Hamas 'more popular' since Israeli action

ISRAEL's war on Hamas in Gaza, which killed more than 1300 people and left large swathes of the territory in ruins, has boosted the popularity of the Islamists, an opinion poll has found.

Hamas would get 28.6 per cent of the vote compared with 27.9per cent for the rival Fatah faction of Western-backed President Mahmud Abbas if elections were held this week, according to the survey by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre.

It marks the first time that an opinion poll has placed Hamas in front of Fatah, which it ousted from the Gaza Strip in deadly fighting in June 2007.

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Yesterday's poll found that Hamas has stronger support in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, still administered by Mr Abbas, than it does in its own Gaza bastion.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25014788-2703,00.html

Nothing like an enemy to make a hawkish party more popular!

Israeli hawks are Hamas' best boosters; and Hamas are the biggest donors to the Likud - not that I think either intends this as the consequence.

Zippy and Barak seem to have given Nuttyahoo and Lieberman and their ilk a lift with the attack on Gaza too. Hoist by their own petard, as it were.

I was wondering this morning, in view of Nuttyahoo's statements, whether he is going to "abide by previous agreements" too, or if that demand is only for the Palestinians.

They can now do no wrong, whether it's killing and kneecapping suspected collaborators, using human shields, firing rockets intentionally toward civilian targets, firing from civilian locations in order to draw counterfire that hits civilians, or stealing goods from UNRWA at gunpoint, there's always a justification to be found here.

Just because you take a dim view of the Israeli government and the IDF, it does not follow that you love islamic fundamentalists. It is both reasonable and consistent to think they both suck, and they both need to clean up their act.

I am specifically referring to all the posts defending Hamas. Even if I don't agree with many of them, I can certainly understand why people are posting against the Israeli governments decision and execution of "operation cast lead". I can certainly understand people who think they both suck. It's no surprise that Israel's popularity has gone down as a result of this. But I can't understand people who are so quick to defend Hamas for everything it does. It has done nothing honorable through this whole story. Why would anyone defend the "execution of collaborators" for example. This would be as if Israel started executing left-wing university professors and Ha'aretz columnists, and no one would defend that.

There is disagreement, for example, about whether they are a legitimate political party or not. One can take either side of that, without approving of Hamas or their platform or all of their actions. I don't like Likud, but I would defend their right to participate in Israeli politics. Some people reason from principle, others from partisanship.