Good for Orphanages, Bad for Mideast Policy
On the nature or nurture debate, Father Edward Flanagan came down on the nurture side. The founder of a Nebraska orphanage in 1917, his theory was: “There is nothing the matter with our growing boys that love, proper training and guidance will not remedy.”
Barry Rubin writes in the Jerusalem Post that, unfortunately, “the Flanagan Method has . . . become the backbone of contemporary Western Middle East policy toward radical nationalists and Islamists.” He continues:
Take Hamas, for example. Much of the media coverage, for example an article in the Los Angeles Times, July 13, tries desperately to find some way to avoid concluding that Hamas is fanatical, genocidal, terrorist, and ruthlessly repressive.
If only it is given a chance and treated properly, the argument goes, it will become moderate. The Los Angeles Times article portrays Hamas as walking “an ideological tightrope” between its “pragmatists” and “hardliners.” Wow, I sure hope the pragmatists win.
If there is a villain, we are told it is the smaller Islamic Jihad, Army of Islam, al-Qaida or others “seeking to capitalize on the unrest between Palestinian political parties and turn Gaza into a radical Islamic state.”
Hamas’s own goal is now attributed instead to marginal third parties who are supposedly using the Fatah-Hamas conflict for this purpose. It is bad enough to cope with the concept that Fatah are the good guys and Hamas the bad ones. Now this is being taken one step further, with Hamas as the moderates trying to hold off the real radical Islamists.
The July 13 Los Angeles Times article is just but one example of the new good guy-bad guy dichotomy, in which Hamas, incredibly, has become the good guy.
More from SNAPSHOTS
Revealed: Palestinian ‘Journalist’ Killed at Gaza Border was a Terrorist
May 1, 2018
PFLP operatives A Palestinian journalist who died from wounds received during the Hamas-led “Great Return March” has been identified as a terrorist. Ahmed Abu Hussein, a journalist who worked with Bisann News and Voice of [...]
Poll: Majority of Palestinians Fear Their Own Government
April 23, 2018
PA President Mahmoud Abbas and European Union Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini A majority of Palestinians living in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) fear the Palestinian Authority (PA), according to a poll by the Palestinian [...]
LA Times Replaces Solid AP Headline With Biased Headline
April 23, 2018
"Hamas vows revenge for key member killed in Malaysia," was the perfectly accurate and straightforward Associated Press headline (reproduced here in The Washington Post) about the killing Saturday of key Hamas member Fadi Batsh in [...]
Iran Has Sleeper Cells in the U.S.—And the Media is Fast Asleep
April 20, 2018
Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah The Islamic Republic of Iran has proxies serving as “sleeper cells” in the U.S., according to sworn congressional testimony. Yet, U.S. news outlets have largely neglected the story. Several “intelligence officials [...]
Where’s the Coverage? Iranian Drone Shot Down by Israel Was Armed
April 19, 2018
Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamanei Israeli officials have recently disclosed that an Iranian drone shot down by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) on Feb. 10, 2018 was armed. However, many major U.S. news outlets have [...]