Talking to Terrorists by Perry Mark;

Author:Perry, Mark;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books

When pressed on their targeting of civilians, Hamas leaders expressed their conviction that there is no distinction between Israeli civilians and soldiers. “Every Israeli is a soldier,” one of them said. “Settlers are armed.” When asked whether, in their view, terrorism worked—that is, whether it yielded political benefits—the Hamas delegates answered that it served to unite their people and to gain support for their political program.

Aronson pressed the point: “How did you make the decision?” he asked. “And after you made the decision, did it keep you awake at night?” Aronson’s dual questions were disquieting: If the Hamas leaders answered that the decisions kept them “awake at night,” then the next logical questions would have been, would you like to sleep better? If, on the other hand, the decision did not keep them awake at night, then the next logical question would have been, what kind of people are you?

There was only a slight hesitation, though the answer was carefully framed:If our tactics work, then Palestinians feel they are defending themselves. It wasn’t so easy losing our founders, our people, our leaders, and our friends. When all channels are closed to us, we use violence. We don’t have jets; we don’t have tanks. So we made the decision. It is one of the ways we resist; it is not the only way. We don’t agree to be considered terrorists by the U.S. administration. We didn’t wage war on the United States, not even verbally. Why did the U.S. administration take such a decision to make us terrorists? We have never ever expressed a link with Osama bin Laden, and we don’t support him.

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