Hamas is shocked! — shocked! — that anyone opposes their nifty family-friendly program of murder. After all, even mom and sis and the kids can join in. “Hamas ‘shocked’ by global opposition,” by Nidal al-Mughrabi for Reuters, with thanks to Doc Washburn:
GAZA (Reuters) – Hamas, the Islamist group that runs the Palestinian government, said on Thursday it could never have imagined the vast international pressure it would come under after winning democratic elections earlier this year.
In a candid article published in the Palestinian press, Ahmed Youssef, a political adviser to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, said the group had been shocked by the strength of opposition to its electoral victory.
“It went beyond all imagination,” wrote Youssef.
“The government … did not expect the pressures and the siege imposed on our people would be so harsh, so strong and so large in scale.”
Youssef’s is the latest in a series of articles by Hamas officials in recent weeks either seeking to explain themselves or calling on the Palestinian community to refrain from violence and think more carefully about how it opposes Israel.
Hamas, a staunchly religious and militant movement, won a surprise victory in elections in January, defeating the long-dominant Fatah movement, a more moderate and secular party headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas….
“Staunchly religious.” Of course there is nothing in this Reuters article about Hamas’ “glory record” of murders of Israeli civilians.