Hamas is not Assad or Qaddafi.
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Well, that's a truism, or perhaps a tautology - at this time of night, I'm no longer sure! But if some informed person were to tell me that the biggest difference among them, other than Hamas being elected and Islamist, is that it also has the benefit of a bunch of quasi-apologists in the West who, while perhaps not supporting it politically, can at least be counted upon to deflate the more outlandish sort of lies about it, I wouldn't have that hard of a time believing it.
(And for all their efforts, they aren't even that effective at it! Witness how many Western media, as well as nearly all Western politicians, still repeat verbatim the hasbara formula about Hamas seizing power after overrunning the Gaza Strip in 2007, as if it weren't an elected government suppressing a coup.)
At this point, I see very little reason to believe anything I hear in my own country about governments in this part of the world. As Jim Goad said, "Maybe we wouldn't be so FUCKING PARANOID if they hadn't FUCKING LIED to us so many times. Just a thought."
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."