On the front page of today's Philadelphia Inquirer is a touching story along the lines of "local boy makes good in his struggle against oppression":

Dweik, who wears his moustache short and sports a white beard, is highly educated. He earned a bachelor's degree in geography in Jordan and a master's in education from Bethlehem University. Studying on a U.S.-backed scholarship, he earned a master's in urban planning at State University of New York in Binghamton.

From 1985 to 1988, once again on a U.S. grant, he earned a master's and a doctorate in urban planning at Penn. His doctoral dissertation analyzed the reasons Palestinians commuted from the West Bank and Gaza Strip to work in Israel.

In a recent interview, he recalled his days in West Philadelphia fondly. Afternoons spent at the Van Pelt Library, reveling in its "millions of books." Forays to buy doughnuts, to which he says he became almost addicted. Communal prayer five times a day with fellow Muslim students in a room on the Penn campus.

Dweik said he was accepted at other universities, including one in the Southwest, but he chose Penn for the city's rich history and because being on the East Coast gave him the feeling of being physically closer to his home in the Middle East.

"I said Philadelphia is the best. It was the first capital of the United States. So let me go there," he recalled.

Moving to a different apartment about once a year, he had roommates from Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Turkey. He can't recall the exact location of the apartments, but "something about Walnut Street" sticks in his mind.

He returned to Hebron imbued with democratic values, including a deep respect for freedom of speech. Amid growing Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Dweik began speaking out, "talking about the Palestinian problem as a political problem and calling for the emancipation of our people" at public forums, which got him arrested by Israeli authorities, he said.

"When I went to the court, I said, 'Can I defend myself in English?' They said no. So I spoke Arabic, and it was translated, and some of them knew Arabic very well. I said, 'Guys, I was in the United States, saying whatever I like, nobody stopped me there.' "

Oh dear. Now comes the hard part.

I didn't want to be in a hurry to spoil such a nice human interest story, so I left out a detail or two.

The local boy, Abdel Aziz Dweik is with Hamas. In fact, he's their newly elected speaker.

But -- but -- he lived in Philadelphia, right? And isn't he smiling on the front page of the Inquirer? Doesn't that mean he's really a moderate, and basically a nice man who will sooner or later realize that we're all humans and we're all in this together, and that there will be peace and understanding?

Not according to Jonathan Fighel, of Israel's International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism:

For now, Hamas will try to present itself as pragmatic on the one hand, while it keeps shooting on the other hand, said Jonathan Fighel, a senior researcher at Israel's International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism.

"This double policy is very much suitable [for them]," said Fighel. They do not abandon their original objective and they are still engaged in jihad (holy war) while at the same time they have to be pragmatic and "talk to the devil" (Israel) so the people don't go hungry and hospitals have supplies like oxygen," he said.

Ismail Haniye was nominated to be the Palestinian prime minister and Aziz Dweik was elected parliamentary speaker over the weekend.

Dweik said the policy of the new Hamas-dominated government would be based on negotiating while at the same time preserving the "right to resist" (carry out terror attacks against Israel).

Dweik is being presented as a moderate, but what makes him a moderate when he still stands for the destruction of the State of Israel? Fighel asked.

Which is my objection to the article. Not one Israeli spokesman is quoted. The Hamas speaker has instead been given carte blanche to present the Israelis as occupiers, as people who "forced the detainees to strip to their underwear," as practitioners of "targeted killings," and as slaveholders. Dweik is softened as much as possible:

A gregarious, soft-spoken man with an easy manner, Dweik can be politically unyielding.

He firmly states that all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, even those accused of engineering suicide bombings, are "freedom seekers" who deserve to be released because "Israel has no right to keep us under the slavery of occupation."

Is that all?

(I'm wondering.)