From Wallwritings
Have you seen the Hollywood film that flashes back to February, 2006, when Palestinians elected a Hamas party parliamentary majority?
I didn't think so, because there is no such film available.
An honest film on Palestine's current situation would begin in present-day Gaza. A Palestinian baby lies in a tiny crib, dying because the hospital lacks sufficient electricity to keep her alive.
The poorly-maintained portable generator outside in the yard, would have run out of fuel...
Then, in a flashback, the film would show long lines of voters in occupied 2006 Palestine, waiting their turn in an election monitored by outsiders including President Jimmy Carter.
Hamas won that 2006 general election, defeating the Fatah party which had been in power since Yasir Arafat was allowed by Israel to return to Gaza in the summer of 1994.
Mahmoud Abbas succeeded Arafat as head of the PLO and the Palestinian National Authority in November, 2004.
Israel and the US agreed to the holding of that 2006 parliamentary election, a year after Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the state of Palestine May 8, 2005.
The Israel/US combine and the Fatah leaders had assumed a Fatah victory. The voters thought otherwise, handing a national parliamentary majority to the Hamas party. And it was a "political party." Once Hamas emerged as a formidable adversary, thanks to Israel's control of its own narrative, the "terrorist" label was hung around its neck.
Indeed, the first time I ever heard of Hamas, was from a member of the Israeli foreign ministry who told me to "keep an eye on this Hamas. They are doing good work for the poor." The purpose of that praise, I later realized, was to build up an enemy against Arafat, a long-time Israeli foe.
As the ancient proverb reminds us, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
And it was a "political party." It became, thanks to Israel's control of its own narrative, a "terrorist" organization, a designation it has lived with since.
To correct its 2006 political venture into democracy, Israel and the US instituted a war to defeat Hamas in 2007. The Fatah army was trained and guided by the George Bush-run CIA.
Fatah lost the war to Hamas just as it had lost the parliamentary election one year earlier.
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