Daniel Pipes Endorses Hamas

Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows. Daniel Pipes has taken sides against the US-subsidized Palestinian Authority and the Fatah party, (weakly) endorsing Hamas:

Fatah is dubbed moderate and Hamas extremist; or, in the even more dramatic terms of an Associated Press headline today, "Palestinians choose between pursuing peace or confrontation with Israel." In fact, the differences between them are merely tactical; a more accurate headline would be "Palestinians choose between pursuing more overt or more covert destruction of Israel." Basically, Hamas speaks its mind and Fatah dares not. And Hamas provides the social services that Fatah cannot because its honchos have stolen the funds.

Ironically, this means that there is some reason to prefer Hamas to Fatah, for it prompts a more negative response from Israelis, Europeans, Americans, and others. But the New York Sun has already made this point for me a couple of days ago, in a house editorial titled "Recipe for Trouble":

a victory by Hamas, evil though the organization is, might not be all bad. At least then it would be clear to everyone what Israel is facing, an enemy committed to its complete destruction. … With Hamas in power, the Palestinian Authority could be seen, even by the American state department, for what it is, a terrorist state with the aim of destroying a free and democratic American ally. It would join the ranks of Iran and Syria as a rogue state that America would seek to isolate and roll back rather than subsidize with taxpayer dollars.

So, while I do not wish Hamas well in any manner at all (an article of mine appearing today in USA Today calls for it to be destroyed), there will likely be some benefit in having it complicit in the Palestinian Authority.