silverpig
Lifer
- Jul 29, 2001
- 27,703
- 12
- 81
You are cherry picking parts of the article
Israeli unilaterally withdrew from Gaza 18 months before Hamas was elected. Even before that the previous leadership couldn't be considered secular in the Western sense of the word.
Well yeah. I was highlighting the parts where he almost gets killed by Israelis.
Also, he says in the article that Gaza was secular.
These supposed friends of Israel are in practice friends of Islamic fundamentalism, he believes. Why do they have to give the fundamentalists more excuses, more fury, more opportunities, more recruits? Look at Gaza. Gaza was totally secular not long ago. Now you can hardly get alcohol today in Gaza, after all the brutality. Religious fundamentalism is always the language people turn to in despair, if everything else fails. If Gaza had been a free society it would not have become like this. We gave them recruits.
People turn to religion in times of need. They turn to radical extremism in times of prolonged extreme hardship. Radical extremism leads to violence.