Hamas | The American Task Force on Palestine

Hamas raids, closes NGO offices
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Khaled Abu Toameh - June 4, 2010 - 12:00am

Hamas’s security forces on Monday and Tuesday raided the offices of several non-governmental organizations in the Gaza Strip and confiscated equipment and furniture, drawing sharp condemnations from human rights groups. The sources said the raids were carried out by agents belonging to Hamas’s Internal Security apparatus without court permission. Hamas spokesmen in the Gaza Strip on Thursday refused to comment on the raids.

Operation Make the World Hate Us
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New Republic
by Leon Wieseltier - June 3, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel does not need enemies: it has itself. Or more precisely: it has its government. The Netanyahu-Barak government has somehow found a way to lose the moral high ground, the all-important war for symbols and meanings, to Hamas. That is quite an accomplishment. Operation Make the World Hate Us, it might have been called.

Mideast Peace Tops List of Hopeless Causes: Aaron David Miller
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bloomberg
by Aaron David Miller - June 2, 2010 - 12:00am

Groucho Marx, one of America’s pre- eminent philosophers, once quipped, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes.” I thought of Groucho the other day, while ruminating about President Barack Obama and the crisis after Israeli commandos boarded a ship ostensibly carrying human-rights activists and aid supplies headed for Gaza in defiance of Israel’s blockade.

Israel, Egypt ease Gaza blockade after deadly raid
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
by Josef Federman - June 1, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel and Egypt signaled a temporary easing of the Gaza Strip blockade Tuesday following harsh international condemnation of the deadly Israeli raid on an aid flotilla en route to the sealed-off Palestinian territory. Egypt said it was freely opening its border with Gaza for the first time in more than a year to allow in humanitarian aid, setting off a mad rush to the crossing by thousands of residents, while an Israeli official said there is an "ongoing dialogue" with the international community on how to expand the amount of goods entering the area.

Gaza flotilla: Why the blockade makes sense for Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by David Makovsky - (Opinion) June 1, 2010 - 12:00am

The activists aboard the Gaza flotilla that was raided by Israeli security forces Monday may have believed that breaking the Gaza blockade was at its core forcing Israel to address an issue the activists see as moral blindness. Yet the situation is far more complex than they would like people to believe. The story of the flotilla crisis begins from the time Israel withdrew from Gaza in August 2005. Israelis were told that if they stopped occupying foreign land, they would be more secure.

That's No Way To Enforce a Blockade
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Slate
by Fred Kaplan - June 1, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel's storming of the Mavi Marmara, killing at least nine Free Gaza activists and wounding several more, was an act of jaw-gaping stupidity—strategically and tactically, even leaving aside morally. You needn't be a partisan of Hamas to think so. Look at today's headlines on the editorial page of Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz: "The price of flawed policy," "Fiasco on the high seas," "Seven idiots in the cabinet," "A failure any way you slice it."

Hamas calls Amnesty report a joke
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
May 28, 2010 - 12:00am

Hamas' Salah Al-Bardawil said Amnesty International's comparison of resistance projectiles to Israel's war on Gaza last year must have been done in irony, given the total misalignment of consequences of the two. "Tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed or disfigured, their limbs were amputated or they lost their homes," the Hamas official said of Israeli strikes on Gaza and the impact of the country's Operation Cast Lead last winter.

Jihadists challenge Hamas western approach
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Nidal Al-Mughrabi - May 27, 2010 - 12:00am

Bandleader Jamal Al-Bayouk said he and his musicians would not risk performing in the southern Gaza Strip any more after militant Islamists threatened to kill them at a wedding party. They had just finished performing east of Khan Younis when armed militants burst in, set fire to $40,000 worth of instruments and fired shots between the legs of band members. "One gunman told another: Don't shoot between the legs. Shoot at the legs!" Bayouk told Reuters.

Gaza: 15 injured in Israeli airstrikes
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
May 26, 2010 - 12:00am

Fifteen Palestinians were injured on Wednesday morning as Israeli F16 warplanes bombarded a training base belonging to Hamas' military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip. Palestinian medical sources confirmed that some of the victims sustained critical wounds, with media coordinator for Gaza medical services Adham Abu Selmiyya saying injured were evacuated to hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip. He explained that several houses close to the training base sustained material damage.

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