The Cycle of Violence

As read in the 'Al-Guardian'.


After the killing of the Hamas 'militant' Adnan Al-Ghoul (wasn't he in an H.P. Lovecraft novel ?), the BBC website tells us that "Hamas vowed revenge".

But is revenge - an eye for an eye - an appropriate response to what is seen, rightly or wrongly, by some Palestinians, mainly on the religious right, as Israeli repression ? Surely a policy of seeking to understand Israeli society and Jewish grievances, rather than a surrender to the rampant Judaeophobia fostered for their own ends by President Bushafat and his clique, would serve the interests of Palestinians better ?

After all, 'violence breeds violence'. How very true that is. Can the blinkered neocons in the Hamas bunkers not see that suicide bombing will be seen as an attack on the worldwide community of Jewish believers ? From Golders Green to New York, the Jewish street is in a ferment of fury at Hamas' clumsy cowboy tactics. The journalists Rhobb-ut-F'isk ("Were I an IDF conscript, I would want to shoot any Arab I met") and Mych Al-Moor have accused Hamas of a wanton disregard for Jewish life, claiming that the Hamas so-called 'smart suicide bombers' have struck at targets such as school buses and wedding parties. Every dead Israeli brings more votes for fundamentalist leaders such as Ariel Sharon and more revenge attacks. When will Hamas accept that they have failed to bomb the proud Israelis, heirs to a 5,000 year old civilisation, into submission, and start the task of building bridges rather than destroying buses ? How many more times will the Hamas reflex be the knee-jerk reaction of revenge, the reaction of the child in the playground, rather than the constructive dialogue of the adult ?

Hamas vowed revenge on October 5th, September 20th, September 7th, April 19th, and March 26th.

In 2003, October 21st, October 18th, September 7th, August 25th, August 22nd, August 8th, June 22nd, June 10th, May 2nd, March 8th, and March 4th.

In 2002, November 22nd, October 7th, September 27th, July 26th, April 6th, March 4th, February 19th, and January 25th.

In 2001, December 14th and November 24th, October 14, August 27th, July 31st, July 25th, July 13th, and so on.

You get the picture. But Hamas has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Even pro-Palestinian commentator Barbara Plett, in a broadcast on the state-controlled British media, said that "There have been only four (Hamas suicide) attacks so far this year compared to 17 last year and 46 in 2002 and a dramatic decrease in the number of Israeli casualties." - a clear indication that a policy of revenge has failed even by its own genocidal and pointless criterion. How many more Palestinian lives will be lost before Hamas admit their failure ?