NOT EVERY BAD GUY IS A NAZI

Hamas and us: Pipes is one of the best observers of things middle eastern but his post of last week, one that draws a parallel between Hamas and Hitler, is way out of whack. Neither Hitler nor the Nazis ever achieved more than a third of the vote in four separate elections held 1932.

Hitler was NOT elected to anything, ever.

The Nazi party achieved a third of the vote in the first election of 1932, one which gave Hindenberg (the guy not the Zepplin) only 49.7 percent of the vote, thus under the constitution there was a runoff between Hindenberg, Hitler and some other guy named Thaelmann. In the run off Hindenberg was elected chancellor with fifty three percent of the vote (Hitler got around thirty seven percent and the other guy got the balance). Well, the Nazis being Nazis they didn't like the result so Hitler's SA took to the streets beating people up and causing anarchy. Hindenberg called another election. It was this third election in which Nazis got a plurality of the votes and became the largest party of the land (not the majority party), and it is this election to which a lot of people mistakenly refer as "electing" Hitler. This is false. While holding some power, the Nazi Party managed to paralyze parliament and government so Hindenberg called a FOURTH election, an election in which the Nazis LOST forty seats in the parliament. So far there is no similarity whatsoever between the election outright of Hamas and the thirty percent plus that the Nazis achieved one time. The most power the Nazis got in the 608-member body was two hundred thirty, the high water mark for both Hitler and the Nazi party using democracy. What German support for Hitler that existed was declining when he siezed power.

It was after the fourth election, the one in which the Nazis lost forty seats, that Hitler forced Hindenberg to appoint him Chancellor and then he seized power over the period of six or so months.

Where the similarity to Hamas can be seen escapes me. Hamas taking to the streets sure helped in this election but was only vaguely similar to the SA in Germany. It was the Hamas history of helping the poor coupled with their perceived integrity that got them elected. Let's face it, the PLO ruling party was arguably the most corrupt in the region. And sixty percent of the vote is twice what Hitler ever got.

I don't think a parallel with Hitler is accurate. We do ourselves a disservice by brushing this off as another Nazi "thing." This is a "democracy thing" and we don't like the results. Oh yeah, both parties hated the Jews and any similarity ends right there.