Hamas legitimate?

[SassyLady]

Jim, if you believe that legitimacy is awarded through the democratic process then, yes, Hamas is legitimate. They gained power in 2006 through an election process.

Although they gained power, it's rival, Fatah, were not willing to cede. Civil unrest, assassinations, civilians deaths (I think almost 1,000). In 2007 Hamas got the upper hand and then started doing humanitarian stuff for the citizens .. food banks, schools, hospitals, etc. For awhile they were popular with the citizenry.

So, while we may not like the idea of a terrorist organization/government, it is still possible for it to be legitimate.

Carter thinks that peace won't be achieved until the world sees Hamas as legitimate. He believes that once the world acknowledges their legitimacy they will lay down their weapons and work peacefully with it's neighbors. He's an ostrich and thinks the Osolo Accord process can work here. Obviously, he doesn't understand the Hamas Charter and the willingness of the "legitimate political actor", Hamas, to carry it through to completion.

I just hope Israel is just as committed to taking out or at least convincing Hamas that they are done with negotiating.

[jimnyc]

Jim, if you believe that legitimacy is awarded through the democratic process then, yes, Hamas is legitimate. They gained power in 2006 through an election process.

I don't believe that. Like I stated earlier - what if Palestine decides to elect Al Qaeda? Even though the people voted for them, no way and no how are they legitimate. No country in the world outside of there would recognize them and they would still be a band of murderous terrorists with a long history of terror acts and killing innocents, women and children. No amount of votes, IMO, can somehow change that.

I don't think legitimately being put in office in a particular area makes someone particularly legitimate around the world.

It's so ILLEGITIMATE that the overwhelming majority of countries in the world wouldn't even allow a known terror group to run, let alone hold any type of office.

Lastly, a question to those stating they are perhaps legit - if so - why doesn't the USA, the EU and other major countries have any type of type of diplomatic efforts with them? No meetings? No recognition outside of terrorist status? Is that because we simply disagree with them - or because they are designated a terrorist organization?

[SassyLady]

I don't believe that. Like I stated earlier - what if Palestine decides to elect Al Qaeda? Even though the people voted for them, no way and no how are they legitimate. No country in the world outside of there would recognize them and they would still be a band of murderous terrorists with a long history of terror acts and killing innocents, women and children. No amount of votes, IMO, can somehow change that.

I don't think legitimately being put in office in a particular area makes someone particularly legitimate around the world.

It's so ILLEGITIMATE that the overwhelming majority of countries in the world wouldn't even allow a known terror group to run, let alone hold any type of office.

Lastly, a question to those stating they are perhaps legit - if so - why doesn't the USA, the EU and other major countries have any type of type of diplomatic efforts with them? No meetings? No recognition outside of terrorist status? Is that because we simply disagree with them - or because they are designated a terrorist organization?

Has there ever been a legitimate organization running Palestine? Perhaps therein lies the answer ... Palestine is not legitimate.

I'm sure fj will be here to refute this with some type of UN Charter watchmacallit to dispute this assertion. But, hey, maybe that's the problem. Country not legitimate, governing power not legitimate.

[jimnyc]

Has there ever been a legitimate organization running Palestine? Perhaps therein lies the answer ... Palestine is not legitimate.

I'm sure fj will be here to refute this with some type of UN Charter watchmacallit to dispute this assertion. But, hey, maybe that's the problem. Country not legitimate, governing power not legitimate.

I wouldn't even mind recognizing a governing power that was NOT a terror organization, if that's what helps achieve peace over there. But they will NEVER see peace when they have terrorist scum in charge of Gaza. I believe, whether the country is legit or not, that a terror group remains illegitimate regardless. No country in the entire world would be recognized as a legitimate government if they should somehow vote in Al Qaeda, for example. Sure, they "might" be considered such in whatever shithole voted them in, and they may see them as legit in that little corner, but that's a fantasy, IMO.

A government really can't be a government if said people are leading via terrorism. Then it's a government in name only and not true governing.

[fj1200]

Lastly, a question to those stating they are perhaps legit - if so - why doesn't the USA, the EU and other major countries have any type of type of diplomatic efforts with them? No meetings? No recognition outside of terrorist status? Is that because we simply disagree with them - or because they are designated a terrorist organization?

We don't? I would presume we did considering the complaints I've heard here about funding Hamas. I don't think that there is a requirement that we have diplomatic efforts with any group we recognize.

Has there ever been a legitimate organization running Palestine? Perhaps therein lies the answer ... Palestine is not legitimate.

I'm sure fj will be here to refute this with some type of UN Charter watchmacallit to dispute this assertion. But, hey, maybe that's the problem. Country not legitimate, governing power not legitimate.

What would I dispute? Palestine is merely an area of land that has been mostly conquered and governed by others for a couple millennium give or take. The history of a hunk of land is largely irrelevant IMO. Shall we count the number of countries that were only hunks of land prior to becoming legitimized countries? Shall we also count the number of countries that are deemed legitimate while also fulfilling the terrorist definition?

[Lemongrass Gogulope]

CBS Incorrectly Claims Hamas Was Elected to Power in Gaza

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wi...#ixzz3A6rqZPnM

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/11/hamas_in_gaza_how_the_organization_beat_fatah_and_ took_control_of_the_gaza.html

And this article from June, 2007, seems to indicate Hamas was anything but "duly elected."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/world/middleeast/14mideast.html

[Lemongrass Gogulope]

I'm having all sorts of issues posting links, so I'm just going to try again with a new post:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wi...ted-power-gaza

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/wo...14mideast.html

The New York Times article is particularly interesting because it was written in "real time" and not from a historical basis.

[NightTrain]

The palestinians themselves view Hamas as a brutal military dictatorship and have said so many times.

I would definitely question any 'election' with suspicion, especially given the track record of election results from military dictatorships. Ol' Saddam pulled off almost 100% election results. I imagine it's hard to vote for anyone else with an AK-47 pointed at you in the booth.

Hamas is officially a terrorist organization, therefore it is not a legitimate government. It doesn't matter what some of the fools in the UN are saying or nutjob politicians. You don't deal with terrorists as a civilized country. You bomb them further into the stone age and eradicate them before they grow strong enough to harm your soft civilian underbelly with another sneak attack.

[Lemongrass Gogulope]

The palestinians themselves view Hamas as a brutal military dictatorship and have said so many times.

I would definitely question any 'election' with suspicion, especially given the track record of election results from military dictatorships. Ol' Saddam pulled off almost 100% election results. I imagine it's hard to vote for anyone else with an AK-47 pointed at you in the booth.

Hamas is officially a terrorist organization, therefore it is not a legitimate government. It doesn't matter what some of the fools in the UN are saying or nutjob politicians. You don't deal with terrorists as a civilized country. You bomb them further into the stone age and eradicate them before they grow strong enough to harm your soft civilian underbelly with another sneak attack.

You're dealing with a stretch of land that is 25 miles long and 10 miles wide with a population of over a million people. How do you bomb them into the stone age without killing innocent civilians?

And no, I'm not necessarily pro-Palestinian nor anti-Israel. But, the more I read about this, the more I'm convinced that Hamas is the equivalent of the Taliban.

[jimnyc]

We don't? I would presume we did considering the complaints I've heard here about funding Hamas. I don't think that there is a requirement that we have diplomatic efforts with any group we recognize.

You quote me, to be sarcastic about what you've seen others post? And did I say it was a requirement, or is your comprehension button broken once again? It's certainly fair to assume in many cases that when a legitimate government is in place, we generally have some sort of diplomatic relations with them. In many cases, SOMEONE out there has diplomatic relations with legitimate governments.

[fj1200]

So there are quite a few varying stances on what I have asked, but you still claim it's solely about some sort of validation? And exclude everyone in the thread to make your point? Same as I say to the others, probably best to ignore what you don't like and reply to those that you prefer to engage. But certainly nothing is accomplished by going on about validation and the other crap.

I didn't mean you, that many of the posters here are validating their own opinion based on their own biases. Is Hamas legitimate? Dare I ask for legitimacy be defined?

Forms of legitimate government

In determining the political legitimacy of a system of rule and government, the term proper — political legitimacy — is philosophically an essentially contested concept that facilitates understanding the different applications and interpretations of abstract, qualitative, and evaluative concepts such as “Art”, “social justice”, et cetera, as applied in aesthetics, political philosophy, the philosophy of history, and the philosophy of religion.^[8] Therefore, in defining the political legitimacy of a system of government and rule, the term “essentially contested concept” indicates that a key term (communism, democracy, constitutionalism, etc.) has different meanings within a given political argument. Hence, the intellectually restrictive politics of dogmatism (“My answer is right, and all others are wrong”), scepticism (“All answers are equally true or [false]; everyone has a right to his own truth”), and eclecticism (“Each meaning gives a partial view, so the more meanings the better”) are inappropriate philosophic stances for managing a political term that has more than one meaning.^[9] (see: (Walter Bryce Gallie)

• Communism — The legitimacy of a Communist state derives from having won a civil war, a revolution, or from having won an election, such as the Presidency of Salvador Allende (1970–73) in Chile; thus, the actions of the Communist government are legitimate, authorised by the people. In the early twentieth century, Communist parties based the arguments supporting the legitimacy of their rule and government upon the scientific nature of Marxism. (see: dialectical materialism)

• Constitutionalism — The modern political concept of constitutionalism establishes the law as supreme over the private will, by integrating nationalism, democracy, and limited government. The political legitimacy of constitutionalism derives from popular belief and acceptance that the actions of the government are legitimate because they abide the law codified in the political constitution. The political scientist Carl Joachim Friedrich (1901–84) said that in dividing political power among the organs of government, constitutional law effectively restrains the actions of the government.^[10] (see checks and balances)

• Democracy — In a democracy, government legitimacy derives from the popular perception that the elected government abides democratic principles in governing, and thus is legally accountable to its people.^[11]

• Fascism — In the 1920s and the 1930s, Fascism based its political legitimacy upon the arguments of traditional authority; respectively, the German National Socialists and theItalian Fascists claimed that the political legitimacy of their right to rule derived from philosophically denying the (popular) political legitimacy of elected liberal democratic governments. During the Weimar Republic (1918–33), the political philosopher Carl Schmitt (1888–1985), whose legal work as the “Crown Jurist of the Third Reich” promoted fascism and deconstructed liberal democracy, addressed the matter in Legalität und Legitimität (Legality and Legitimacy, 1932) an anti-democratic polemic treatise that asked: How can parliamentary government make for law and legality, when a 49 per cent minority accepts as politically legitimate the political will of a 51 per cent majority?^[12]

• Monarchy — In a monarchy, the divine right of kings establishes the political legitimacy of the rule of the Monarch (King or Queen); legitimacy also derives from the popular perception (tradition and custom) and acceptance of him or her as the rightful ruler of nation and country. Contemporarily, such divine-right legitimacy is manifest in the absolute monarchy of the House of Saud (est. 1744), a royal family who have ruled and governed Saudi Arabia since the 18th century. Moreover, constitutional monarchy is a variant form, of monarchic political legitimacy, which combines traditional authority and legal–rational authority, by which means the monarch maintains nationalist unity (one people) and democratic administration (a political constitution).

How, pray tell, is a monarchy legitimate? Because God said so? How were the Nazis legitimate when they started exterminating its own people? Because they were legitimate at one point? How is Kim Jong Un legitimate? Because his dad was legitimate? Should Hamas be legitimate? Probably not, they just are.

You quote me, to be sarcastic about what you've seen others post? And did I say it was a requirement, or is your comprehension button broken once again? It's certainly fair to assume in many cases that when a legitimate government is in place, we generally have some sort of diplomatic relations with them. In many cases, SOMEONE out there has diplomatic relations with legitimate governments.

I wasn't being sarcastic, merely asking a question. I don't know the answer. I'm surprised that we would provide funding to an organization that we don't recognize diplomatically.

[jimnyc]

I didn't mean you, that many of the posters here are validating their own opinion based on their own biases. Is Hamas legitimate? Dare I ask for legitimacy be defined?

How, pray tell, is a monarchy legitimate? Because God said so? How were the Nazis legitimate when they started exterminating its own people? Because they were legitimate at one point? How is Kim Jong Un legitimate? Because his dad was legitimate? Should Hamas be legitimate? Probably not, they just are.

My belief is that a known terrorist organization CANNOT be legitimate. I notice "terrorist government" was not on the list you supplied.

And if Hamas IS legit, WHY are so many countries refusing to even acknowledge them and/or have any official relations with them? Do you know what that reason is?

I wasn't being sarcastic, merely asking a question. I don't know the answer. I'm surprised that we would provide funding to an organization that we don't recognize diplomatically.

My point was that you brought up the validation again and pointed to Drummond while stating so. There were quite a few posting here and there were multiple stances. I don't see anyone seeking validation, just members voicing opinions on whether Hamas is legit, and why they feel so.

Now, when you say "providing funding", are you saying that we don't recognize them but directly give them money? Or are you stating that the US government funds the Palestinian government, part of which Hamas has overtaken more or less by force? Personally, I wouldn't send over a penny until Hamas is destroyed, but last I checked I didn't think we were working with and directly sending them money. And if that is the case, sending funding to the Palestinian Authority for their budget, is much different than stating we are funding their organization.