True, Israel has intentionally bolstered support for Hamas at times to delegitimize their attempts at governance.
I find it horrifically ironic that the place where Jews could live free of pogroms sits astride land where Israeli settlers feel the need to commit pogroms against the residents.
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I have read only a couple of instances where there was extremism. From what I can tell the Palestinians who were killed in the West Bank were due to nightly operations in Jenin. Almost every night Israel has been fighting with terrorist cells there.
One thing to note when reading the total of casualties is that there no split (at least that I have seen) between civilians and combatants in either Gaza or the West Bank. 10,000 deaths makes a great headline for Hamas. 7,000 Hamas fighters/terrorists dead doesnât shine make them look as good. (7k is a made up number by me)
c5,000 children have been killed now.
I am pretty sure they were not âHamasâ.
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Even there, the number of âchildrenâ is people under 18. I bet there are a lot of teenagers who are Hamas militants. And of course, there are also dead preemies who obviously arenât.
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Itâs ironic, but also makes a weird sense. People who are obsessed with the idea of pogroms have that in their⌠repertoire. Thatâs not exactly the right word, but itâs a thing that comes to mind for extremist Israelis in a way it isnât in the social consciousness of many Americans.
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If thatâs the case, maybe the questions should be why are so many under 18 Palestinians attracted to Hamas in the first place?
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I donât think thereâs any mystery there, sadly.
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There are a shit-ton of Palestinians under 18. so that might skew the data from how us USians see things at home.
They are poor with little hope for a better life. Oh, and the UNRWA schools and many of the Imams teach them that this is the Israeliâs fault and that Jews are subhuman cruel enemies. But if they are martyred fighting the evil Jews they get an express ticket to heaven and their families get a stipend from their government.
Under that kind of indoctrination its not a surprise that large numbers of under 18 Palestinians support Hamas.
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Ah, so it has nothing to do with the Israeli Government policies that have among other thing led to no elections being held since 2006. Good to know.
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The Palestinians have been offered many peace deals and have rejected all of them. Israel pulled out of Gaza completely in 2005. The blockade was entirely due to the election of Hamas in 2006.
âIf the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.â -Golda Meir
The last time the Palestinians negotiated a peace deal that they agreed with (Rabin), the Israeli settlers killed him.
Care to revise your statement?
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No I will not. Look up the peace deals Sharon, Olmert, and Barak offered. They offered over 90% of the West Bank.
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The Palestinians rejected the Peel Commission, Partition Plan, and various significant offers in the early 2000s into the 2010s.
Here was Olmertâs offer: Ehud Olmertâs Peace Offer.
You know what I was in Israel when that happened. In fact, the flight back on ELAL had no movies because of the assassination. I remember watching a map of the planes progress for twelve hours.
Let me give you an honest assesment of the situation because so many of you folks seem unable to.
Asking for a âpeace dealâ does not work when:
- You ignore the fact that on the ground Israel turns a blind eye to settler extremists who keep absorbing more land in the West Bank (and Gaza at the time of Rabin)
What you have described (Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak) is POST-Rabin. In effect, the territories being offered were less vs what Rabin offered.
Rabin was killed because settler extremists could not countenance the fact that the agreement was tolerable for the Palestinians. In their world, agreements are very much âzero sumâ.
This is also why no agreement ânowâ will ever work. Or be accepted.
You are trying to gaslight and force the Palestinians to accept an agreement that approves of all the land the extremist settlers have absorbed in the last 30 years.
The chances of that happening are effectively zero. This is also precisely what gave rise to Hamas as a power in the Palestinian territories. They saw ânegotiationâ as futile, so they saw terrorism as the only viable option.
And this is where we enter the world of hypocrisy on the Israeli side.
Let me ask you:
Who resorted to terrorism when they saw negotiation not working for them?
That would be the Irgun. Sound familiar?
In as far as I am concerned, Hamas is a direct creation of Israeli policies, which have flowed through the extremist settlers. You have created your own monster effectively.
None of this is ânewâ in the global sense. ETA in Spain and the IRA in Northern Ireland functioned the same way.
You know whats next after this?
Massive, large scale terrorism. No matter how security conscious you may think Israel is, a smart commited terrorist will always beat you. Its unavoidable.
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Thatâs certainly a fair perspective from your global position. The opposite perspective is that the lands are disputed and Israel was offering a significant amount back.
This is why the English version of UN Resolution 242 doesnât call for all territories or even the territories to be swapped only territories.
From the Israeli perspective the Palestinians will not be satisfied until they control the entire country. When you hear chants from the river to the sea itâs hard not to think that.