13-Feb-12: Quotes of the day: Very surprisingly "the gun is our only response..."

Haniyeh speaks in Tehran on Saturday. Behind him are
portraits of former Ayatollah Khomeini, left, and
Even More Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
[Image Source]

The prime minister of "Hamas" (not to confused with the prime minister of "Palestine") is visiting Iran at this moment. There has been some new confusion in some quarters, to add to old confusions, over what Hamas and/or the Palestinian Arabs and/or the Gaza version thereof stand for in relation to this elusive thing called peace. So Ismail Haniyah took the opportunity and an Iranian spotlight to set things straight.

Recent news reports have spoken of a change in Hamas' declared strategy in its war against Israel. Some Hamas officials have said Hamas is heading toward a strategy of nonviolent resistance. Well not so fast.

Haaretz and Associated Press today quote the arch terrorist's clarifications, direct from Tehran and via the Iranian government controlled Fars news agency:

• Hamas will focus on popular protests to unify Palestinians but the 'gun is our only response to Zionist regime'.
• Haniyeh says Hamas views armed "resistance" as the only way to fight Israel and "no compromise should be made with the enemy" (that's us)
• And as for the recently signed "reconciliation" deal with Fatah, this was "for resistance and obtaining Palestinians' rights" only.
• The west, he says "want us to stop resistance and acknowledge Israel but I herewith announce that this will never happen."

He should certainly be believed on all these points. The Iranians certainly believe him. 

While we're discussing Haniyeh's most enthusiastic backers and proven friends, the Iranians, our attention was drawn this morning to the Iranian ALEF.ir  website with a very lengthy description, including details and illustrations, of what it calls "The necessity of Israel annihilation in Imam Khomeini’s view". It's genuinely disturbing. (Though it contains some Iranian-made English translation, the experts at MEMRI have done their usual professional work in rendering it into reliable English.) Contrast it with the ideologically-driven, dangerous silliness that animates op ed pieces like "Did Ahmadinejad really say Israel should be ‘wiped off the map’?" which appeared in the Washington Post some months ago. 

There seems to be an endless appetite in some quarters to listen carefully to what the terrorists say and then excuse them away with some form of "they didn't really mean it" wrap-up. For those of us making our lives in the shadow of the Iranian missile umbrella, this nonsense (to put it mildly) is threatening. Here's a careful analysis from three years ago that reminds us of just how seriously existential the Islamist messianics who have ruled Iran for the past three decades are about unadorned genocide.