A question that answers itself: Hamas official: Is violence Palestinian ‘disease?’

GAZA (Reuters) - A senior figure in Hamas, the Islamist group that heads the Palestinian government, published an article on Tuesday condemning internal violence and questioning whether it had become a “Palestinian disease.”

Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas who also acts as the spokesman for the Hamas-led government, said he was disturbed by growing factionalism in the Palestinian territories, including recent deadly clashes between rival political movements.

“Has violence become a culture implanted in our bodies and our flesh?” he asked in the sharply worded article, published in the widely read Palestinian newspaper al-Ayyam.

“We have surrendered to it until it has become the master and is obeyed everywhere — in the house, the neighborhood, the family, the clan, the faction and the university.”

You mean indoctrinating children to crave death and violence, militarizing every aspect of society, watching hate propaganda on television 24/7, and voting for a genocidal terrorist gang … might have consequences?

What a concept.

Of course, this genius is only concerned about internal Palestinian violence. Killing Jews is perfectly fine, except when it’s not politically expedient.

It was the second time in recent months that Hamad, who is based in Gaza, had written an opinion piece in al-Ayyam critical of Palestinian in-fighting.

In August, he criticized Palestinian militant groups fighting Israel, saying they were not doing the cause of Palestinian independence any good by launching attacks at moments when it appeared progress was being made.

Apparently all this hate and murder is giving Palestinians a bad reputation.

It also meant that television pictures of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict broadcast around the world too often showed armed men and images of violence, casting the Palestinian struggle in a poor light, he suggested.

“(Violence) has taken away the language of brotherhood and replaced it with arms … It has stolen our unity and divided us into two camps, or three, or ten,” he wrote.

“Shouldn’t we be ashamed of this ugly behavior which scandalizes us before our people and before the world?”

It’s tempting to see this as a tiny baby step toward self-awareness—but the intent of this self-examination is solely to become more efficient and PR-savvy in the ultimate task of wiping out Israel.