DoD wrote:

The denial started almost immediately after Hamas captured 57 percent of
the
seats in the Palestinian parliament. Associated Press reported that
"Hamas
capitalized on widespread discontent with years of Fatah corruption and
ineffectiveness. Much of its campaign focused on internal Palestinian
issues, while playing down the conflict with Israel." Secretary of State
Condoleeza Rice opined: "Palestinian people have apparently voted for
change, but we believe their aspirations for peace and a peaceful life
remain unchanged."

But what kind of peace? And how does Hamas (Harakat Muqawama Islamiyya -
the
Islamic Resistance Movement) propose to rid the Palestinian Authority of
corruption? To these questions the answer has been clear for as long as
Hamas has existed; the answer to both is Islam. The Hamas Charter of
August
18, 1988, quotes Hassan Al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, the
first modern Islamic terror organization and the direct forefather of
Hamas:
"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will
obliterate
it, just as it obliterated others before it." A Hamas supporter in Gaza
amplified that principle on Thursday: "We're happy that now we will have
an
Islamic state. God willing, Islam will prevail and we will get rid of
corruption."

The Iranian regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has joined
Hamas in
calling for the destruction of Israel, expressed delight at the election
outcome. An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said: "Iran...hopes that
the
powerful presence of Hamas at the [political] scene brings about great
achievements for the Palestinian nation."

Others were not so joyful. Jasser Jasser, a Christian pharmacist in
Ramallah, said of the prospect of Hamas rule: "We're all afraid. We're
worried about the future, that we'll become a second Iran." Jasser and
other
non-Muslims have every reason to be afraid. Hassam El-Masalmeh, Hamas
leader
in Bethlehem, recently declared that his movement intended to
reinstitute
the traditional tax, the jizya, stipulated in the Qur'an for Jews and
Christians in an Islamic state. "We in Hamas," Masalmeh announced,
"intend
to implement this tax someday. We say it openly - we welcome everyone to
Palestine but only if they agree to live under our rules." Since along
with
this tax, Islamic law stipulates that Jews and Christians must submit to
a
series of humiliating and discriminatory regulations, ensuring their
second-class status in line with the Qur'anic stipulation that they "pay
the
jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued" (9:29).

Some try to draw comfort from the fact that Hamas participated in the
elections at all. Victor Batarseh, the mayor of Bethlehem and a
Christian,
echoed the view of many analysts when he said: "The only way to make
Hamas
more moderate is to bring them inside the system." But that hope was
belied
by statements from Hamas operatives themselves, including Umm Farhat, a
candidate for the Palestinian Legislative Council and the mother of a
jihad
terrorist who murdered five Israeli civilians. Umm Farhat emphasized
that
Hamas' participation in elections did not mean it was moderating its
jihadist goals one iota: "The jihadist project completes the political
one
and the political project cannot be completed without jihad."

So now it should be clear to the world that exactly that - the jihad -
is
the agenda of Hamas, and now of the Palestinian Authority as a whole.
While
Mahmoud Abbas has been able to distance himself from terror attacks in
Israel and claim that he was not able to stop them, now the government
of
the Palestinian Authority itself will be dominated by an organization
that
has celebrated such attacks.

Flush with victory, Hamas shows no sign of changing that posture. Hamas
operative Ismail Haniyeh said the Islamic group will now work to
"complete
the liberation of other parts of Palestine." In a sadly typical example
of
mainstream media cluelessness, the AP story reporting this adds: "But
did
not say which territories he was referring to or how he would go about
it."
As if there were any doubt in the mind of anyone in Hamas at this point
that
"Palestine" refers to the entirety of Israel. The Hamas Charter states:
"For
renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion;
the
nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its faith, the
movement educates its members to adhere to its principles and to raise
the
banner of Allah over their homeland as they fight their Jihad: 'Allah is
the
all-powerful, but most people are not aware.'"

And how will Hamas go about "liberating" its "homeland"? Hamas' Mahmoud
Zahar reiterated after the electoral victory: "We have no peace process.
We
are not going to mislead our people to tell them we are waiting,
meeting,
for a peace process that is nothing." Zahar was echoing the Hamas
Charter's
declaration: "[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and
the
international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all
contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement."

Those words should reverberate in the minds of all the world's
policymakers
whenever they are tempted in the coming weeks to call yet again for
Israel
to moderate its stance toward Hamas and enter into negotiations with the
group. Hamas is dedicated to establishing an Islamic state and will no
doubt
begin immediately to do so. Its Charter maintains, "the Islamic nature
of
Palestine is part of our religion, and anyone who neglects his religion
is
bound to lose." The Charter follows this with a quotation from the
Qur'an:
"And who forsakes the religion of Abraham, save him who befools
himself?"
(2:130).

Hamas identifies itself in the Charter as "characterized by a profound
understanding, by precise notions and by a complete comprehensiveness of
all
concepts of Islam in all domains of life: views and beliefs, politics
and
economics, education and society, jurisprudence and rule, indoctrination
and
teaching, the arts and publications, the hidden and the evident, and all
the
other domains of life." That totalitarian vision, as Jasser Jasser knows
well, bodes ill for Palestinian non-Muslims.

Nonetheless, Secretary of State Rice is, of course, correct: the
Palestinian
"aspirations for peace and a peaceful life remain unchanged." But they
are
founded upon a societal model that is fundamentally different from that
that
Western analysts have so far imagined. "When Islam strives for peace,"
wrote the Egyptian Muslim theorist Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), "its
objective
is not that superficial peace which requires that only that part of the
earth where the followers of Islam are residing remain secure. The peace
which Islam desires is that the religion (i.e., the Law of the society)
be
purified for God, that the obedience of all people be for God alone, and
that some people should not be lords over others." In the Palestinian
Authority, the voters have freely chosen such a society. Were they
voting
against corruption? So were many Germans who voted for Hitler in the
early
1930s. The fact that much of the populace had not endorsed his agenda,
however, did not prevent him from implementing it.

Ahmadinejad in Iran, Hamas in the Palestinian Authority: jihadists are
closer than they have been in ages to realizing the Muslim Prophet
Muhammad'
s prediction that "the last hour would not come unless the Muslims will
fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews
would
hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would
say:
Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill
him" (Sahih Muslim, bk. 41, no. 6985).

Will the world stand ready to prevent this? Or continue to deceive
itself
with vain hopes that the men who won the Palestinian elections are men
with
whom they can deal?
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21076

Is anyone surprised by this?