Hamas and wealth
We’ve heard the endless cries of “Free Palestine!” in recent weeks, but there’s a variation on this theme that hits the nail on the head: “Free Palestine from Hamas!” It is true that the people of Gaza elected Hamas in 2006 and that, according to polling over the years, they continue to support Hamas. At the same time, they did not have a wide range of choices when they voted. As noted on Snopes.com, “The election saw a political split between the secular Fatah (a branch of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)) that dominated the PLO since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and the Islamist Hamas that formed in 1987 as an offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.” So, it was Fatah (part of the PLO) vs. Hamas, the more secular vs. the more religious, with neither one being a genuine peace partner with Israel. In the end, Hamas only garnered 44 per cent of the vote but gained a majority of legislative seats, from which point it took over the government. Either way, however, they came to p...