Blog update - Hamas changed it's position on Obama. And response to Brittany.

Submitted by Aaron (United States), Aug 16, 2008 at 22:31

I was just doing some research on Ahmed Yousef, and found this:

After his [Obama's] speech to the American Israel Political Action Committee on June 4, 2008, Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that his group no longer had any preference in the U.S. election. "Hamas does not differentiate between the two presidential candidates, Obama and McCain, because their policies regarding the Arab-Israel conflict are the same and are hostile to us, therefore we do have no preference and are not wishing for either of them to win," Zuhri said.

Even though this statement was made by Sami Abu Zuhri, not Ahmed Yousef, it nonetheless speaks for Hamas. Honestly, I think it's regrettable that we seem to be making no progress on peace in the Middle East. I think that the reason Hamas favored Obama before was really simple: Obama seems to be willing to look at the general picture, get the facts of the situation, and treat each party/country with respect.

That doesn't mean we should meet unconditionally with terrorists. It simply means that we should NOT be making fun of Islam, saying that we should "nuke them all," drawing insulting cartoons, saying that we should kill their babies by sticking grenades up their butts (Michael Reagan), and so on. Let's not forget that most Muslims, just like most Jews and most Christians, want the same thing: peace. And that perspective has only been reinforced by the statements and articles that I've read from Ahmed Yousef.

What we should be doing is maximizing our efforts to find and stop the radicals who wish to do harm, while simultaneously reaching out to and educating those would-be radicals, and giving them a moral standard to live up to. We should have put whatever resources were necessary into eliminating Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

But instead, we've fanned the flames of radical Islamic extremists by showing them that radical Christian and/or democratic extremism is just as bad, or worse. Bush even referred to our invasion of Iraq as a crusade. A CRUSADE!!!! Can you believe that? Now every country in the middle east wants nuclear weapons to protect itself from the US, who they believe is a big bully, and a hypocrite. The Chinese no longer respect us; they own us. Even the Russians don't respect us - did you see what they wrote onto their bombs? Look it up.

At this point, I think Obama is the only remaining candidate who could potentially return this country to the high esteem in which it was once held by the rest of the world. McCain is a guaranteed disaster, and I wouldn't have said that a year ago. And I certainly wouldn't have said it back in 2000, when I actually liked him.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".