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January 26, 2006

Hamas wins Palestinian elections

The BBC News reports that Hamas won a 76/132 seat majority in the parliamentary election there, with 77% voter turnout.

Palestians being probably a lot like the rest of us, statistically speaking, I find this an interesting fact to hold up in comparison to media coverage of the situation in Israel and Palestine. Specifically, if Hamas really is a terrorist organization, why would they get almost 58% of the seats in parliament?

Observers praised the election process, with EU monitoring team leader Veronique De Keyser saying the poll was "free and fair under severe restrictions", referring to Israeli measures to limit voting in East Jerusalem.

So apparently this was a democratic election. Logically then either:

  1. Palestinian voters on the whole feel so desperate about their circumstances that unlike normal people turn out en masse in free elections to get themselves represented by terrorists.
  2. A majority of Palestinian voters don't see Hamas as a terrorist organization, but instead as the least bad choice on the ballot.

The article does have one quote from a Hamas representative, co-founder Mahmoud Zahar:

"We are not playing terrorism or violence. We are under occupation," he told BBC World TV.

"The Israelis are continuing their aggression against our people, killing, detention, demolition and in order to stop these processes, we run effective self defence by all means, including using guns."

Maybe there's a mix of desperation and a different point of view.

Posted by Mark at January 26, 2006 08:35 PM

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Comments

Very good observations, I like your type of thinking. It all starts with "Palestians being probably a lot like the rest of us, statistically speaking," if only more people could see others in the same way. When more people can look objectively at themselves and see the similarity in others, this world will be a better place.

Posted by: Andy at January 27, 2006 02:44 AM

If only it were easier to see other people the way we see ourselves, and to see ourselves as others see us.

Posted by: Mark at January 27, 2006 06:31 AM

I wonder if the difficulty comes from the way we are organically wired, or the internal monolog we often have going within our heads, or something else.

Do you know of anyone who has written about the problem in layman's terms?

Posted by: Mark at January 27, 2006 06:34 AM

Sorry, no sources in mind, but I would be interested in reading a book on this subject as well.

Of course, if we or they can see the similarity in others, it does not imply people are any better, just more aware. In other words, if they are like us, that explains why they see us as terrorists too.

Posted by: Andy at January 30, 2006 11:38 PM