Friday
Jan292010
Palestine: Hamas Refuses An Independent Commission on Gaza "War Crimes"
Friday, January 29, 2010 at 14:02 
As the deadline approaches for both Israel and Hamasto respond to the United Nations over the Goldstone Report on the Gaza War, a report handed by a Hamas official to The Associated Press says that Hamas did not target civilians while firing hundreds of rockets at Israeli towns and rebuffs the UN call for an independent enquiry.On Thursday, the New York-based Human Rights Watch harshly criticized Hamas, saying there was strong evidence the Islamic militant group intentionally aimed its rockets at Israeli towns. According to the group, Hamas not only committed war crimes against Israelis but also against Gazans since the militants fired rockets from populated areas inside the strip.
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Reader Comments (7)
This is news?
The IDF and Hamas deserve each other. What I wouldn't give to see both of their behinds in the accused box at the ICC! Sigh...
Do the Palestinians deserve Hamas?
They seem to think so. They did vote them in. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/26/AR2006012600372.html
I'm sorry to say this, but most of their problems are self-inflicted.
@Dave
It was very unfortunate that the people of Gaza voted Hamas into "power" - both for the world and them.
But, Like everything else in the world - things are not simply "good" and "bad" - but shades of grey which include both good and bad.
Pre-WW2 the people of Germany, and the whole country, was in a state of disarray, for a number of reasons. The people were looking for something, someone to pull them out of their difficulties. Eventually, they turned to the Nazi Party in elections - and Hitler himself was appointed Chancellor of the country completely legally.
BUT - we all know where that lead to!! So, Democracy in itself is not the complete answer to the world's ills. As Churchill once said "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Democracy does not really work well unless it is combined with political maturity. I see this political immaturity as the biggest problem that the world faces. So many countries are politically immature - Iraq is an example. So is Russia. Neither countries have a long history of Democracy. Although they may in fact regard themselves as Democracies now, their democratic maturity is only a thin veneer, and is easily damaged and corrupted. Much of the western countries Democratic principles - it has taken countries like the US, UK , France many hundreds of years to settle themselves down , in terms of understanding and practising Democracy.
Barry
Barry: a small point - the Nazi party managed to secure the votes necessary for appointing Hitler chancellor and giving him emergency powers in the reichstag by taking over the positions of the communist party deputies that had been arrested and seriously intimidating all the remaining parties - so much so that only the SDP had the balls to refuse to vote for it. That's hardly what I would call completely legally. However the broader point is still valid.
I had read an account out of gaza a year or so ago where it was claimed that people who voted for Hamas did so as a protest vote against Fatah. Many of them (according to the author) wanted a party that would represent economic interests rather than ideology and fighting with israel, but would have voted for anyone to get rid of Fatah. Don't know how much stock to put into that. Does anyone know if there are any other parties in Gaza apart from Hamas and Fatah?
There were some very promising independent candidates.
Palestinian society structured into clans - and they vote accordingly. Independent candidates, therefore, have little chance against Fatah and Hamas.
The animosity towards Israel in Palestinian society also cannot be discounted.
Just a simple correction - there were no independent candidates in the classical sense. They are mostly declared socialists and communists.