> But I'm sceptical of her claim that Hamas no longer enjoys popular support,
Well, you certainly have solid grounds for being skeptical of Hass's on-the-scene reporting sitting at your computer in Canada. Heh.
> which may be wishful thinking. Most everything I've read previously
> points in the opposite direction,
Most everything I've read says that the situation is overdetermined and and always in flux. As in most societies, things in Palestine are too complicated to identify something like "popular support"; support is an ambiguous, dodgy idea, one that doesn't take into account the partiality and fleetingness of loyalty. It's a journalist's way of describing a political scene.
> and it's hard to imagine Hamas would be able to survive the hardships
> being inflicted on Gazans by the Israeli seige and bombardments were
> the movement not seen by the mass of the Palestinian population as
> leading the resistance under the most difficult circumstances
You seem like a very reasonable person, which is why I can't believe you wrote this. Since when did it become a fact that governing regimes remain in power because they express the will mass of the population? And why is it only subaltern populations who are identical with their leaders?
> its reactionary social policies and repression of left organizations and
> secular liberals notwithstanding. This also appears to be the glue which
> binds the the rural and urban poor to Hezbollah, the Ahmadinejad
> government in Iran, and the Sadrists in Iraq.
Another anti-imperialist simplification. The "fact" of poor and rural support for Ahmadinejad, so dear to western leftists, has been shown to a fiction. I think it should be assumed the same is true of Hamas and Hezzbollah, though I don't know of any statistical elaborations that show it.
I'll spare the list my usual rant on these things, but if you absolutely must hear it, go here <http://recordingsurface.blogsome.com/2006/08/11/opportunities/>.