There is no evidence at all, in this article, that the Palestinians have some renewed or new found love for Hamas. Maybe, but I doubt it. They hate the Israelis to be sure, but that does not mean they won't hate Hamas for bringing Israel's wrath down upon the people.

Terrorists cannot lead a people to freedom.

Mohandas Gandhi was once asked why he would not sanction the use of bombings to drive the British from India. He responded, "When a people chose terrorism as a tactic, they choose terrorists to be their leaders -- And terrorists make very poor leaders."

Israelis taught the world that terrorism wins freedom and Menachem Begin, a terrorist, became Prime Minister.

Begin's terrorism was directed mainly against military installations and British soldiers because England was working against its own mandate to deal evenly with both sides. Once Israel was established, his organization was dissolved. The war against the Arabs was a straight military campaign which had nothing to do with terrorism.

Don't get your wars confused.

HEY, TED, WHAT ABOUT DEIR YASSIN, YOU IGNORANT BASTARD?

The Crusaders lasted 300 years, the Turks 400 years, the British 150 years.

You can bet your ass we Palestienians will outlast these little Zionist shit that calls itself "Israel".

PALESTINE FOREVER AND FOREVER PALESTINE!!!!

HEY, TED, WHAT ABOUT DEIR YASSIN, YOU IGNORANT BASTARD?

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. . . . . . .

Actually, I said "mainly" against military targets. And Deir Yassin, though Arab propaganda has largely fictionalized the actual events, was one of very few exceptions, and Begin, who had no problem bragging about his terrorist victories, maintained to the end of his life that he never ordered a massacre there.

In any case, I never totally absolved Israel of guilt for outrages of one kind or another. But we are all human and there is no nation that hasn't done things to be ashamed of. I'll stand Israel's civil rights record up against any other in the whole Muslim world.

One further cavil. Whatever Begin did or didn't do, Israel was not a nation then and he acted on his own, against the wishes of the Jewish Agency. Once Israel became a nation, the Jewish militias were disbanded.

Israelis taught the world that terrorism wins freedom and Menachem Begin, a terrorist, became Prime Minister.

Your statements aren't correct. Terrorism did not win Israel's freedom. Military attacks against military installations are not really terrorism in the strict definition of the word. That said, even if you extend the definition that far, it was the UN that forced Britain out, not the Jews, by revoking the Mandate and calling for a two state solution.

Furthermore, just to complicate what you seem to assume is a simple picture, the Arabs were also engaged in plenty of terrorist activity, both against the Jews and the British.

Also, I would point out that, in any case, the Jews were already free, though again, if you want to stretch a point, it would have been the UN who could be properly said to have given Israel its freedom and that had nothing to do with terrorism.

Now, Menachem Begin. Again, if you want to stretch the point, I'll agree he was a terrorist. But once the state was formed, he renounced terrorism and spent the rest of his life working for what he believed in as a legitimate politician within the civil strictures of the Israeli government. By the time he became PM, his terrorist days were long over. And I'll bet that, if you just stop to think about it, you could come up with several "terrorists" who went on to become respected political leaders. Hopefully, one of the Hamas crazies might aspire to such a thing.

If you stretch the terrorist point too far, you might as well call Washington, Franklin, Paine and the rest of the American revolutionaries terrorists.

It's easy to toss around buzzwords like "terrorist" and lose sight of what they mean because they've been distorted by propaganda.