bouncing

I get it. Reality sucks.

Also, people want to see themselves in an underdog. They want a "good guy" to root for.

So Israel has been punished for treating The Gaza strip with dignity and mutual self interest… What should the new strategy be?

I have no idea. I don't see a path from where we are to peace. But I am realistic about the fact that Hamas isn't just some club of would-be liberal democrats just yearning for freedom. That's just not realistic. They don't want a two-state solution. They don't want a "Jews still being alive" solution. And increasingly, it doesn't seem like most Israelis want a two state solution either.

I don't have a solution for you.

Toward the end of Netanyahu’s fifth government in 2021, approximately 2,000-3,000 work permits were issued to Gazans. This number climbed to 5,000 and, during the Bennett-Lapid government, rose sharply to 10,000.

That's what counts as empowering Hamas? Letting Palestinians earn a living?

I mean I guess you can spin it that way, but it's a spurious claim to make.

That’s a little like saying you have to understand that Hitler’s rise was in the wake of World War 1’s devastating reparations. Or Stalin’s purges were after Nicholas II and his various misdeeds.

Everyone knows Hamas seized power about a half century after the British two-state division. And about a quarter century after the 1967 war. It also matters not one iota.

Hamas gets almost all of its direct funding from Iran and Russia.

Israel, along with the United Nations, United States, EU, etc funds humanitarian projects in Gaza. Some of that aid is surely diverted to Hamas and Hamas controls Gaza, but the moral case for allowing some aid to be diverted to Hamas in exchange for avoiding a humanitarian catastrophe is strong.

That’s exactly the kind of thinking that the Israeli government had a month ago, that by negotiating with them, they could find mutual self interest. 10/7 has disabused them of that delusion.

When someone says their goal is genocide, you should probably take them at their word.

According to Hamas’ own charter, “the cause” is that a Jew somewhere in the world has a pulse.

So I think it’s reasonable for us to say, no, we’re not going to address their stated grievances.