Surprised By Hamas’ Victory?

A consensus has emerged according to which no one predicted that the “Palestinian People” would elect Hamas as their representatives—democratically.
It shows you what little attention I pay to the talking titmice out there, because I thought that when I called the elections, I was merely stating the obvious. I believed that a consensus existed according to which there would be no other outcome.
I foresaw both the victory in the municipal elections of 2005 and in the general elections of 2006. On January the 7th this year, I called Hamas “the Palestinians’ unofficial representative,â€? and spoke of a shoo-in for the terrorist organization. Apparently the precious few who read the forecast viewed it as comic relief. What are you going to do!
Isaiah Berlin said that an ideologue is someone who is prepared to suppress what he suspects to be true. Those who fetishize the Palestinians are ideologues who’ll put a spin on reality so that it’ll comport with their ideology.
To foresee the results of the recent elections in the Palestinian Authority, all that was required was a commitment to “unvarnished objective reality.” But no one wants to take an honest, hard look at the cruel complexion of Palestinian society—unless, of course, it is to blame the liberal, orderly commonwealth adjacent to it: Israel.