Progress?

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.”
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.

MEMRI translated key sections of Hamad’s August op-ed here. Charles Johnson thinks it would be a mistake to see Hamad’s emergent criticism as genuine progress, but it is nevertheless remarkable for a member of Hamas to condemn the militant mindset that has led to nothing but ruin. Here’s hoping he isn’t murdered for it.