Those who don't remember history lessons

are condemned to repeat the course

There seem to be so many observers of the past week's news who are not aware that Hamas is the legally elected government of the Palestinian territories that I thought I'd post some things I wrote for schoolchildren, the first in January of 2005, the second barely a year later, in February, 2006.

As your teacher might say, "If you've been doing your homework, none of this should be new material ... "

Or, more specifically, "You get partial credit for identifying Hamas as not being very nice, but I expect your essays to reflect more knowledge of the situation than just that."

(Click for larger versions)