John at Crossroads Arabia posts an interesting editorial with some interesting commentary about how Hamas, while sponsoring terrorism, is also one of Gaza’s biggest sponsors of social caretaking. I’ve never heard of this, but it could definitely be due to the western media not presenting the information. Either way, it will take some research on my part. Here is what he excerpted:

While the overwhelming victory of Hamas candidates in the Gaza local elections may have disappointed Mahmoud Abbas, it must not be taken as a vote overturning his triumph in the election for the Palestinian leadership or his efforts to find a negotiated end to the Middle East conflict. It was a vote for what Hamas has come to mean to an overwhelming majority of Palestinians: Not just resistance to occupation but also its charity work for the needy. Of all the militant Palestinian groups, Hamas has paid the most attention to the welfare of the great mass of the Gaza population who have suffered from the Israeli occupation, mass unemployment and terrible poverty. Bank accounts linked to Hamas have been targeted by the Americans on the grounds that they are used to fund terrorism, but in truth the organization has concerned itself as much, if not more, with its social agenda. The Palestinian authorities have often failed to organize the safety nets necessary to ease suffering in Gaza and Hamas leaders were quick to fill the vacuum. There has, as a result, been a local groundswell of support for the group and this has been manifested in Hamas winning 77 of the 118 council seats in the local Gaza election.

Here is the part about John’s comments the interested me the most:

Money, after all, is fungible. If the money that goes to the good things and that to the bad things is comingled????????fungible, in other words????????how does one make laws to punish the bad without also harming the good?

The US government has decided that it is not capable of separating the two and therefore has labeled Hamas, in its entirety, a terrorist organization. I????????ve no problem with that; it????????s a rational decision. It????????s not quite accurate, but it achieves the goal of keeping money out of the hands of some terrorists.

But in doing so, the US government necessarily alienates tens of thousands who do differentiate the two factions.

Maybe it is, as he says, because I am American and cannot separate the two, but I think it is very necessary to classify Hamas as a militant terrorist organization. Because that is one major thing that they do: blow people up. The social cause, while important, is simply not the right one for an organization that commits these kinds of acts.

If I remember correctly, however, Arafat was a guy who syphoned a lot of money away from the Palestinians. A couple billion, again if I remember correctly. With the new administration headed by Abbas, and so far he seems promising, I think it is the responsibility of the legitimate national government to head these issues where Arafat didn’t, and not an organization that doubles as a collective suicide bomber. Yes, charity is good… but if they hadn’t been kept down, the wouldn’t be in such a dire situation. Win the peace, create a stable business environment, and you never know just how prosperous the Palestinian people may be one day.

UPDATE: Found a Guardian article on the municipal elections and some of what Hamas has done to gain such political prestige.