Daily Telegraph highlights Hamas
16 June 2010
All of the
broadsheets yesterday reported on the expectation that Israel would
soon announce a major re-haul of its three-year naval blockade of the Gaza
Strip. Following intense international scrutiny in the wake of the Free Gaza
flotilla raid, many hope that Israel
will switch from using an ‘allowed’ list of goods, which means only certain
products are permitted, to using a ‘prohibited’ list that allows anything that
isn’t specifically banned.
While much of the
coverage discussed the humanitarian situation in Gaza,
(alongside the related topic of the developments surrounding Israel’s inquiry into whether or not its
response to the flotilla was legal), only one broadsheet discussed the topic of
Hamas, the militant Islamist group that rules Gaza.
The Daily
Telegraph’s editorial, ‘Isolating Hamas’, noted that ‘Hamas and its
sympathisers have shown themselves to be adept at turning the blockade to their
advantage, using it as a propaganda tool to demonise Israel.’ Of all the broadsheets,
The Daily Telegraph was the only one to explicitly connect the controversial
blockade to Hamas’ behaviour, describing it as a group that is ‘committed to
the destruction of the Jewish state’ and that has ‘no interest in achieving a
peace that would benefit the people it claims to represent’.
This was in
contrast to the rest of today’s coverage, which did not cover the issue of how
Hamas deliberately exacerbates living conditions in Gaza,
and how it still rejects peaceful compromise with Israel. The closest to this were
two references in The Times.
One piece - ‘Israeli blockade is eased by critics cast
doubt on inquiry into flotilla raid’, by James Hider and David Charter -
mentioned that Hamas had rejected an
initial load of newly allowed goods into Gaza, stating that they ‘did not want
to depend on Israeli handouts of cookies and ketchup’ while some form of
blockade was still in place (This echoed their decision not to allow in the aid
that the Free Gaza flotilla had been carrying.) Another piece - ‘Message of hope mattered more than cargo’, by
James Hider - reported that
militants had fired upon Israelis as they had unloaded goods into Gaza,
supporting The Daily Telegraph’s contention that the organisation is not
interested in peace.
The underlying
problem of how best to respond to Hamas, which refuses to recognise Israel’s right to exist and is officially
committed to violence, is not just acknowledged by Israel. While the Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas recently stated that the Palestinian Authority’s
official position was that ‘Israel must lift the blockade…That is our principal
and permanent demand’, only a few days ago the Israeli daily Ha’aretz was
reporting that in discussions with President Obama he had voiced his opposition
to the lifting of a naval blockade because it would ‘bolster Hamas’. This
morning The Jerusalem Post’s Khaled Abu Toameh reported that a PA official
stated that ‘We want to see the blockade on the Gaza Strip lifted. But at the
same time we must be careful not to allow Hamas to reap the fruits and
consolidate its control over the Gaza Strip.’ In an article for The Guardian’s Comment is
Free site arguing that Hamas could become a partner for peace, David Hearst
(5 June) also mentioned that ‘The Fatah-run Palestinian Authority is one of the
main sponsors of the siege of Gaza, and is still paying tens of thousands of
its former employees in Gaza not to turn up for work for the government there.’
The refusal of
Hamas to cooperate with political rivals who are not committed exclusively to
violence also affects the relationship between Palestinians and the wider Arab
world. For example, writing for The Financial Times about how Arab countries
were failing to meet their pledges to Gaza, Tobias Buck described how the Arab
League’s Secretary-General, Amr Moussa, ‘stressed that the funds earmarked for
reconstruction could only find their way into Gaza after a reconciliation
agreement between Fatah, the more pro-western group that controls the West
Bank, and Hamas.’
It is clear that
the situation in Gaza is one that attracts
significant media attention, with particular focus given to how Israel’s
policies affect ordinary Gazans. On the other hand, there is significantly less
discussion of how the ideology and behaviour of Hamas affects Israel’s stance
towards the area.