Hamas | The American Task Force on Palestine

Women in charge in West Bank's key district
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Diaa Hadid - March 11, 2010 - 12:00am

At 35, Leila Ghanem is the first woman to become a Palestinian governor, the latest in a group of trailblazing women leaders who are slowly winning acceptance in this traditional society.

What has Gaza gained since Hamas won four years ago?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Michael Young - (Opinion) March 11, 2010 - 12:00am

As Israel and the Palestinian Authority prepare to resume indirect talks, through American mediation, some are insisting that the Islamist movement Hamas must be brought into the process. Hamas, the argument goes, is capable of obstructing progress in negotiations, so that only by engaging the group can the United States and the international community avoid such an outcome. The rationale is naive.

Hamas frees British journalist in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Alastair MacDonald - March 11, 2010 - 12:00am

A British journalist left the Gaza Strip on Thursday after nearly four weeks in a Hamas-run Palestinian jail facing accusations of spying for Israel. Paul Martin, a London-based freelance film-maker and writer, said as he left the enclave for Israel: "My release today is a great victory for freedom of the media, freedom of the press, to be able to follow the difficult stories in war zones." Hamas insisted on branding him a spy for Israel but said it had decided to deport rather than prosecute Martin, who is in his 50s and also holds South African citizenship.

Gazan hairdressers protest Hamas restrictions
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
March 10, 2010 - 12:00am

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Gaza's male hairdressers have filed a complaint with a human rights group over a Hamas edict banning them from cutting women's hair. Gaza's Islamic militant rulers announced the ban last week. It affects only five coiffeurs but highlights Hamas' increasing attempts to impose a strict version of Islam in the already conservative Palestinian territory.

Pointless move
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
(Opinion) March 8, 2010 - 12:00am

Hamas is reportedly banning male hairdressers from styling women’s hair in Gaza. If true, it is a sad indictment of the Islamist movement’s rule today that it has come to this. Indeed, it sometimes is very hard to recollect that Palestinians voted for Hamas not out of any sense of growing religiosity, but because the movement promised change and reform and seemed to mean it.

Hamas slaying in Dubai ripples worldwide
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Brian Murphy - March 7, 2010 - 12:00am

If there's a signature moment in the plot to kill Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, it's likely his short elevator ride from the hotel lobby to Room 230. The Hamas commander and a woman hotel clerk enter the elevator and, just before the doors close, two men slip in. They look like any tourist here for the Persian Gulf winter sunshine: baggy shorts, tennis rackets, sneakers and baseball caps. Al-Mabhouh — still wearing the winter jacket he traveled in from Damascus to Dubai — barely gives them a glance.

Hamas: PA continues political arrest campaign
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
March 5, 2010 - 12:00am

Hamas officials released a statement accusing Palestinian Authority forces of detaining three of the party's affiliates from locations across the West Bank overnight Thursday. The three were reportedly from Nablus and Hebron, although the arrests could not be independently verified by Ma'an.

Are boycotts and sanctions really effective?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Yoni Eshpar - (Opinion) March 5, 2010 - 12:00am

When it comes to the Middle East and other areas of the world, a certain word seems to have taken over the current affairs agenda: sanctions. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is using every possible platform to call for painful sanctions against Iran, Israel's ambassadors are busy contending with a movement that is calling for the imposition of a boycott and sanctions on Israel.

Armistice Now: An Interim Agreement for Israel and Palestine
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Foreign Affairs
by Ehud Yaari - (Opinion) March 5, 2010 - 12:00am

More than 16 years after the euphoria of the Oslo accords, the Israelis and the Palestinians have still not reached a final-status peace agreement. Indeed, the last decade has been dominated by setbacks -- the second intifada, which started in September 2000; Hamas' victory in the January 2006 Palestinian legislative elections; and then its military takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 -- all of which have aggravated the conflict.

Hamas bans men from women's hair salons
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Rizek Abdel Jawad - March 4, 2010 - 12:00am

Gaza's Islamic Hamas government on Thursday banned men from working in women's hair salons, the latest step in its campaign to impose strict Islamic customs on Gaza's 1.5 million people. Since seizing Gaza in 2007, Hamas has taken steps in that direction while avoiding a frontal assault on secularism. The majority of Gaza residents are conservative Muslims, but Hamas is under growing pressure from more radical groups to prove its fundamentalist credentials by imposing ever harsher edicts. The latest measure irked one of the victims of the ban.