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Hamas and the IRA
When Palestinians revealed their true colors electing Hamas to 74 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, the Arab world was dumb-struck. An Islamist terror group had finally snatched power from the ruling old guard and woke up the world to a new Middle East reality. But does Hamas' victory really represent the decisive shift where Palestinian politics began going down-hill?Historians and students of current affairs often compare the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to that between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republican Army (IRA), in which an organization claiming to represent Catholics took up arms against Irish Protestants and the British. For decades, the IRA's modus operandi was slaying thousands of innocent men, women and children. It also utilized terror tactics such as human bombs, which involved chaining one of its unfortunate victims to the steering wheel of a lorry laden with explosives, which was then exploded. The IRA was Western Europe's most successful terror organization and has spread its malign tentacles across the globe. The parallels with Hamas are inescapable. Balance at the link. Posted by: Besoeker 2006-02-15 |
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