The future of Palestine?

When Main Stream Media(MSM) loses it focus and forgets to dig into stories; we miss important news such as the one listed below.

A Great Misunderstanding About the Hamas Victory
- Fiamma Nirenstein

I went to the West Bank to report on and interview Palestinian Arabs before, during, and after the elections. In the market of Hebron, a pretty woman, Raeda, 22, with a veil down to her eyebrows, told me she prefers Hamas because it's a religious party that will reestablish Islamic rule on all the land occupied by the Jews. With a lovely smile she also told me that she wouldn't mind if her son becomes a martyr. A group of children told me, almost singing, that: "Religion says that there is no peace with the infidels." Where did they learn that? At school. What do they think about martyrs? All of them want to be one.
It's a pathetic joke to try to launder the Hamas victory as if the Palestinian Arabs simply wanted to vote against PA corruption. From what I saw and heard, it was an Islamist and violent vote, with deep cultural roots in the Palestinian education system and in the messages of the Palestinian Arab leadership during the intifada. The reality is that secularism has declined since the 1970s. No statement renouncing violence or terror or acknowledging Israel's right to exist can cancel out the religious and violence-oriented education of the past decade that culminated in the election. (New York Sun)

Friends of Hamas - Editorial (Wall Street Journal, 15Feb06)

* The government of Hugo Chavez will receive representatives of Hamas "with pleasure" should they visit Venezuela on a forthcoming tour of South America. Vladimir Putin has announced he will host a meeting with the Palestinian terrorist group/political party next month in Moscow. "We have never considered Hamas a terrorist organization," says the Russian president.
* Already, Spain and France have endorsed Putin's invitation to Hamas, and both governments are reported to be working to have Hamas removed from the European list of terrorist organizations.
* Which brings us to yesterday's reports that the U.S. and Israel are trying to "destabilize" Hamas by squeezing the Palestinian Authority for funds - which was played as front-page news. Neither President Bush nor acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has made any secret of their intention to isolate Hamas and deprive the Palestinian Authority of funds once Hamas assumes the reins of government.
* Nor is there any shame in doing so: Donors have the right to impose conditions on their beneficiaries, and so far Hamas has rejected international calls that it disarm, forswear terrorism, and accept the legitimacy of the Jewish state.
* Palestinians need to understand that the exercise of self-government carries consequences. For too long, the international community has failed to extract a price for the Palestinian recourse to terror. That failure has not brought peace, but far worse it has produced the "Palestine" we have now: destitute and savage against both Israelis and moderate Arabs.

We already know that France and Spain have large Islamic populations and are afraid of the radical backlash if they say negative things about Hamas.

Hamas military wing -arabic version

Notice how the arabic version has a macromedia flash image of Israel being destroyed by a nuclear blast but the english version is different and doesn't contain the image.

Hamas military wing -english version

Hamas is lying to the world about any peaceful intentions.

Religion is literary fiction

Definition of Fiction
- a literary work based on the imagination and not necessarily on fact .

There is no absolute proof of "divine intervention" therefore the religious texts of the Qur'an, Book of Mormon, Holy Bible are books of fiction. Plain and Simple.

Once this fact can be made clear to everyone, we can remove the idea that one religion is better than the other.

Making fiction a fact is dangerous. Perhaps the Hobbits can come out of hiding and destroy the one ring that will rule us all.

Karen Armstrong's quote below summates my ideas of religion.

People have such clear ideas of what God is — you know: creator, father, personality watching over me. It's not what I believe in, even though I like to use the word sometimes. So people will ask, "Is traditional faith wrong?" And I say, "No." It doesn't really matter what you believe as long as it leads you to practical compassion. If your belief in a traditional God makes you come out imbued with a desire to feel with your fellow human beings, to make a place for them in your heart, to work to end suffering in the world, then it's good. Nobody has the last word on God, whether they're conservative or liberals.