From Humble Worker to Hamas Leader

[oberliner]

TEL AVIV, Israel – Danny Mahlouf, a 70-year-old Israeli plasterer from Ashkelon, has a message for Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, and it’s personal. "Tell Ismail Haniyeh to lose the beard, and stop making trouble!"

They go way back. In the late ‘80s, Haniyeh worked for five years as a plasterer in Ashkelon and Mahlouf was his boss. "We were close friends but we lost contact," Mahlouf said. "Then one day my son was watching TV and suddenly he shouted, Dad, come quickly, Ismail’s on TV. He’s prime minister!"

Their story tells much about the ties between Jews and Arabs that have been lost in the violence. The relationships between Israelis and Palestinians weren’t always full of the tension and hatred that often characterize them today, and that raises the possibility that one day, somehow, it could go back to the more peaceful days.

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/01/26/1760796.aspx

[ProgressiveMuslim]

1. Ah... the good old days...

Yes, hundreds of thousands of Gazans worked in Israel at a variety of (mostly menial) jobs. I'm sure from the Israeli perspective, those days were preferable.

I bet my husband's former boss (a mover), who used to lock him and his co-workers in the warehouse at night during the week, would be shocked to my my husband today, with a PhD and internationally recognized in his field.

Plasterer to Prime minister... onion picker to international development leader. Imagine that!

Oh well, at least the story tells the truth about Haniyeh's change of heart. It would be interesting to hear what Haniyeh had to say about that past relationship. Probably similar to what I have heard so many Palestinians say... the problem isn't with individual Israelis, it is with what their government does in their name.

[oberliner]

3. This story doesn't seem entirely reliable

How trustworthy is this guy's memory? The timeline doesn't seem to match up.

[ohio2007]

2. Gaza’s Blood and the Vampires ( Arab paper slams Muslim brotherhood and life under Hamas rule )

snip

This blood is certainly cheap to some Hamas leaders. Wasn’t it the Deputy Chairman of the Hamas Politburo who said during a lecture he gave in Damascus, “We lost 1500 martyrs but our strong women and our hard-working sisters gave birth to over 3500 Palestinian babies during the attacks,” (Asharq al-Awsat, 26 January)?


Was he speaking about mothers, young men and old men who have feelings and dreams and who probably do not care about Hamas’s delusions and projects? It sounds like he was speaking about chicken production!


How very strange…


Didn’t Abu Obeida, the spokesman for the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announce a victory for Hamas, according to the SANA news agency, whilst destroyed buildings were still on fire and bodies under the debris were yet to be pulled out? He indicated that Qassam Brigade fighters killed at least 80 Israeli troops during Israel’s onslaught on Gaza. In a press conference that was held after the ceasefire was announced, Abu Obeida said that as a result of Israel’s military attacks, the Qassam Brigades lost 48 martyrs (only). Therefore, he assessed losses according to the casualties of Hamas’ fighters with no consideration whatsoever for the 1315 Palestinian civilians who were killed and the 90,000 refugees within the narrow Gaza Strip and the thousands of homes that have been destroyed. Approximately US $2 billion worth of damages has been caused and bodies are still being pulled out of the debris.


However the indirect victim of this war has been Hamas’s reputation as it is considered politically irresponsible, reckless and an organisation that gambles with people’s lives in compliance with impure agendas whether Iranian or non-Iranian.


But who can convince the masses in our Arab world of the truth vis-à-vis the alluring speeches?


Discussions on Iran and Syria’s roles, and their exploitation of the Gaza issue, which will be discussed very soon by the new US administration, and how Hamas benefited from pressuring Arab governments that it considers hostile to its project (Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt) and on their real goals, are now clear for those who cannot be cheated by slogans and are not fooled easily.

snip


A number of writers commented on the recent Gaza onslaught. They presented themselves as respectable analysts rather than as people speaking at rallies, as they commented on Gaza in a moral way and discussed the lack of humanitarianism of Hamas and its position in the fight for power and interests in the Middle East. It is as if writers and commentators are expected to fill their columns with calls for demonstrations and condemnation of Israel based on the pretext of “humanitarianism,” which has no place in the discourse of conflict and interest. Even if we set aside serious political talk and hold up banners and chant slogans against Israel, which deserves to be taken to court for the crimes that it committed, the question remains: is humanitarianism a one-way issue? Where is the humanitarianism of Iran and its allies that exploit the blood of Gaza’s people for their own political projects? Where is the humanitarianism in the speeches delivered by Khalid Mishal, Abu Marzook, and Abu Obeida who undervalue the blood of Gaza’s innocent children and women as long as Hamas is “fine”?


Where is humanitarianism if Mishal, following the Gaza tragedy, came out only to demand that Hamas is recognised?


I believe that the new party to invest in the Palestinian blood stock exchange this time is the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere. The MB attempted to ride the Gaza blood wave, which it believes will help it achieve its political dream of establishing a Muslim Brotherhood state. If this dream became a reality, its current revolutionary, jihadist and opposition tone would turn into a more practical and pragmatic tone when addressing the West simply because its goal (to gain power) would have been achieved.


This time, the Muslim Brotherhood was clear about some of its objectives; to destroy the existing regime and to establish the Brotherhood state on the debris. The pretext of a wounded Palestine is always ready to be used. Therefore, any attempts to establish peace would not be in the Brotherhood’s interest. Perhaps it accepted the truce and showed tolerance, just as el Erian had advised Hamas leaders to accept the temporary truce and then “gradually” discuss the 1967 borders. However, the Palestinian Cause, in essence – which will take great strength to solve and is exploited emotionally through Hamas and Brotherhood discourse about liberating Palestine from the river to the sea and the solution being in the hands of Arabs and Muslims – is a political and ideological goldmine for the Muslim Brotherhood.


If the Palestinian ideological goldmine remains then destruction will continue and we will have another Hamas, another Gaza, more demonstrations, more cases of one-upmanship, more turmoil, more ideological lies and more bloodsuckers until either Palestinian blood runs dry or the Iranian and the Brotherhood vampires are satisfied, unless Arabs and Muslims put their minds to use to stop the bloodshed. Israel would then be the first victim of the awakening of the Arab mind because opinion is stronger than physical strength.

http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=15560