Why Hamas Won

This is from the American Congress for Truth. Read it and realize that the old expression "one bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch" is a load of hoohah. Makes total sense, unfortunately for the west and for Israel.

WHY HAMAS WON
By RALPH PETERSJune 19, 2007 -- HAMAS won its shut-out victory in Gaza with alarming ease.And the reason Hamas won is even more alarming: Fanaticism trumps numbers. You'll hear no end of explanations for the terrorist triumph: Hamas wasbacked by Iran; Gaza is Hamas' base of support; some Fatah units ran out ofammunition . . . All true. And all secondary factors. Fatah's security forces in Gaza outnumbered the Hamas gunmen. Fatah hadstockpiles of weapons and military gear (now in Hamas' arsenal). Fatah evenhad the quiet backing of Israel and America. And Fatah folded like a pup tent in a tornado. Hamas won because its fighters are religious fanatics ready to die for theircause. Fatah runs an armed employment agency under the banner of Palestiniannationalism. Most of the latter's security men are on the payroll becauserelatives or ward pols got them jobs. And they want to stay alive to collecttheir wages. The result was predictable. Our government pretended otherwise. Now hairsshould be standing up on the backs of thousands of necks, from the WhiteHouse to the Green Zone. Yes, Iraq is more complex than Gaza. But once you pierce the surfaceturbulence and look deep, the similarities are chilling: Iraq's securityforces do include true patriots - but most of the troops and cops just wanta job, or were ordered to join up by a sheik or a mullah, or are gatheringguns until their faction calls. The al-Qaeda-in-Iraq terrorists, the core members of Muqtada al-Sadr's MahdiArmy and the hard-line Sunni ghazis are willing to die for the victory oftheir faction and their faith. They believe they're doing Allah's will. Itgives them a strength we rush to explain away. The raw numbers suggest that Iraq's fanatics don't stand a chance. Thegovernment has a far greater numerical advantage than did Fatah. But numbersoften mislead analysts during insurgencies: Iraq's government wouldn't lasta week without U.S. troops. The lesson from Gaza is that such wars are neither waged nor won by themajority of the population. A tiny fraction of the populace, armed anddetermined, can destroy a fragile government and seize power. Polls showing that most Iraqis "want peace" and don't support the extremistsonly deceive us (because we want to be deceived). It wouldn't matter if 99percent of the Iraqis loved us like free falafel, if we're unwilling toannihilate the fraction of 1 percent of the population with the weapons andwill to dictate the future to the rest. At the height of last week's fighting in Gaza, one Palestinian in 300carried a weapon in support of Hamas - a third of one percent of thepopulation. Now Hamas rules 1.5 million people. Numbers still matter, of course. But strength of will can overcome hollownumbers. And nothing - nothing - gives men a greater strength of will thanreligious fanaticism. We don't want to hear it. Secular virtues were supposed to triumph. Theydidn't, but we still can't let go of our dream of a happy-face, godlessworld where nobody quarrels. Our refusal to acknowledge the unifying - and terrifying - power ofextremist religion has deep roots. As academics rejected and derided faithin the last century, even the Thirty Years' War - the horrible climax ofEurope's wars of religion - was reinvented as a dynastic struggle, or afight for hegemony, or a class struggle. But the Thirty Years' War was about faith. All the other factors were inplay, but the core issue, from the Protestant coup in Prague in 1618 to thePeace of Westphalia in 1648, was religious identity. And the atrocitiescommitted on both sides make Iraq look like amateur hour: Wars of religionalways demand blood sacrifice. (It was a compromise of bloody exhaustionthat ended the Thirty Years War.) Our problem is that, of those who rise in government, few have witnessed thepower of revelation or caught a life-changing glimpse of the divine. Theysimply can't imagine that others might be willing to die for all thatmumbo-jumbo. Our convenience-store approach to faith leaves us numb to thepassion of our enemies. The true believer always beats the feckless attendee. The best you can hopefor is that the extremist will eventually defeat himself. And that does leave us some hope: Fanatics inevitably over-reach, as alQaeda's Islamo-fascists have done in Iraq, alienating those who once sawthem as allies. But the road to self-destruction can be a long one: Thepeople of Iran want change, but the fanatics have the guns. And sorry,folks: Fanatics with guns beat liberals with ideas. Faith is the nuclear weapon of the fanatic. And there's not going to be areligious "nuclear freeze." It doesn't matter how many hearts and minds youwin, if you don't defeat the zealots with the muscles.