From this morning's New York Times, front page, a "News Analysis" by Steven Erlanger:

The Palestinian president,  Mahmoud Abbas, often castigated as weak and reactive, has put the Islamic group Hamas [in] a neat political bind while associating himself with prisoners jailed for resistance to Israel's occupation of Palestinian  land.

"resistance" —— what kind might that be? Picket signs and chanting in a peaceful demonstration in Arafat Square?

"occupation" —— according to the United Nations, the areas referred to are disputed territories, not occupied land.

"Palestinian land" —— Where is that? The area known as Gaza used to belong to Egypt; and the area known as the West Bank was under Jordanian control before taken over by Israel after it was attacked in the 1967 war.
 
True to form, the Times again provides a lesson in how to use loaded language to create a spin in support of its political agendas. The Times's 1930s Berlin headquarters building (the one that flew a swastika flag next to the paper's logo lettering on its fa軋de) must have housed many close student of the Goebbels method of communication.
 
Richard N. Weltz  5 27 06

A reader adds:

Dear Mr. Erlanger:

Just read "Hamas Wary of Palestinian President's Proposal" online —— I'm wondering about the soft soap treatment of Hamas and the overall Palestinian terror project. Specifically —— the last time I checked, Hamas doesn't oppose the "right of Israel to exist as a permanent, sovereign state" —— It wants to exterminate Israel along with as many Jews as possible —— and because their hatred and loathing of Jews is so profound —— they aren't even able to name Israel —— EVER —— infantiley preferring to call it the "Zionist entity". This is consistent with all the other stripes of Muslim fascists (Sunnis, Shiias, blah blah blah) who embrace Islam and therefore excoriate Jews Christians and, well everybody who ain't Muslim.

So I ask you most humbly and politely to explain to me your carefully padded and subtly misleading verbiage describing Hamas' character. To me it seems solely designed to elicit a softer image of Hamas —— the question is: WHY?

I very much look forward to your explanation. Surely you must at least agree that such misleading verbiage obfuscates the Islamically inspired bigotry and fanaticism which underpins their entire movement?

I'd also ask why you didn't even bother to connect the dots? Specifically, to paraphrase the offer of Abbas: "If you don't put me in charge, we stop fighting Israel and I go for the Peace Plan." That seems like a pretty big flip flop from Abbas —— isn't he supposed to be a "moderate"? Isn't he the 'partner' the Quartet expects to negotiate with? Then how does that square with the inverse supposition —— i.e. if you put me on top, we can continue fighting.

Despite the pollyanna interpretation you choose to give —— it sounds to me like the only thing the 'Palestinians' are interested in sorting out is: "Who's gonna be the one to wipe Israel into the sea? Hamas, or Fatah?"