Overnight, the Second Intifada came to be presented as Israel’s “War on Terror.” Arafat condemned al-Qaeda’s actions, as did Hamas, which de-escalated its military front.113 Nonetheless, evoking the U.S.-Israeli special relationship, Sharon portrayed the Palestinian armed factions as Israel’s own al-Qaeda. In a post–9/11 Bush administration, this analogy carried a great deal of weight. Conflating what constituted “Islamic extremism,” Hamas’s bombs in Jerusalem were described as being one symptom of global “Islamic terrorism.”114 This parity overlooked Hamas’s articulation that its military
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