It's not a particularly neat trick to take sharia-soaked partisans and insist that they're rational agents. Diplomats do it all the time with Iran and will keep doing so right through the Iranian hardliners' June victories. But it's nonetheless still a pretty dumb trick:

A few days ago I mentioned in my blog that Jimmy Carter emphasized the secular nature of the Hamas leadership he met in Damascus, stressing that they were "scientists, medical doctors, or engineers - none trained in religion". His point was to make Hamas terrorists seem more like Westerners, to show how much we have in common and to downplay the extremist Islamic aspects of the group - in other words, to deny their very raison d'etre in an attempt to legitimize them to his Western audience. The implication is that anyone who stresses the Islamic extremist nature of Hamas is somehow a bigoted Islamophobe.

That, for those of you just tuning is, is bullshit on a stick:

The Hamas parliament in the Gaza Strip voted in favor of a law allowing courts to mete out sentences in the spirit of Islam, the London-based Arab daily Al Hayat reported Wednesday. According to the bill, approved in its second reading and awaiting a third reading before the approval of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, as the Palestinian constitution demands, courts will be able to condemn offenders to a plethora of violent punitive measures in line with Sharia Law.

They sound pretty serious about implementing sharia: lashings, hand amputations, etc. And while that shouldn't be news it's still worth remembering that these lunatics really are true believers. So much are they genuine in their pathologies that they've been bragging about their impending divine victory:

Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip said Thursday that they were not worried about the possibility that Israel might assassinate the movement's top leaders... They also stressed that the assassination of one or two Hamas leaders would not weaken the movement or deter it from pursuing its path of "resistance" against Israel. "In the past, Israel killed [Hamas founder and spiritual leader] Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and [Yassin's successor] Abdel Aziz Rantisi and that didn't have any effect on Hamas," said Hamas legislator and spokesman Mushir al-Masri. "On the contrary, the assassinations only strengthened Hamas and increased its popularity among the Palestinians."

Maybe some land could placate them. Here's a suggestion: Israel should clear out some land along the Mediterranean - maybe even a whole Strip of land - and hand it over to a democratically elected Palestinian government. Then if the rockets keep falling on Israeli civilians there would be good reasons to suspect that the Palestinians aren't serious about peace. Someone should try that.

References:
* Those Hamas Scientists [Israellycool]
* Hamas pushes for Sharia punishments [JPost]
* PMW: Hamas enacts Islamic (Sharia) laws: Hand amputation, crucifixion, lashes and execution [Solomonia]
* Confirmed: Hamas Goals And Tactics Now Officially Indistinguishable From Al Qaeda [MR]
* Hamas: Our leaders do not fear death [JPost]

Previously:
* Evil Israeli Apartheid Regime Responds To Another Day Of Rockets By Sending Money Into Gaza
* Hamas: You Know What? Starting Friday We're Not Even Going To Pretend There's A Ceasefire.
* Iran: Why Won't The Zionists Let Us Deliver This Totally Harmless Shipment To Hamas? [MR]