March 10, 2009, - 12:07 pm
Polls: Palestinians Would Elect HAMAS in West Bank; U.S. Funding of Abbas a Complete Failure
By Debbie Schlussel
Not that this is a new concept, since I’ve argued it on this site for several years now, but HAMAS is the most popular movement among the Palestinians. Among ALL Palestinians. It’s not just in Gaza, but in the so-called West Bank, too.
And as I’ve repeatedly said, not only would HAMAS eventually win in democratic elections all over the so-called Palestinian Authority–thanks, President Bush, father of HAMAS electoral victory–but our repeated funding of the Fatah terrorist group and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas a/k/a Abu Mazen, was a failure.
Yes, President Bush threw gazillions Abbas’ way. As I noted on this site, we funded Palestinian Authority soap operas for Ramadan viewing, so they could sit still without killing people for an hour or two (“Desperate No-Head-Wives” would have been a great title), we funded Palestinian mortgage bail-outs, we funded Palestinian start-up businesses, and we funded their political campaigns. These are all things we scream about when we do them for Americans (and rightly so), but we don’t seem to mind when we do them for terrorism supporters.
In Alien v. Predator, er–HAMAS v. Fatah–We Bet & Lost, No Matter Who Won . . .
That’s right, all of these people whose mortgages we bailed out, whose businesses we funded, and whose soap operas we backed–they support HAMAS, which will win in any future elections in the future in the so-called West Bank. Here are the numbers:
The West Bank is under Israel’s overall security control, but parts of the territory are governed by the Western-backed government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. A poll Monday showed that the popularity of the Islamic militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza, has grown among Palestinians at Abbas’ expense after Israel’s recent offensive in Gaza. . . .
In the West Bank and Gaza, support for Hamas is growing and support for Abbas is slipping, according to a poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. The poll attributes the shift to Israel’s three-week offensive in Gaza, which sought to stop Hamas rocket fire on Israeli towns. Nearly 1,300 Palestinians were killed, and many saw Abbas as ineffective in stopping the violence.
The poll says Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh would likely beat Abbas with 47 percent of the vote to Abbas’ 45 percent if presidential elections were held now. Three months ago, Abbas would have beat Haniyeh by 10 points, the center said.
During the same period, Hamas’ popularity climbed five points to 33 percent, while the popularity of Abbas’ Fatah movement dropped two points to 40 percent, the poll found.
The poll was conducted between March 5 and 7 among 1,270 adults in the West Bank and Gaza. It has a margin of error of three percentage points.
As I wrote over the last several years, the “our violent Islamic terrorists versus your violent Islamic terrorists” strategy was stupid to begin with and destined to be a failure.
And now it is. Just wait until the democratic elections they now have thanks to Bush. HAMAS will win it all. And Obama will continue his backdoor negotiations he’s been having with them since last summer.
Obviously, we ain’t seen nothing yet. I received this link today in an alert I receive from CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/10/obama.mideast/index.html
i_am_me on March 10, 2009 at 4:15 pm