Inspirational Music: Hamas Style

[Annie]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...deast_afp/mideastpulloutpalestinianhamasmusic

Hamas makes music in Gaza celebration war

Mon Sep 12, 4:21 PM ET

They may be Islamic radicals but even Hamas values a catchy pop tune, cranking out 10 new victory songs about Israel's historic pullout from the Gaza Strip

Notorious for its use of suicide bombers in Israel, the extremist faction has now released "Gaza Victory News", its latest weapon in its propaganda war with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party.

Seeking credit for the end of Israel's 38-year occupation, the album, with a sinister masked man and an Israeli soldier's boot in flames on the cover, boasts songs by the Yassin Band, named after the late Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

The songs are generally drum machine and violin-filled. Thunderous baritone choirs and a male tenor or child's soprano weave in and out on tracks called "Gaza, it has come", "We liberated Gaza" and "It is returned with blood".

The message is clear: that Hamas's military wing forced Israel out of Gaza.

The music has scored with Gaza's youth, weaned on a culture of guns and "martyrdom".

"These songs encourage us to fight the settlers in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Jerusalem, everywhere," says falafel seller Ziad Abu Taha, 26.

In contrast to the Hamas media juggernaut, the response from Fatah is muddled at best.

While a batch of Gaza withdrawal songs are promised in days, nationalist anthems at a huge Fatah rally last Saturday outside the Gush Katif settlement bloc skipped any direct comment about the withdrawal.

Mohammed Abu Sammara, a Khan Yunis musician who identifies himself with Fatah's secular nationalism, says he was still waiting for pullout songs to perform.

Battle of the bands or not, a recent poll found 40 percent of Palestinians attribute the most credit for the pullout to Hamas, with only 11 percent putting the withdrawal down to the endeavours of Fatah.

Even in the realm of posters, Hamas has beat Fatah, pioneering a glossy portrait of a giant masked gunman standing on the Gaza Strip's Gush Katif settlement, while soldiers and religious Jews cower beneath him.

The motif has now been lifted for advertisements by almost every militant faction, from Fatah offshoot the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, to Islamic Jihad.

The Palestinian Authority, which is dominated by Fatah, can only offer far less shocking fair like billboards of a fisherman and child in a boat, with the greeting card caption "We will raise our flag on our land, Our sea, Our air."

Self promotion or not, Hamas knows what it wants. The party has no hesitation writing violence-fueled melodies that score with the people.

"Hamas is the strongest party, so it makes the best music," opines 20-year-old Mahmud.

In an impromptu survey, kids, who have heard the song on the tape or Hamas's Aqsa radio station, raved about "Gaza, it has come."

"The victory flags fly and the wounds are on it, but the brutal army withdrew and the independence fighter cries: "Our people achieved victory by Jihad," go the lyrics.