In this smear piece published on the occasion of our nation’s 231st birthday, the hits started right in the glorious headline: “How U.S. policy missteps led to a nasty downfall in Gaza; Plan to isolate Hamas boomeranged.”
Isn’t that special? Alas, that was only the beginning (emphasis added throughout):
Officials in the Bush administration awoke on the morning of January 26, 2006 to catastrophic news.
Hamas, a violent Islamist movement whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel, had won Palestinian parliamentary elections — elections that were deemed free and fair and a cornerstone to President Bush's initiative to bring more democracy to the Muslim world.
For the next 17 months, White House and State Department officials would undertake an all-out campaign to reverse those results and oust Hamas from power.
Instead of undermining Hamas, though, the strategy helped to exacerbate dangerous political fissures in Palestinian politics that have delivered another setback to the president's vision of a stable, pro-Western Middle East.
Fascinating. So, in order to legitimize democracy rather than undermine it, the Bush administration supported Hamas being involved in the elections. If they hadn’t, both American and international press representatives would have seen any government in Gaza as just being a U.S. puppet.
However, the people in the region decided to put this terrorist group in power. And that’s Bush’s fault? Aren’t the Palestinians who voted for this murderous organization at all to blame?
In McClatchy’s view, apparently not:
As recently as March 2007, Jordanian officials developed a $1.2 billion proposal to train, arm and pay Abbas' security forces so they could control the streets after he dissolved the government and called new elections. McClatchy Newspapers obtained a copy of the plan. While two sources close to Abbas said U.S. officials were involved in developing and presenting the plan, a State Department official described it as a Jordanian initiative.
Ultimately, congressional concerns in Washington and Israeli objections kept any significant military aid from being delivered, even as Israeli intelligence and the CIA warned that Hamas was becoming stronger.
Hmmm. So, unnamed members of Congress, along with unnamed Israeli dissenters, blocked the Bush administration’s plans to fund the rival party of Fatah. As a result, Hamas got stronger.
Yet, this is Bush’s fault? Wouldn’t it have been appropriate to identify which members of Congress thwarted the idea, as well as who within Israel balked at the military aid, and point some blame at them for the current situation?
Or, would that be too much like journalism?
