Media says Hamas not problem - Now Hamas is a problem?

Daniel Pipes: Region not ripe for democracy

"Middle East polls are empowering the West's deadliest enemies, warns Daniel Pipes
January 30, 2006 - Now that Hamas has apparently won the Palestinian elections, the West is hoist with its own petard. On the one hand, Hamas is a terrorist group that unabashedly targets Israeli civilians and calls for the elimination of the Jewish state. Returning to the dilemma posed by the Hamas victory, Western capitals need to show Palestinians that, like Germans electing Adolf Hitler in 1933, they have made a decision gravely unacceptable to civilised opinion. The Hamas-led Palestinian Authority must be isolated and rejected at every turn, thereby encouraging Palestinians to see the error of their ways."

Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia and author of several books on Islam and the Middle East.