From McClatchy Newspaper:
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — If you think of the Gaza Strip as a volatile, violent battleground run by fanatic Islamist militants bent on destroying Israel, Hamas wants you to think again.
Think: "Safe, clean and green."
One month after seizing the Gaza Strip in a military rout that shattered brittle Palestinian unity,
Hamas is embarking on a radical marketing campaign to promote what it calls "the new face of Gaza."
They call it the "Gaza Riviera."
Lime-green Hamas banners flutter over Gaza City with a message in English for aid workers and journalists worried about being kidnapped: "No more threat for our foreign visitors and guests."
Bearded gunmen in blue-gray camouflage uniforms who helped seize control of Gaza now rush to settle routine neighborhood squabbles and family disputes.
Once-deserted Mediterranean beaches are now filled with dozens of families holding picnics to escape the summer heat until long after midnight.
On Monday, Hamas is planning to take journalists on a special tour of the Gaza Strip, from the packed beaches to the bullet-scarred security compounds its Islamist fighters overran last month when they ousted Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
While the United States and Israel are working to help Abbas transform the West Bank into a model of pro-Western modernity — and isolate and marginalize Hamas in the Gaza Strip in the process — Hamas is working to assure the world that it has no plans to turn the Gaza Strip into a Taliban-style police state.
"This is our new Riviera," boasted Mahmoud Zahar, the Hamas leader who has narrowly escaped several assassination attempts, including a 2003 Israeli airstrike on his Gaza City home. "This is the most secure period in the history of Gaza."
5 comments:
Hamas is getting alot of money from somebody. Fatha is getting money from the US. Now this action is interesting. Opening the doors to the history of Christianity where Jesus was. If they start with reporters and move up to others it might work. Then there's bigger problems for Israel, US and Fatha. The People voted in Hamas, Bush didn't like that so he picked Fatha. Fatha will do as the US says. Most Americans really aren't educated in the history of the problem of Palestine and Israel.
If Americans knew the real history, then there would have been more sympathy for the Palestinians decades ago.
P.S. Jimmy Carter's book is very good. More Americans should read it. He's fed up, angry, and frustrated. He occasionally slips and says what he really thinks then back peddles a little.
Israel is on the American gravy train. Americans don't know how much money goes to Israel but Muslim countries do and that is why lots of them are angry.
This sounds more like the calm before the storm.hmmmmm, somehow I don't think this will last very long.
Mr. Kitty I read the bottom line history of the Palestine vs Israel conflict. This goes all the way back to Moses. Now I understand what happen and how Israel got to be on Palestinian land. Thanks to Briton and the United States they really did some tricks on getting Israel that land. The land is the property of Palestine but stolen as the UK/US came up with a plan of calling it the Commonwealth so that Israel could settle in Palestine.
In a way it's like America stolen this land from the Indians and Spanish. What will happen if the Spanish want to take back their land that was stolen. There goes California.
I don't blame the Palestinian people for fighting for their land.
Mr. Kitty turn around is fair play. Now the Middle East has played the US and yes for alot of money now the ball is in their court. Israel will lose this one two. It does seem like the Jews really never learned after those 40 years God left them to wonder in the desert. What a history of the Jews and still they haven't changed at all.
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