order consists of Hamas thugs doing what they do best - cowing those without the guns into doing their bidding. As for getting basic services going, perhaps the Palestinians should consider using piping for sewage rather than rockets. As for the economics, perhaps they should consider growing agriculture in greenhouses instead of looting them and then using the remnants as rocket launching facilities or terror training camps.

LGF has a video up of “Ahmed Yousef in an appearance on Hizballah’s Al-Manar TV, explaining to the audience that Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks—just like the US was behind Pearl Harbor.” Part of the transcript:

These events were preceded by very detailed planning, conducted by strategists, who wove the strands of this plot. Some people were probably recruited, and, as has been pointed out by a certain Western intellectual, Israel excels in espionage within the US. and is capable of disguising many operations as Islamic. In other words, Israel is capable of penetrating certain Islamic circles, of directing and running them behind the scenes, so that they will conduct operations from which Israel benefits. Anyone who considers the events of 9/11 cannot say that the Muslims gained anything. There’s another dimension, which some people may have noticed. No one could have captured the pictures of the attack so perfectly except for the cameras in the hands of several Mossad agents, who were near the scene of events, and succeeded in filming this scenes so that it will always serve zionism to remind the world of the Arabs’ and Muslims’ crimes against America.

Yeah, definitely a good decision of the New York Times to print his column.

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1 daveinboca

June 20, 2007 @ 6:08 pm CEST

The New York Times has slipped from irrelevance into downright treasonous propaganda shilling. And watch the pilot fish MSM swarm with warm accolades to Hamas for such a noble political “non-coup.”

I think that Pinch Sulzberger is committing corporate suicide, running his brand into the ground in a delirium of chattering-class twaddle.

2 Kathy

June 20, 2007 @ 6:29 pm CEST

The Washington Post also published an op-ed by Ahmed Yousef — an even longer op-ed, different from the Times op-ed but expressing essentially the same views.

So I’m not sure why you single out the NYT for your truly vile attacks.

I mean, God forbid that the mass media in the U.S. should give Americans the chance to read another point of view.

3 daveinboca

June 20, 2007 @ 8:22 pm CEST

And let’s get Osama b. L’s “point of view” on why terrorism is just fine by him? No thanks, Hamas’s program is not a POV, it’s a declaration of war….

4 Tano

June 20, 2007 @ 8:42 pm CEST

Gee. Some of us here in America are mighty pleased with the notion of a press that informs us of who these people are in the rest of the world, so that we can make up our own minds about things.

What kind of a mentality does it take for one to criticize the Times for printing this? The very people who have such a general distaste for the Times, now want it to censor news - to only present viewpoints that are in line with our own views?

Sometimes I find myself falling back on the lazy assumption that an authoritarian, or even totalitarian political regime of the kind that infects so much of the world could never arise here. Then, as if on cue, we get an expression (almost inevitably from the right) that makes clear that a profound understanding of freedom, a free people, a free press, an informed citizenry, are notions with very shaky support in a good chunk of our society.

5 mvdg

June 20, 2007 @ 8:58 pm CEST

Kathy: great - the WaPo is guilty as well. Good, two US newspapers sell out.

I agree Dave. You know, sometimes people get confused between hearing both sides as objective reporting and functioning as a mouthpiece for extremists.

Tano: who is calling on the NYT to be censored? I am not. I am not calling on gthe government to do anything. I am only criticizing the article and hoping that if enough people do it, the NYT will stop spreading Hamas propaganda, not because the government forces her, but because she understands that spreading Jihadist propaganda is not ‘object reporting’ and that people won’t tolerate it.

6 Tano

June 20, 2007 @ 9:24 pm CEST

mvdg,

I did not say you were calling on the NYT to be censored. Far worse, actually. You were calling on the NYT to do the censoring itself.

I WANT the NYT and other newspapers to expose me to the propaganda of poltical movements around the world. I have sufficient confidence in myself, and my fellow citizens to be able to make judgements about what we read, such that I do not feel the need for the NYT or anyone else to protect us from these words.

Such confidence in oneself in one’s fellow free citizens is the fundamental attitude that lies at the heart of American democracy. And is something you clearly just do not get.

And your threat to “not tolerate” a free press informing the populace of what people, governments, and movements in the rest of the world are saying, is right in line with the mentality of the authoritarian, or worse.

7 mvdg

June 20, 2007 @ 9:30 pm CEST

No Tano it is not - with freedom comes responsibility and I am calling on the NYT to take responsibility in this regard. That’s not ‘authoritarian,’ that’s moral.

Authoritarian is that one believes that the government should intervene.

Regarding confidence: the majority will not fall for it, but there are most certainly people who will be influenced by it.

Lets not help terrorists spread their lies and propaganda, shall we?

The NYT can talk to terrorists, but they should do so in a normal article and give the other side the opportunity to respond (in that article) and the journalist should do some research him/herself as well.

Simply copying and pasting a piece of propaganda is not good journalism.

8 in2thefray

June 20, 2007 @ 10:10 pm CEST

The NYT. The same paper that disclosed how the US tracked terrorist assets. The same paper that buried the non-terror plot of JFK. The Times is a very responsible publication. As far as the best line from the anti West anti Israel op ed.

“We reject attempts to divide Palestine into two parts and to pass Hamas off as an extreme and dangerous force. We continue to believe that there is still a chance to establish a long-term truce. But this will not happen unless the international community fully engages with Hamas.,”

Rejecting attempts to divide Palestine ? Hamas did the dividing. This op-ed was classic Palestinian spin.

9 Tano

June 20, 2007 @ 10:27 pm CEST

No mdvg, it is not “moral”. Or if it is, it is the morality of the Pravda editor - the trusted one that the government never needed to censor, because they had so thoroughly internalized the mandate to only offer the populace the “news” that they could handle - ignorant peasants that they were - only the “news” that served the purpose of advancing the interests of the motherland. That is what the “responsibility” dictate leads to.

I am sorry, but I get the increasing sense that you really are not comfortable with the notion of freedom. Yes, freedom has a price - like a free market - you get the promise that through competition (of ideas, or of products) that the best will emerge. But you must suffer from the presence, along the way, of all the bad ideas, and the bad products, and the bad business models - all the losers in the competition that yields the best in the end.

Once you close off the presence of Hamas in the arena of public discourse, how can you justify printing the words of Fatah - a group with more Israeli blood on their hands than Hamas? And how many more steps till you (or the NYT) decides that the Israeli peace movement are nothing but fellow traveling fools who should not be allowed to have their “lies” spread?

Authoritarianism is an attitude that can infect anyone with power, and the media certainly have power.

On that point, perhaps you could explain exactly what you meant by the people not tolerating the NYT printing these types of articles. “Not tolerating” clearly implies something beyond cancelling ones subscription. I tolerate a world with Fox news in it, though I never watch it. If I were to move to non-toleration, what would that entail?

As to your plea about spreading lies, sorry I say no. I am not on board with your project. I am glad that people outside of Germany were able to read Mein Kampf. I resist the notion that the publishers were acting treasonously or doing anything wrong. Americans, and others were able to get a sense of what Hitler was all about by reading his words, even though they were propaganda, and Hitler was even more evil than the terrorists today.

The NYT routinely presents op-ed pieces from all over the poltical spectrum. Their support for Israel has been longstanding and very deep. There is no problem whatsoever in terms of the Israeli POV not being accessible to readers of the NYT, or to Americans in general. Rather the contrary - the Israeli take on things permeates every corner of discussions on the middle east.

By printing an op-ed, the Times is not doing “journalism”. Obviously. It is presenting the reader with a slice of reality, rather than a manufactured myth. Bravo for them. I will stand with them against people like you to the end.