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April 10, 2006
Hamas Redefines Blackmail
Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian prime minister and a leader of terrorist group Hamas, said the decision by the EU and U.S. to cutoff direct aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian government until it recognizes Israel was "blackmail."
This was an especially riotous perversion of language. For a party to be blackmailed, it has to be giving money to another party. How does it constitute blackmail when one party is ceasing payments? If anything, the cutoff in aid put an end to extortion. Under the prior arrangement, the U.S. and E.U. funneled money into a corrupt Palestinian government in the hopes that it would become peaceful. Now that was blackmail.
Posted by Philip Klein at April 10, 2006 2:10 AM