[Times-UK] Gerard Baker - We've had an exercise in good-cop, bad-cop with our Islamist friends in the past week. In London and Glasgow, the nutters tried the explosive, take-no-prisoners approach to persuading the West to do their bidding. Over in Gaza, at least when it comes to Europeans rather than Israelis, Hamas prefers the take-prisoners-and-then-generously-let-them-go approach. Hamas' worldview and geopolitical ambitions, however, are exactly the same as those fireball physicians. Funny isn't it, how, when the U.S. or British governments do anything they claim is good we always assume there's some ulterior motive? But when Hamas pulls a stunt like the one it managed this week, we're all lost in innocent admiration at the sheer humanity of these people. We really ought to know that this latest incident is straight from the Hamas playbook - doing little works of charity and economic efficiency in Gaza and the West Bank, the Palestinian equivalent of making the trains run on time, to further their bloodcurdling big objectives. We need to be much less naive about Hamas. Its members want to destroy Israel and wage war on the West.
2007-07-09 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive