The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

[PointOfViewGun]

Best way to contributing to get rid of Hamas is for Israel to stop colonizing West Bank and East Jerusalem. It would eliminate a big portion of Hamas' reason for existence and turn Gazans to focus Gaza's conditions. Of course, that assumes that Israel wants Hamas gone. It doesn't as long as it keeps colonizing Palestinian lands.

[Cope]

In 2005, Israel unilaterally dismantled the Jewish settlements in Gaza. The following year, Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election. The year after that it took over the Gaza Strip by force.

The appeasement approach is a tried and tested failure.

[PointOfViewGun]

In 2005, Israel unilaterally dismantled the Jewish settlements in Gaza. The following year, Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election. The year after that it took over the Gaza Strip by force.
The appeasement approach is a tried and tested failure.

It's interesting how dismantling of a tiny portion of illegal settlements is considered appeasement. If Israel was honest about it it would stop and start dismantling all the settlements, not just the few ones in Gaza. Instead, it continued its settlement efforts in East Jerusalem and West Bank. Moreover, Israel did everything to make sure Islamist Hamas won over secular Fatah. Even though Israel said that they would respect the elections they refused to acknowledge Hamas as the winner. Despite that Hamas proposed a 10 year truce in February 2006. Israel didn't even engage with that proposal.

[sumskilz]

Despite that Hamas proposed a 10 year truce in February 2006. Israel didn't even engage with that proposal.

What Hamas offered was a hudna, that is (from their Islamist perspective) a tactical ceasefire for the benefit of the Muslim community, that can last no more than 10 years, and can be abrogated early at any point in time which is deemed to be tactically beneficial for the Muslim community. The precedent for this concept is the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, the ostensibly 10 year truce Muhammed singed with the Quraysh before breaking it and conquering them just 2 years later.

Naturally, the Israelis weren't so naïve as to agree to allow Hamas an opportunity to build up their military capabilities entirely unimpeded in exchange for giving them all of the high ground overlooking Israel's main economic and population centers.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

Best way to contributing to get rid of Hamas is for Israel to stop colonizing West Bank and East Jerusalem. It would eliminate a big portion of Hamas' reason for existence and turn Gazans to focus Gaza's conditions. Of course, that assumes that Israel wants Hamas gone. It doesn't as long as it keeps colonizing Palestinian lands.

Signing peace with Fatah would not get rid of Hamas. I would call your stance naive, but considering your refusal to condemn terrorism I know better than that.

It's interesting how dismantling of a tiny portion of illegal settlements is considered appeasement. If Israel was honest about it it would stop and start dismantling all the settlements, not just the few ones in Gaza.

The settlements are not a barrier to peace. Israel had settlements in Sinai and yet Egypt negotiated without setting terms for negotiations and the entire Sinai was returned. What is a barrier to peace is setting pre-conditions for negotiations, negotiations which don't even offer Israel anything, only demand.

[PointOfViewGun]

What Hamas offered was a hudna, that is (from their Islamist perspective) a tactical ceasefire for the benefit of the Muslim community, that can last no more than 10 years, and can be abrogated early at any point in time which is deemed to be tactically beneficial for the Muslim community. The precedent for this concept is the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, the ostensibly 10 year truce Muhammed singed with the Quraysh before breaking it and conquering them just 2 years later.

Naturally, the Israelis weren't so naïve as to agree to allow Hamas an opportunity to build up their military capabilities entirely unimpeded in exchange for giving them all of the high ground overlooking Israel's main economic and population centers.

Regardless of how you try to twist it it was a starting point. With such desire you can discredit any process. It's pointless.

Signing peace with Fatah would not get rid of Hamas. I would call your stance naive, but considering your refusal to condemn terrorism I know better than that.

Not helping Hamas gain over Fatah in Gaza would definitely take away from that. Yet, that has not been the reality. Help Hamas to undermine Fatah and then use Hamas as the boogeyman to keep people's focus on so that you can keep building and expanding your settlements. That's what have been going on in Palestine.

The settlements are not a barrier to peace. Israel had settlements in Sinai and yet Egypt negotiated without setting terms for negotiations and the entire Sinai was returned. What is a barrier to peace is setting pre-conditions for negotiations, negotiations which don't even offer Israel anything, only demand.

It's pretty much akin to an oxymoron to talk about my naiveness and then claim that the settlements are not a barrier against peace. Israeli settlements in Sinai, like the ones in Gaza, were negligibly small. These are convenient technicalities for you to hide behind. In reality, where it matters, in West Bank and East Jerusalem, slowly, or not so slowly in some areas, Israeli have been carving out more and more land with more and more Jewish Israeli presence.

[swabian]

Imagine a white journalist girl in Turkey asking to give her the camera back lol.

This is all ridiculous. Hamas needs to be physically eradicated, so we can all celebrate the Hamas-Death-Day, in order to feel good and to humiliate all the stupid losers, who sympathize with Hamas

[nhytgbvfeco2]

Not helping Hamas gain over Fatah in Gaza would definitely take away from that. Yet, that has not been the reality. Help Hamas to undermine Fatah and then use Hamas as the boogeyman to keep people's focus on so that you can keep building and expanding your settlements. That's what have been going on in Palestine.

How did Israel help Hamas?
It's sad to see members of this forum supporting terrorism, but not particularly surprising.

It's pretty much akin to an oxymoron to talk about my naiveness and then claim that the settlements are not a barrier against peace. Israeli settlements in Sinai, like the ones in Gaza, were negligibly small. These are convenient technicalities for you to hide behind. In reality, where it matters, in West Bank and East Jerusalem, slowly, or not so slowly in some areas, Israeli have been carving out more and more land with more and more Jewish Israeli presence.

The settlements grow over time, yes, that's generally how demographics work. Peace could have been signed multiple times in the past, including before the settlements were built, and when the construction was frozen. Some settlements would be cleared if peace were to be achieved today. You can negotiate around the settlements, you can't negotiate around refusing to negotiate.

[sumskilz]

Regardless of how you try to twist it it was a starting point.

True, it was meant to be a starting point for the "liberation" of all of Israel/Palestine:

Israel has dismissed as ridiculous a proposal from the main Palestinian militant group, Hamas, to declare a 10-year truce if the Jewish state withdraws from territory occupied since 1967.

Top Hamas official Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi told Reuters late on Sunday Hamas had come to the conclusion that it was "difficult to liberate all our land at this stage, so we accept a phased liberation".

Rantissi said it would not mean that Hamas recognised Israel or spell the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

From the Hamas Covenant:

The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day.

Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement... There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad.

But of course you already knew all that.

[PointOfViewGun]

How did Israel help Hamas?
It's sad to see members of this forum supporting terrorism, but not particularly surprising.

Who here supports terrorism? You do?

From Casting Blame in the Israel-Gaza Conflict, comment by David K. Shipler, the Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief from 1979 to 1984:

In 1981, Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, Israel’s military governor of Gaza, told me that he was giving money to the Muslim Brotherhood, the precursor of Hamas, on the instruction of the Israeli authorities. The funding was intended to tilt power away from both Communist and Palestinian nationalist movements in Gaza, which Israel considered more threatening than the fundamentalists.

How Israel Helped Spawn Hamas

“Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation,” says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel’s destruction.

Instead of trying to curb Gaza's Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with "Yassins," primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric.

The settlements grow over time, yes, that's generally how demographics work. Peace could have been signed multiple times in the past, including before the settlements were built, and when the construction was frozen. Some settlements would be cleared if peace were to be achieved today. You can negotiate around the settlements, you can't negotiate around refusing to negotiate.

It's virtually impossible to negotiate around these settlements. That's pretty much the whole point of it. Create such an unsolvable problem that you can keep on expanding. Make people fed up with the conflict so that you can get away with whatever you get in the end. These settlements didn't grow organically over time. Their population tripled over the span of 15 years as you can clearly see from the graph I posted earlier.

True, it was meant to be a starting point for the "liberation" of all of Israel/Palestine:
From the Hamas Covenant:
But of course you already knew all that.

Of course, I know that you can twist anything like this fit your narrative that it was futile to try not fighting for a while. Hamas made this offer time and time again. I already know that you're referring to an over 3 decades old charter that has been largely changed by Hamas as well.

2006: Hamas touts 10-year ceasefire to break deadlock over Israel

Hamas is urging Britain to back its proposal for a ceasefire of up to 10 years as a way of breaking the impasse over its refusal to recognise the state of Israel.


The most senior delegation from the Hamas government to visit Britain is in London this week to promote its offer to allow a period of "co-existence" with Israel as a way to move to an eventual settlement of the Middle East conflict.

2008: Hamas offers truce in return for 1967 borders

The leader of Hamas said Monday that his Palestinian militant group would offer Israel a 10-year "hudna," or truce, as implicit proof of recognition of Israel if it withdrew from all lands it seized in the 1967 Middle East War.


Khaled Mashaal told The Associated Press that he made the offer to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in talks on Saturday. "We have offered a truce if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, a truce of 10 years as a proof of recognition," Mashaal said.

Hamas presents new charter accepting a Palestine based on 1967 borders

Hamas has unveiled a new political programme softening its stance on Israel by accepting the idea of a Palestinian state in territories occupied by Israel in the six-day war of 1967.


The new document states the Islamist movement it is not seeking war with the Jewish people – only with Zionism that drives the occupation of Palestine.

You can recognize that times change and movements change, that its better to seize any opportunity in such long conflicts, or you can rely on pedantic arguments that disregards the reality.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

From Casting Blame in the Israel-Gaza Conflict, comment by David K. Shipler, the Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief from 1979 to 1984:


How Israel Helped Spawn Hamas

So back when it was a charity organisation. Gotcha.

It's virtually impossible to negotiate around these settlements. That's pretty much the whole point of it. Create such an unsolvable problem that you can keep on expanding. Make people fed up with the conflict so that you can get away with whatever you get in the end. These settlements didn't grow organically over time. Their population tripled over the span of 15 years as you can clearly see from the graph I posted earlier.

The population grew due to cheaper housing, which is due to being in a conflict zone with an uncertain future, meanwhile the housing bubble in the rest of Israel causes very high prices. Additionally rising fertility rates amongst Jews (both religious and not) cause a fast growth rate. The government isn't moving anyone in.
Of course, all of this is nice and all, but it's largely irrelevant. This isn't what's preventing a peace settlement, its palestinian refusal to compromise.

[sumskilz]

How Israel Helped Spawn Hamas

The allegation that Israel helped Hamas is somewhere between misleading and outright false.

Quoting from the article you linked:

Hamas traces its roots back to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group set up in Egypt in 1928. The Brotherhood believed that the woes of the Arab world spring from a lack of Islamic devotion. Its slogan: "Islam is the solution. The Quran is our constitution." Its philosophy today underpins modern, and often militantly intolerant, political Islam from Algeria to Indonesia.

After the 1948 establishment of Israel, the Brotherhood recruited a few followers in Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza and elsewhere, but secular activists came to dominate the Palestinian nationalist movement.

At the time, Gaza was ruled by Egypt. The country's then-president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, was a secular nationalist who brutally repressed the Brotherhood. In 1967, Nasser suffered a crushing defeat when Israel triumphed in the six-day war. Israel took control of Gaza and also the West Bank.

"We were all stunned," says Palestinian writer and Hamas supporter Azzam Tamimi. He was at school at the time in Kuwait and says he became close to a classmate named Khaled Mashaal, now Hamas's Damascus-based political chief. "The Arab defeat provided the Brotherhood with a big opportunity," says Mr. Tamimi.

In Gaza, Israel hunted down members of Fatah and other secular PLO factions, but it dropped harsh restrictions imposed on Islamic activists by the territory's previous Egyptian rulers. Fatah, set up in 1964, was the backbone of the PLO, which was responsible for hijackings, bombings and other violence against Israel. Arab states in 1974 declared the PLO the "sole legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people world-wide.

The Muslim Brotherhood, led in Gaza by Sheikh Yassin, was free to spread its message openly. In addition to launching various charity projects, Sheikh Yassin collected money to reprint the writings of Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian member of the Brotherhood who, before his execution by President Nasser, advocated global jihad. He is now seen as one of the founding ideologues of militant political Islam.

Mr. Cohen, who worked at the time for the Israeli government's religious affairs department in Gaza, says he began to hear disturbing reports in the mid-1970s about Sheikh Yassin from traditional Islamic clerics. He says they warned that the sheikh had no formal Islamic training and was ultimately more interested in politics than faith. "They said, 'Keep away from Yassin. He is a big danger,'" recalls Mr. Cohen.

Instead, Israel's military-led administration in Gaza looked favorably on the paraplegic cleric, who set up a wide network of schools, clinics, a library and kindergartens. Sheikh Yassin formed the Islamist group Mujama al-Islamiya, which was officially recognized by Israel as a charity and then, in 1979, as an association. Israel also endorsed the establishment of the Islamic University of Gaza, which it now regards as a hotbed of militancy. The university was one of the first targets hit by Israeli warplanes in the recent war.

Brig. General Yosef Kastel, Gaza's Israeli governor at the time, is too ill to comment, says his wife. But Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who took over as governor in Gaza in late 1979, says he had no illusions about Sheikh Yassin's long-term intentions or the perils of political Islam. As Israel's former military attache in Iran, he'd watched Islamic fervor topple the Shah. However, in Gaza, says Mr. Segev, "our main enemy was Fatah," and the cleric "was still 100% peaceful" towards Israel. Former officials say Israel was also at the time wary of being viewed as an enemy of Islam.

Mr. Segev says he had regular contact with Sheikh Yassin, in part to keep an eye on him. He visited his mosque and met the cleric around a dozen times. It was illegal at the time for Israelis to meet anyone from the PLO. Mr. Segev later arranged for the cleric to be taken to Israel for hospital treatment. "We had no problems with him," he says.

Clashes between Islamists and secular nationalists spread to the West Bank and escalated during the early 1980s, convulsing college campuses, particularly Birzeit University, a center of political activism.

As the fighting between rival student factions at Birzeit grew more violent, Brig. Gen. Shalom Harari, then a military intelligence officer in Gaza, says he received a call from Israeli soldiers manning a checkpoint on the road out of Gaza. They had stopped a bus carrying Islamic activists who wanted to join the battle against Fatah at Birzeit. "I said: 'If they want to burn each other let them go,'" recalls Mr. Harari.

A leader of Birzeit's Islamist faction at the time was Mahmoud Musleh, now a pro-Hamas member of a Palestinian legislature elected in 2006. He recalls how usually aggressive Israeli security forces stood back and let conflagration develop. He denies any collusion between his own camp and the Israelis, but says "they hoped we would become an alternative to the PLO."

A year later, in 1984, the Israeli military received a tip-off from Fatah supporters that Sheikh Yassin's Gaza Islamists were collecting arms, according to Israeli officials in Gaza at the time. Israeli troops raided a mosque and found a cache of weapons. Sheikh Yassin was jailed. He told Israeli interrogators the weapons were for use against rival Palestinians, not Israel, according to Mr. Hacham, the military affairs expert who says he spoke frequently with jailed Islamists. The cleric was released after a year and continued to expand Mujama's reach across Gaza.

Around the time of Sheikh Yassin's arrest, Mr. Cohen, the religious affairs official, sent a report to senior Israeli military and civilian officials in Gaza. Describing the cleric as a "diabolical" figure, he warned that Israel's policy towards the Islamists was allowing Mujama to develop into a dangerous force.

"I believe that by continuing to turn away our eyes, our lenient approach to Mujama will in the future harm us. I therefore suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face," Mr. Cohen wrote.

Mr. Harari, the military intelligence officer, says this and other warnings were ignored. But, he says, the reason for this was neglect, not a desire to fortify the Islamists: "Israel never financed Hamas. Israel never armed Hamas."

Roni Shaked, a former officer of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, and author of a book on Hamas, says Sheikh Yassin and his followers had a long-term perspective whose dangers were not understood at the time. "They worked slowly, slowly, step by step according to the Muslim Brotherhood plan."

In 1987, several Palestinians were killed in a traffic accident involving an Israeli driver, triggering a wave of protests that became known as the first Intifada, Mr. Yassin and six other Mujama Islamists launched Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement. Hamas's charter, released a year later, is studded with anti-Semitism and declares "jihad its path and death for the cause of Allah its most sublime belief."

Israeli officials, still focused on Fatah and initially unaware of the Hamas charter, continued to maintain contacts with the Gaza Islamists. Mr. Hacham, the military Arab affairs expert, remembers taking one of Hamas's founders, Mahmoud Zahar, to meet Israel's then defense minister, Yitzhak Rabin, as part of regular consultations between Israeli officials and Palestinians not linked to the PLO. Mr. Zahar, the only Hamas founder known to be alive today, is now the group's senior political leader in Gaza.

In 1989, Hamas carried out its first attack on Israel, abducting and killing two soldiers. Israel arrested Sheikh Yassin and sentenced him to life. It later rounded up more than 400 suspected Hamas activists, including Mr. Zahar, and deported them to southern Lebanon. There, they hooked up with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed A-Team of anti-Israeli militancy.

Many of the deportees later returned to Gaza. Hamas built up its arsenal and escalated its attacks, while all along maintaining the social network that underpinned its support in Gaza.

Hamas was founded in 1987. The Israelis couldn't foresee what Mujama al-Islamiya would become. If they had, what could they have done? I'm sure Israel shutting down mosques, libraries, clinics, kindergartens, and charities would have gone over well with the international community. The Egyptians did oppress the Muslim Brotherhood, and yet they still won the country's only free democratic election.

I already know that you're referring to an over 3 decades old charter that has been largely changed by Hamas as well.

The original covenant wasn't changed, they said it can't be for "internal reasons". They just learned how to better play useful idiots in the international community.

That said, here's an excerpt from the new charter:

We do not leave any part of the Palestinian’s land, under any circumstances, conditions or pressure, as long as the occupation remains. Hamas refuses any alternative which is not the whole liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

So they won't accept anything other than all of Israel/Palestine.

Regarding the supposed implicit recognition of Israel, we can check the new charter for that as well:

And the creation of the Palestinian independent state with its sovereignty, with Jerusalem as its capital, on the borders of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees to their homes from where they were displaced is a common national consensual formula, and it does not mean the recognition of the Zionist state or the surrendering of Palestinian rights.

Nope, it explicitly says that is not the case, and as for what "Palestinian rights" refers to, well "Jihad will remain as a legal right".

You can recognize that times change and movements change

Islamist fundamentalists aren't going to just abandon the core ideology of their religion. Their rhetoric in Arabic hasn't changed. The leadership may have personally become more pragmatic, but they're still prisoners of their own ideology whether or not they still hold it as sincere beliefs. If they abandon the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement and work peacefully with the Israelis, they'll simply discredit themselves in the eyes of the majority of Palestinians like Fatah has. They continue to break ceasefires, so it would be beyond foolish for Israel to make any major concessions to them in exchange for one.

[PointOfViewGun]

The allegation that Israel helped Hamas is somewhere between misleading and outright false.
Quoting from the article you linked:
Hamas was founded in 1987. The Israelis couldn't foresee what Mujama al-Islamiya would become. If they had, what could they have done? I'm sure Israel shutting down mosques, libraries, clinics, kindergartens, and charities would have gone over well with the international community. The Egyptians did oppress the Muslim Brotherhood, and yet they still won the country's only free democratic election.
The original covenant wasn't changed, they said it can't be for "historical reasons". They just learned how to better play useful idiots in the international community.
That said, here's an excerpt from the new charter:
So they won't accept anything other than all of Israel/Palestine.
Regarding the supposed implicit recognition of Israel, we can check the new charter for that as well:
Nope, it explicitly says that is not the case, and as for what "Palestinian rights" refers to, well "Jihad will remain as a legal right".
Islamist fundamentalists aren't going to just abandon the core ideology of their religion. Their rhetoric in Arabic hasn't changed. The leadership may have personally become more pragmatic, but they're still prisoners of their own ideology whether or not they still hold it as sincere beliefs. If they abandon the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement and work peacefully with the Israelis, they'll simply discredit themselves in the eyes of the majority of Palestinians like Fatah has. They continue to break ceasefires, so it would be beyond foolish for Israel to make any major concessions to them in exchange for one.

No one suggested that Israel should have shut down mosques, libraries or clinics. You're trying to frame the situation in a particular way to create a defensible position. Hamas or Muslim Brotherhood before it wasn't a group that welcomed Israeli presence in Palestine. Yassin wasn't preaching love and forgiveness before he created Hamas out of Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza. He was a known Islamist that was spreading the Muslim Brotherhood's message of global jihad. Yet, Israelis collaborated with Hamas against Fatah. Then they made a martyr out of Yassin. They practically condemned Gaza to Hamas and it became a convenient enemy.

Since Hamas didn't have a time machine, just like any other nation in the world, they can't change the document that made them a reality. They have, however, made changes to their strategies and they've showed that they can live up to them. Of course, you ignore facts on the ground to keep your narrative alive. Can Israel go back and change the Israeli declaration of independence to take out the reference to "Eretz-Israel" to avoid irredentism? Not really. Time and time after again Hamas proposed a truce based on 1967 borders. Your objections remain pedantic as they imply that your understanding of a compromise is total submission of the enemy. Anything short of that, even if its just in writing, is unacceptable. Meanwhile, not just in writing but with complete reality Israel keeps carving out West Bank.

I love how, in the end, you suddenly remember that Hamas is Islamist and argue that they won't leave their ideology behind. Somehow, it was of no importance when Israel was helping Yassin, a well-known Islamist.

[sumskilz]

I love how, in the end, you suddenly remember that Hamas is Islamist and argue that they won't leave their ideology behind. Somehow, it was of no importance when Israel was helping Yassin, a well-known Islamist.

They didn't actively help him, they just recognized him and his projects as a legitimate part of the Palestinian community, and didn't interfere. In retrospect, it's safe to say they should have been a lot more suspicious about him, but if you think they should have been more distrustful of an apparently peaceful Islamist charity, then it would be pretty absurd to think they should trust a militant Islamist organization with the stated goal of destroying them.

[PointOfViewGun]

They didn't actively help him, they just recognized him and his projects as a legitimate part of the Palestinian community, and didn't interfere. In retrospect, it's safe to say they should have been a lot more suspicious about him, but if you think they should have been more distrustful of an apparently peaceful Islamist charity, then it would be pretty absurd to think they should trust a militant Islamist organization with the stated goal of destroying them.

Hey! You got to pick a stance. You can either argue that Islamists are violent by nature or that they're dynamic just like any other group. You can't have both. You can't argue that Israel couldn't have known that Islamist Hamas would turn bad for them when they helped them, then argue that Islamist Hamas can not be trusted because they're Islamists. If Palestinians need to trust Israel with all its wrongdoings, Israel needs to trust Palestinians with all its wrongdoings.

[sumskilz]

Hey! You got to pick a stance. You can either argue that Islamists are violent by nature or that they're dynamic just like any other group. You can't have both. You can't argue that Israel couldn't have known that Islamist Hamas would turn bad for them...

I'm pretty sure that no one circa 1980 predicted that Islamism would almost completely supersede Arab nationalism, but it has happened all over the region. In that, it's unlikely that Israel could have made much difference, seeing as how the Muslim Brotherhood is just as popular in Egypt where they have been actively suppressed since 1948. But I didn't actually argue that Israel couldn't have foreseen the possibility of Yassin and his protegees becoming a problem for them, some Israeli officers were suspicious at the time. Clearly it was a mistake not to be more suspicious, maybe a stupid mistake, but if you think that's stupid, just imagine how stupid it would be if the Israelis took them at their word now.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

A ceasefire has been announced for 2am (gmt+3). This caused a great anger amongst Netanyahu's allied parties, with the leader of the RZ (Religious Zionist) party announcing that "Netanyahu can forget about a coalition". Netanyahu, as always, couldn't quite finish the job, nor even get close to it. A few thrusts and he's out, and Hamas? Well, that's future Netanahu's/whoever is the PM in a couple years problem!

[Gaius Baltar]

An armed Iranian drone intercepted at Jordanian border. Will there be retaliation?

https://www.timesofisrael.com/netany...nched-by-iran/

[Cyclops]

Hey! You got to pick a stance. You can either argue that Islamists are violent by nature or that they're dynamic just like any other group. You can't have both.

Surely Israel gets to use that argument too though? That they felt a relatively new player might provide a new outcome, but it has proved a poor choice.

Pragmatically Israel may have wanted to divide and conquer, which has certainly worked: the Arab State in Palestine is split, Hamas and Fateh seem to have spent a lot of energy murdering one another, and the message of "rocket attacks from Gaza to free the West bank" is a fuzzier than "all the oppressed Palestinians cooperate against oppressors!".

You can't argue that Israel couldn't have known that Islamist Hamas would turn bad for them when they helped them, then argue that Islamist Hamas can not be trusted because they're Islamists.

Maybe you could argue that in the kaleidoscopic political environment factions and individuals can be worth a punt? I incline toward the position Israeli intelligence and military choices in supporting an Islamist to work in Gaza were probably more about splitting up support for Yasser Arafat's mob than some starry eyed humanitarianism, but it may also have been something basic like "Fateh can't provide enough health care, who can?"

Israel may have split Palestine into Israel and the other bit (its not Palestine, its the "Arab state in Palestine we Failed to Properly establish because Jordan was Horny to conquer more land" or something. However Hamas has split it further into Arab Nationalist land and Islamist land.

If Palestinians need to trust Israel with all its wrongdoings, Israel needs to trust Palestinians with all its wrongdoings.

Absolutely right. Someone needs to connect the two groups.

I'd note Hamas' position that Israel has no right to exist is a bit of a bar to Gazans and West Bankers sitting down with Israelis.

When some idiot Greek nationalist yells "Constantinople is a Greek city! Turkiyye has no right to exist and must evacuate to Turkmenistan" we can laugh together at that idiocy.

Reality is Turkiyye is a stable functioning state, it keeps is agreements, makes mistakes but by and large serves is people well. It is a mostly secular state albeit one with a dominant ethnic identity, and being successful, naturally has enemies.

I think Israel is the same as that: it is real. The Arab State in Palestine needs to deal with that reality.

A ceasefire has been announced for 2am (gmt+3). This caused a great anger amongst Netanyahu's allied parties, with the leader of the RZ (Religious Zionist) party announcing that "Netanyahu can forget about a coalition". Netanyahu, as always, couldn't quite finish the job, nor even get close to it. A few thrusts and he's out, and Hamas? Well, that's future Netanahu's/whoever is the PM in a couple years problem!

That's great news about the ceasefire.

Maybe Bibi's time has come? If so he leaves a very different political landscape to when he arrived in the 2000's (is it a bit reminiscent of Olmert's departure, a ceasefire with Hamas and corruption charges?).

A new PM may feel obliged to be firm in Gaza, hope the ceasefire holds.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

That's great news about the ceasefire.

I truly wish I could share your sentiment.

Maybe Bibi's time has come? If so he leaves a very different political landscape to when he arrived in the 2000's (is it a bit reminiscent of Olmert's departure, a ceasefire with Hamas and corruption charges?).

A new PM may feel obliged to be firm in Gaza, hope the ceasefire holds.

Bibi was actually first elected in 1996

His time has indeed come, in fact he would have quite possibly already been replaced if not for Hamas. Now neither side has a way to form a coalition, and we will be forced to go through a fifth election.