Footfalls of Messiah? (*)

In an unusual instance of self-criticism, a well-known Hamas official has deplored the collapse of Gazan life into chaos and has said that much of the blame belongs to Palestinians themselves reports Steve Erlanger of the NYTimes.

Could the footfalls of the Messiah be echoing? (*)

“Gaza is suffering under the yoke of anarchy and the swords of thugs,” Ghazi Hamad, a former Hamas newspaper editor and the spokesman for the current Hamas government, wrote in an article published Sunday in Al Ayyam, the Palestinian newspaper.

After so much optimism when Israelis pulled out of Gaza a year ago, he wrote, “life became a nightmare and an intolerable burden.”

He urged Palestinians to look to themselves, not to Israel, for the causes. But he appeared not to be placing the blame on Hamas or the Palestinian Authority’s prime minister, Ismail Haniya of Hamas. He said various armed groups in the Gaza Strip — most affiliated with Fatah, Hamas’s rival — were responsible for the chaos.

“We’ve all been attacked by the bacteria of stupidity,” Mr. Hamad wrote. “We have lost our sense of direction.” He addressed the armed groups: “Please have mercy on Gaza. Have mercy on us from your demagogy, chaos, guns, thugs, infighting. Let Gaza breathe a bit. Let it live.”

He also questioned the utility of firing rockets into Israel that cause few casualties but result in many Palestinian deaths when the Israelis retaliate. He seemed to be arguing for other armed groups to follow the Hamas decision to halt rocket fire into Israel. His article was first described in English on Monday in The Jerusalem Post.

...Mr. Hamad said that his article, in a newspaper normally associated with Fatah, was a personal comment. Despite the taunt at Fatah, it was important for its criticism of the penchant to blame Israel and its occupation of Palestinian lands for every ill — even after Israeli troops and settlers had left Gaza.

“I’m not interested in discussing the ugliness and brutality of the occupation because it is not a secret,” he wrote. “I prefer self-criticism and self-evaluation. We’re used to blaming our mistakes on others.”

Palestinian joy after the Israeli departure “made us forget the most important question — what is our next step?” he wrote.

“When you walk in the streets of Gaza City,” he continued, “you cannot but close your eyes because of what you see there: unimaginable chaos, careless policemen, young men carrying guns and strutting with pride and families receiving condolences for their dead in the middle of the street.”

Mr. Hamad said those who saw themselves as fighting Israel were working at cross-purposes. “It is strange that when a big effort is taken to reopen Rafah crossing to ease the suffering of the people, you see others who go to shell rockets toward the crossing, or when someone talks about cease-fire and its importance, you find those who go and shell more rockets,” he wrote. “Of course I do not deny that the occupation committed massacres that cannot be justified, but I support negotiations over what can be fixed.”

Some Palestinians will agree or disagree with him, he wrote, “but running away from self-confrontation will only cause us more pain.”

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(*)
Tractate Sotah, Babylonian Talmud 49b:

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE MESSIAH1 INSOLENCE WILL INCREASE AND HONOUR DWINDLE;2 THE VINE WILL YIELD ITS FRUIT [ABUNDANTLY] BUT WINE WILL BE DEAR;3 THE GOVERNMENT WILL TURN TO HERESY4 AND THERE WILL BE NONE [TO OFFER THEM] REPROOF; THE MEETING-PLACE [OF SCHOLARS] WILL BE USED FOR IMMORALITY; GALILEE WILL BE DESTROYED, GABLAN5 DESOLATED, AND THE DWELLERS ON THE FRONTIER WILL GO ABOUT [BEGGING] FROM PLACE TO PLACE WITHOUT ANYONE TO TAKE PITY ON THEM; THE WISDOM OF THE LEARNED6 WILL DEGENERATE, FEARERS OF SIN WILL BE DESPISED, AND THE TRUTH WILL BE LACKING; YOUTHS WILL PUT OLD MEN TO SHAME, THE OLD WILL STAND UP IN THE PRESENCE OF THE YOUNG, A SON WILL REVILE HIS FATHER, A DAUGHTER WILL RISE AGAINST HER MOTHER, A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW, AND A MAN'S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD;7 THE FACE OF THE GENERATION WILL BE LIKE THE FACE OF A DOG,8 A SON WILL NOT FEEL ASHAMED BEFORE HIS FATHER. SO UPON WHOM IS IT FOR US TO RELY? UPON OUR FATHER WHO IS IN HEAVEN.

1 Just before his advent.
2 Jast. renders; the nobility shall be oppressed. In Sanh. 97a there is a variant: honour will be perverted; or, according to Jast. the nobility will pervert (justice).
3 Through the spread of drunkenness.
4 These words are omitted in the Talmud ed. of the Mishnah. The meaning is: The Roman Empire will go over to Christianity. V. Herford, op. cit., p. 207.
5 Perhaps Gebal of Ps. LXXXIII, 8, i.e., the Northern part of Mount Seir. [Others: Gaulan, E. of the Sea of Galilee and the Upper Jordan.]
6 Lit., 'scribes'.
7 V. Micah VII, 6.
8 Impervious to shame. [In some editions the whole of this passage beginning 'R. Phineas b. Jair' is introduced with 'Our Rabbis taught', and not as part of the Mishnah.]