In the 1960s, Madiba was one of the founders of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC, and his nom de plume was the Black Pimpernel as he managed to evade the state agents of the apartheid South African government until he was betrayed and captured at Rivonia Farm. In 2010, Madiba is the most venerated man alive.
Gerry Adams', longtime spokesman for the IRA, the armed wing of Sinn Féin, Irish brogue was banned from British news' broadcasts until very recently - his words would be voiced by an actor. Following the St. Andrews Agreement, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness were elected to Stormont. Here, Gerry Adams details the extent of the negotiating required to bring about a peace settlement.
Which brings me to Khaled Meshal, Hamas' articulate leader (you can listen to him on Al-Jazeera). In the west, Hamas is portrayed as a terrorist organisation. Despite this, the Palestinian electorate gave Hamas political legitimacy by voting them into power in December 2005, in elections that according to international observers were free and fair. Hamas' election victory meant the sidelining of Fatah, which in the eyes of the Palestinian electorate wasn't doing much for their cause and was beset by allegations of corruption.
Hamas' election victory did not sit well with Israel, the EU and the US and efforts to undermine Hamas' political mandate intensified. This culminated in a decisive split between Hamas and Fatah which was portrayed as Hamas seizing power in Gaza in June 2007 - as Hamas had the Palestinian electorate's mandate to govern, I don't see why the events of 2007 should be portrayed as a Hamas coup by the pro-Israeli western media unless of course it's part of well orchestrated strategy to vilify Hamas at every opportunity.
The Israeli Operation Cast Lead, which ostensibly was launched to stop to the firing of rockets into Southern Israel, of December 2008 was yet another opportunity for the Israelis to try and kill as many Hamas members as possible - they failed on both accounts. The Israeli incursion into Gaza saw Gaza's already traumatised citizens subject to the kind of aerial bombardment that the so called good guys inflicted on the citizens of Dresden in World War II. The IDF used white phosphorous (whose usage is banned in densely populated areas - the blatant disregard for international norms and conventions is a recurring Israeli theme). The IDF's attempt to defend the wanton destruction of a UN warehouse stocked with supplies for the Palestinians was seen in another light after Israel paid compensation to the UN. Despite the IDF's considered incursion into Gaza, between 1166 and 1417 Palestinians were killed, including 318 children. No doubt Mark Regev, the Israeli government spinmeister-in-chief, could engineer an plausible explanation as to how those dead children threatened Israel's national security as he did when the IDF bombed the UN facility - a UN report criticising the IDF's conduct was summarily dismissed.
In contrast, 13 Israelis were killed.
Operation Cast Lead strenghtened Hamas politically and morally because they were able to provide material relief to the besegied Palestinians of Gaza, despite the arrest of some of their MPs and attempts on the lives of others. What's more there was an unprecedented chorus of international opinion condemning Israel's heavy handedness.
Russia and Turkey have seized the initiative in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict and Dmitry Medvedev's face-to-face meeting with Khaled Meshal last month has sent a pointed message to Israel, the EU and the US that there can be no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem without Hamas.
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