Friday, January 02, 2009

Obituary of a Raging Anti-Semite

Jeffrey Goldberg has an interesting remembrance of Nizar Ghayan, the senior Hamas official who was killed the other day by an Israeli airstrike. Filled with uncompromising (he was, after all, a religious fundamentalist) hatred and a deep, disgusting anti-semitism, he represented the side of Hamas that is also on view in the organization's infamous charter. There is another side of Hamas, more pragmatic, more interested in self-preservation, more doctrinally flexible. Hamas is not simply "identical, equivalent" to the Taliban. Understanding Hamas demands that we look coldly, without cant or ideology, at its many factions and facets, not just the one that we're looking for to score political points.
Link