... the "white-man's" burden.

I want to draw attention to this post:

<link>

because only one person saw fit to respond to it. (Thanks, SB.)

To make the point again:

Hamas fires rockets to maintain the loyalty of those who electorally brought Hamas to power, i.e. those who think that the "good" Palestinians are a little too cozy with Israel.

Their effect on Israel is of no concern to Hamas, and to think otherwise is to patronize Hamas..

You might have a point to make, somewhere in there. Damned if I can see it yet though.

You can't see it because you can't stop seeing Hamas except in relation to Israel.

Look at it this way.

The IRA bombings of the last century can be seen in two lights: in relation to England and in relation to other factions within the Irish mise en politique.

If the IRA could not distinguish itself from other factions, how could it maintain/increase its base?

Same thing here - it's just that you can't/don't want to see it because you insist on seeing Palestinians only in relation to Israel, not in relation to themselves.

Another example:

1) HRap and Stokely vs the white power structure;

and:

2) HRap and Stokely vs the older generation of SCLC, CORE, NAACP civil disobedients

(s) are legion, but your problem here is simple: there are lots of dots to be connected. some connect willy-nilly (justoffal, drno, etc), some can't connect at all (gary1, dallasne, etc), some, once they've made *their* connection can't see anybody else's (you).

there's no one reason they're firing the missiles, and your reason is tertiary at best.

exercise: assuming i'm right, what might the pie chart look like?

Hamas did broadly win the last election for the PA's representative assembly. Doesn't that make them quite a bit more of a political force, even without their stupid rockets, than any of their two-bit competition in the Palestinian "Death to Israel" crowd?

What I'd really like is for Z-B to stop by and give us his opinion on what piece of the IRA pie was due to internecine Irish power struggles and what piece due to the actual effort against England.

I would be more than happy to take his estimate of the pie-chart and apply it to the situation in question, as an inductive generalization.

Or an abductive analogy - take your pick.

To the contrary - I think their electoral ascendancy was due solely to their promise to resort to violence, and that this remains their "ticket".

sympatomatic and explanatory

Sympatomatic is pretty close to simpatico.

Little bit of a fslip there?

* ?

... of this 'problem' I was surprised to find some scholarly work that focused on exactly this issue. I'll look for the author, but suffice to say his book investigated the parallels between the Irish/English, Palestinian/Israeli and the South African/Anti-Apartheid situations.

Much of the difficulty IMHO, and the author makes this clear in his analysis also is that the power of the occupier is such that they control the way the world sees the issues framed, and of course it is in their interest to make sure that from the perspective of someone 'outside' the conflict, everything appears to based in 'mindless hatred' and 'centuries old tribal warfare' or 'deep religious divisions'.

So the occupied are not only fighting the occupiers, but also the collective miss-understanding of the whole world, that insists it 'knows' that the 'problem' cannot be fixed because the 'bad guys', (read IRA, PLO, or ANC) are irrational players who refuse to 'get with the program' 'be reasonable' or 'civilized' or what ever false reason is being foisted on the mediocre minds of the consumers of the co-opted press who after all have no real stake in the conflict itself but none the less fell very strongly that they 'know what is going on'.

What they inevitably think they know, is that the occupied and their leadership are irrational people with unrealistic demands, and it's obviously impossible to 'make them happy'. The other side of the false narrative is that the occupiers are civilized people with reasonable expectations who face extermination if they are not allowed to deal in a pragmatic manner with the imminent threat.

It's clear that allowing the Irish Catholics to share power in Northern Ireland has not resulted in mass emigration of Protestants, and the political inclusion of black Africans in South Africa has not resulted in the extermination of white South Africans, and at some distant time, Palestinians and Israelis will live together.

However, all of this will not come about because the world decides it's important to understand the truth about the roots of the conflict before voicing strong opinions. The co-opted press will continue to spread dis-information right up until the peace-treaty papers are signed, and the killing ends. At that point, all the folks who right now firmly believe that there is no way to make peace with the Palestinians will suddenly be greatly surprised, and will forever after deny that their collective ignorance had anything to do with the fact that peace took so long in coming.

When peace finally comes to the Middle East, all the dopes in the world will think it's because the Palestinians suddenly decided to be reasonable.

Really, It had nothing to do with Fatah corruption and gross incompetence?

Yes - those who insist on seeing Palestinians as modern-day "Mad Mahdi's" will never grant them the status of actors with their own internal motivations.

By the way, TCM or AMC (I forget which) had the original "Four Feathers" on two nights ago.

Anyone interested in present-day Anglo-American perceptions of "the wogs" should really be compelled to watch this movie.

You are like Spencer Tracy showing Katherine Hepburn how IBM will redo her research department.

Who is any one in the "West" to make any claims concerning "corruption" in the Arab world.

It is a centuries-old way of life there, not something to be rooted out by the "Good Citizens' Council". It's "baksheesh" from Morocco to Indonesia, just as the sun never set on "buggery" from Australia to Newfoundland

And therefore, to think that it might motivate the election of one group vs another is, again, to pick up the white man's burden yet another time..

You note:

Who is any one in the "West" to make any claims concerning "corruption" in the Arab world.

Point well-taken. The whole last eight years in the U.S. have been one long robbery by those in power, for the benefit of their already wealthy friends. Then you add:

It is a centuries-old way of life there, not something to be rooted out by the "Good Citizens Council".

No, it's none of our business, unless, of course, we are paying the bills; which, in the case of the P.A., the West was largely doing. That does convey some right of complaint, especially if taking graft is so wide-spread that nothing else is even getting done.