It is an Islamist thing. They have always been experts at deception and propaganda. For centuries they have understood the value of appeasers in the enemy camp. In the 21st century, appeasers are particularly plentiful. We are no longer surprised to hear of academics, journalists, politicians, or billionaires shilling for one Islamist organization or another. The scope of the Islamist influence is scary. Here is but a random sample of Hamas groupies.
Little Green Footballs has a post about, of all things, the Christian Science Monitor shilling for Hamas.
CAMERA reports that Oxfam, the prominent British relief organization, is shilling for Hamas.
Oxfam, the prominent British relief organization, is appealing to Western governments to end sanctions against the Hamas-dominated Palestinian government, despite Hamas’s escalating rhetoric, involvement in terror operations and preparations for broader military confrontation with Israel.
Melanie Phillips exposes the Hamas, MI6, BBC axis.
In the past few days, the BBC appears to have turned itself into a mouthpiece for Hamas. From a steady procession of talking heads has issued a stream of Arab propaganda, along the lines that what has happened in Gaza is an inevitable outcome of the Israeli/western collective punishment of Palestinian voters for democratically choosing a party of which the west disapproves, along with the Israeli/western refusal to ‘engage’ with Hamas, a situation which must now be remedied forthwith. If we look a little more closely at these interviewees, however, it seems that such a consistent line may not be altogether coincidental. The casual listener and viewer has been led to assume that all these ‘experts’ are random, if well-informed, observers of the Middle East scene. But a rather different picture emerges if one joins up some of the dots.
Guided by a couple of eagle-eyed blog-posters, I have been doing just that. Discussing events in Gaza on successive evenings last week, BBC TV Newsnight had on William Sieghart, Azzam Tamimi and Alastair Crooke.
Azzam Tamimi is a self-proclaimed Hamas sympathiser, who, incidentally, once screamed at me on BBC Radio Four’s Moral Maze that he was personally rewriting the Hamas Charter to remove its endorsement of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (it’s still there), because even some Hamas types can see that this isn’t exactly great PR.
Alastair Crooke is a former MI6 agent who controversially acted between Israel and Hamas and Islamic Jihad as a go-between until MI6 recalled him, and who ever since has argued publicly for ‘engagement’ with Hamas.
The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, blames Israel for for Palestinian healthcare woes.
Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, the prestigious British medical journal, exploits his position to blame Israel for Palestinian healthcare problems in a lengthy article in The New York Review of Books (March 15, 2007). He reveals a striking lack of objectivity and accuracy in dealing with this topic.
Horton writes that “Procurement of medicines is difficult.” He fails to inform readers that the Palestinian Authority government turned down an Israeli offer of $11 million dollars worth of medicine that Israel sought to transfer to the Palestinian Authority, and that the Palestinians asked instead for the cash equivalent. (Ynetnews.com, July 6, 2006) The Palestinians were the obstacle to medicine deliveries – not the Israelis.
Reproaching Israel for the delays and difficulties caused by its checkpoints, Horton only in passing mentions the Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians that necessitates the security checkpoints. He ignores that the checkpoints have saved countless lives by enabling Israelis to catch terrorists before they get into Israel to bomb crowded civilian targets. The following are just a few of the would-be bombers caught at checkpoints:
Then there is Jimmy Carter in a class by himself.
Jimmy Carter has consistently and falsely claimed that during the Camp David negotiations Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin agreed to a settlement freeze to last the duration of subsequent peace talks, and that Begin violated this unwritten agreement. For example, in an op-ed published in the Washington Post in 2000, Carter claimed:
Prime Minister Begin pledged that there would be no establishment of new settlements until after the final peace negotiations were completed. But later, under Likud pressure, he declined to honor this commitment, explaining that his presumption had been that all peace talks would be concluded within three months. (Washington Post, Nov. 26, 2000)
Carter makes a similar charge in his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, though with some subtle differences:
Sadat always insisted that the first priority must be adherence to U.N. Resolution 242 and self-determination for the Palestinians, and everyone (perhaps excepting Begin) was convinced that these rights had been protected in the final document. All of us (including the prime minister) were also confident that the final terms of the treaty would be concluded within the three-month target time. Everyone knew that if Israel began building new settlements, the promise to grant the Palestinians “full autonomy,” with an equal or final voice in determining the ultimate status of the occupied territories, would be violated. Perhaps the most serious omission of the Camp David talks was the failure to clarify in writing Begin’s verbal promise concerning the settlement freeze during subsequent peace talks.
IsraelNationalNews reports that Great Britain has become the Center of Hamas Incitement.
A special report by the government’s Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center shows that Great Britain continues to serve as a center for publications of Hamas incitement. The report notes that despite the terrorism the British themselves have experienced of late, they are not preventing the use of their country as a center for the dissemination of publications that include incitement and hatred towards Israel and the west, and the encouragement of suicide terrorists.
The report’s introduction states that the Hamas terrorist movement attributes great importance to the media, both written and electronic, as a major tool in its struggle against the West.
“The media empire of Hamas includes a satellite television station, newspapers, a radio station, internet sites in eight languages, and book publishing,” the report notes. “With these tools, Hamas disseminates the message of extremist Islam and incites to violence and terrorism to a range of target audiences in the Palestinian Authority, the Islamic and western world, and to Arab/Moslem communities in the West.”
Although the headquarters of the Hamas media empire is found in Gaza, with guidance and help from Damascus and other Arab countries, it has a large branch in Great Britain, “which continues to be a center for the publication and dissemination of Hamas literature.”
The list of Hamas publications issued in England include:
The monthly”Filastin Al-Muslimah” – Hamas’s major publication since 1981 both in print and on the internet. The glossy publication is rife with hatred and incitement against Israel and the West, encourages terrorism, and glorifies terrorists and terrorism planners.
The book publishing house “Filastin Al-Muslimah,” associated with the above publication, whose books venerate leading terrorists who perpetrate and plan suicide and other terrorist attacks.
The bi-weekly internet newspaper “Al-Fatah” for children, which Hamas sees as a most important target audience. Its goal is to imbue children with the values of extremist Islam, including violence and terrorism.
