Perang Propaganda

Menurut: situs ini

What is Hamas?
Hamas is the Palestinians' major Muslim fundamentalist movement. With an extensive social service network and a terrorist wing that plots suicide bombings in Israel, it is the main opposition to Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority, a determined foe of Israeli-Palestinian peace, and a major player in the current Middle East crisis. Its founder and spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, was killed by an Israeli missile attack on March 22, 2004.

Do most Palestinians support suicide bombings?
Since a second intifada (uprising) broke out in the fall of 2000, polls show that up to 70 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza back suicide bombings. The bombings - and Hamas - were much less popular in the mid-1990s, when the peace process was moving along more quickly. Many Palestinians consider Hamas' attacks a legitimate way of resisting Israeli occupation and argue that the world pays less attention to Palestinian losses - including about 1,600 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since the second intifada began - than to Israeli ones. Pollsters say Palestinian support for anti-Israel violence hardened further during the spring 2002 Middle East crisis.

Where does Hamas' money come from?
Much of Hamas' funding comes from Palestinian expatriates, as well as from private donors in Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Persian Gulf states. Iran also provides significant support, which some diplomats say could amount to between $20-$30 million per year. Moreover, some Muslim charities in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe funnel money into Hamas-backed social service groups. In December 2001, the Bush administration seized the assets of the Holy Land Foundation, the largest Muslim charity in the United States, for allegedly funding Hamas.

Menurut: situs yang sama

When did Israelis and Palestinians begin fighting?
Contrary to some popular misconceptions, the conflict does not go back to biblical times, but to the 1880s, when the Zionist movement - which called for a Jewish homeland in 'Eretz Yisrael,' the land of Israel-began settling European Jews in the Ottoman-ruled district of Palestine. Violence between Zionist Jews and the indigenous Arab population broke out sporadically over the sale of land to Jews. After defeating the Ottomans in World War I, the British were given a League of Nations mandate to control Palestine. Historians say that Palestinian nationalism began to emerge in counterpoint to the Zionist movement. In 1936-39, with World War II looming, British-ruled Palestine was wracked by a major Arab revolt. By 1948, the country was in the throes of a chaotic civil war involving the Jews, the Arabs, and the British.

When did the first Palestinian intifada begin?
In 1987. After two decades of relative calm in the Israeli-occupied territories, a car accident in Gaza sparked an ongoing wave of rioting and stone throwing at Israeli troops. Israel's subsequent crackdown was widely criticized. The Palestinian uprising continued through the 1991 Gulf War, during which Arafat lost the support of some of the PLO's main funders - Saudi Arabia and Kuwait - by backing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. After the war, President George H. W. Bush convened a Middle East peace conference in Madrid.

When did the second Palestinian intifada begin?
In September 2000, after Likud leader Sharon's controversial walk atop the Jerusalem holy site known by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary - the former site of the two Jewish Temples and the current site of the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque. In contrast to the stone throwing of the first intifada, experts say, this time the uprising has emphasized Palestinian gunfire and bombings, including shootings and suicide terrorism by not only Hamas and Islamic Jihad but also militias associated with Arafat. Israelis say Arafat’s regime turned away from the bargaining table after Camp David and deliberately resorted to a campaign of terrorism; Palestinians say that Prime Minister Sharon, who roundly defeated Barak in Israel's 2001 elections, is determined to block peace talks and cow the Palestinians on the battlefield.

Menurut: situs ini juga

Does Israel have weapons of mass destruction?
Yes. Although Israeli officials say they 'will not introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East,' Israel is almost universally believed to have the region's lone nuclear arsenal. (In 1981, Israeli jets bombed Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor, setting back Saddam Hussein's nuclear arms program.) Arms control groups say Israel also has an active chemical weapons program, including the ability to produce nerve and mustard gas. It is also thought to have some biowarfare capabilities.

Does Israel receive much U.S. aid?
Yes - an estimated $3 billion per year, with about $750 million of that going to economic aid and more than $2 billion to military aid. That comprises about one-sixth of the total U.S. foreign aid budget, making Israel the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid.

Are there Jewish terrorist groups in Israel?
Yes. Two small, marginal, anti-Arab groups known as Kach and Kahane Chai are formally listed by the State Department as foreign terrorist organizations. In 1994, an American-born West Bank settler with links to these groups murdered 29 Palestinian worshipers in a Hebron mosque. In 1995, a fundamentalist law student influenced by the same ultra-right milieu assassinated Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s prime minister, to try to stop the peace process. Also, before Israeli independence in 1948, some Zionist militias - the rightist Irgun and Lehi - sometimes used terrorism against both Arabs and Palestine's British rulers.

Menurut: situs ini juga

Does U.S. aid play a role in Middle East peacemaking?
Yes. The two largest recipients of American aid, Israel and Egypt, got their assistance packages as rewards for concluding the first Arab-Israeli peace treaty in 1979. U.S. aid to Israel and its neighbors has provided incentives for taking often risky moves toward peace. While Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority- which the Bush administration says is tainted by ties to terrorism - doesn't receive any direct assistance from the United States, Palestinians benefit from $70 million a year in U.S. aid through U.N. refugee assistance programs, as well as about $75 million administered to water, housing, employment, and democracy programs.

What does oil have to do with the war on terrorism?
A lot. The United States is the world’s leading consumer of oil, and the health of the American economy depends on a reliable supply of foreign oil. That dependency has shaped America's ties to Persian Gulf countries, which pump much of the world's oil. The war on terrorism, however, has complicated the relationship between the United States and Persian Gulf countries. Saudi oil facilities, 1948. Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading oil exporter, is the homeland of Osama bin Laden, most of the September 11 hijackers, and key funders of the al-Qaeda terror network. The Israeli-Palestinian crisis has also raised the specter that Arab oil-producing countries might use oil as a weapon to punish the United States for its support of Israel.

Could Middle Eastern countries use oil as a weapon by cutting production?
Yes - with potentially serious consequences for the U.S. economy. Although it would harm their own economies, Arab oil producers could slash production for political reasons, probably to protest Israel's actions or punish America for supporting Israel. Production cuts - which could also result from OPEC economic calculations or such unpredictable political crises as the spring 2002 turmoil in Venezuela - drive up the price of now-scarcer oil, siphon money away from consumers, slow the economies of oil-importing countries, and transfer wealth to oil-exporting countries. For every dollar-per-barrel increase in oil prices, about $4 billion a year would leave America's $11 trillion economy, and other importing countries would lose another $16 billion per year. If prices rose high enough, Western economies could be thrown into a tailspin.