03/24/2004: "Mandela and Yassin: an extraordinary comparison"

The treatment that mass murderer Sheik Ahmed Yassin, founder of Hamas, is receiving in some segments of the world media is extraordinary. Put together these two statements, one from the UK daily The Guardian, the other from the Hamas Charter, and see if you don't experience a bit of cognitive dossonance:

When, in October 1997, the halfblind, almost wholly paralysed Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who has been killed in an Israeli air strike at the age of around 67, arrived in Gaza, after being released from an Israeli jail in exchange for Mossad agents caught redhanded trying to assassinate a colleague in Jordan, one Arab commentator likened him to Nelson Mandela.

The comparison must have made Yasser Arafat seethe inwardly, even as he heaped homage on the returning hero. In his view, if there were any Palestinian Mandela�any unique, historic leader of the Palestinian people�it was himself.

In truth, neither Arafat nor Yassin had Mandela's special greatness. But of the two, it was Yassin, the founder-leader of the militant Islamist organisation Hamas, who came closer. The reason was not to be found in his beliefs�which, in their narrow, obscurantist, religious frame, were far removed from the South African's lofty humanism and compassion�but in the facts of his career, and the part that certain, very personal, qualities�of selflessness, simplicity, conviction and a true sense of service�played in bringing it to fruition.

That's David Hirst in The Guardian. Now, here's what Yassin stood for:

World Zionism, together with imperialistic powers, try through a studied plan and an intelligent strategy to remove one Arab state after another from the circle of struggle against Zionism, in order to have it finally face the Palestinian people only. Egypt was, to a great extent, removed from the circle of the struggle, through the treacherous Camp David Agreement. They are trying to draw other Arab countries into similar agreements and to bring them outside the circle of struggle.

The Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas] calls on Arab and Islamic nations to take up the line of serious and persevering action to prevent the success of this horrendous plan, to warn the people of the danger eminating from leaving the circle of struggle against Zionism. Today it is Palestine, tomorrow it will be one country or another. The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying....

Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people. "May the cowards never sleep."

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

I can certainly see how Hirst could have confused Mandela and Yassin.