Have they lost their minds?

We do live in interesting times. :\

I realy hope that they follow the way that IRA have followed. Or we are going to have a bloodbath soon.

Eridalafar

I have a hunch that Hamas-led Palestine may not be as bad as some people fear.

Who would have imagined 10 years ago that Ariel Sharon would lead the Israeli effort to bring less conflict to the region?

Fatah went through a similar transition.

Palestinians can't gain anything through force or violence. Whatever people may think of Hamas leadership, they aren't stupid.

Hamas lead Palestine has about a heartbeat to completely reinvent itself.

Its been said, by many people, that the day Hamas agrees that Israel has the right to exist, it ceases to be Hamas.

And heaven help them the first time a Hamas suicide bombers attacks Israel. It will most likely predicate full fledged war and complete reoccupation.

Israel has given the Palestinians chance after chance to stop the terror and their response has been to make terrorists their official leaders.

Normally, when you speak of state sponsored terrorism, its at least done behind a veneer of dissassociation and plausible deniability. Now it will be true and actual state sponsored terrorism.

Of course, this is all assuming they don't break into full civil war between Fatah supporters and Hamas supporters.

With nods to what Aidon said:

It's only terrorism if an official government doesn't sponsor/approve of it. As soon as the government engages in/encourages/directs the acts, they are no longer acts of terrorism, but acts of war.

With nods to Panamah, here's hoping they haven't completely lost their minds and don't invoke the wrath of Israel. It will do no good for either side.

My most hopeful scenario is:

Everyone blackballs palestine and they find they can't do business with anyone, including the lovely financial support they get, until they renounce terrorism. Then Hamas renounces terrorism and peace progress can resume.

They'll continue to get funding from the Arab League and Iran.

I think the US paid Palestinians 400 millionish last year? (heard on radio). Maybe Iran can make up the diff. Less money for nukes.

Everybody gets to go to hell in their own gocart, it's just that the Hamas gocart is going to be powered by plastique and RPG's.

Watching Fox, MSNBC and CNN showing the same video feed this morning gives little hope that after they're done settling personal grudges that they'll be willing to renounce their stated pledge of removing Israel from the face of the earth or killing all the jews they find.

With GW stating flat out that he wasn't going to have anything to do with them and Sen. Biden this morning saying that he's against giving them US funds it should be an interesting weekend news cycle. Popcorn anyone? :epopcorn:

The EU was the biggest donor to the Palestinian authority and they will never give money to Hamas as a terrorist organisation. The Palestinians have no real economy of their own so Hamas will certainly have some hard choices to make. It'll be interesting to see how they reinvent themselves to satisfy both the outside world and their own followers.

I'm guessing this will push Israeli politics far to the right though.

Can't blame Israel if it does.

They tried the peaceful route, yet again and look what happened.

The purpose of Hamas' existance is to create an Islamic State in what is now Israel, The West Bank, and Gaza.

My most hopeful scenario is:

Everyone blackballs palestine and they find they can't do business with anyone, including the lovely financial support they get, until they renounce terrorism. Then Hamas renounces terrorism and peace progress can resume.

They will just blame their increased terrorism acts on the economic conditions that WE caused for them, and on the Jews of course.

Same old story.

They will never change.

Well, look at it this way. They don't renounce terrorism then if Hamas continues to do terrorist acts they're now the government and it is now an act of war. I actually think they're going to be in a bit of a pickle.

They've publically stated that they will not change their official stance on Israel and have strongly implied terror attacks will continue.

Hamas will give Israel justification to attack, and lsrael will act, Palestinians will die, and the Arab Leaque will protest and strut. What I wonder about is will any of them wake up before, or after the West has to burn the place down. Anything Israel does will reflect on Westerners, so we all get to join the party and if we don't come willingly the explosive invitations will be sent by express mail.

I suppose by the end we could roll a marble from one end of the middle east to the other, but as nifty as that might be, it's not optimal. Correct me if I am wrong. After WW2 the Allies created Israel. A decade or two later, Eqypt attacks, and loses badly, Israel occupies and refuses to give up land. Israel performs a land grab into the West Bank sometime later, and it's been one drawn out resistance/insurection ever since. There isn't a single angel in the mix, just a people who have been wrong less often.

I am going to be annoyed if Hamas' victory serves to light a full scale war. Sometimes I seriously hate the Middle East.

Atleast I got some time away from Iraq before the newest **** storm starts off.

Correct me if I am wrong. After WW2 the Allies created Israel. A decade or two later, Eqypt attacks, and loses badly, Israel occupies and refuses to give up land. Israel performs a land grab into the West Bank sometime later, and it's been one drawn out resistance/insurection ever since. There isn't a single angel in the mix, just a people who have been wrong less often.

Don't even get started. There's arguments all over the place on this one. When the UN partitioned the ex-British colony of Palestine it was divided into a palestinian state and Israel. The arabs neighbours never recognised the partition and invaded immediately. The palestinians, who made up 70% of the population at the time of partition, were displaced as the Israelis and arabs annexed their lands. That's only the start of it. It's so complicated that you won't find one reliable version of events anywhere.

Essentially, the Israelis have a right to self defence and had their lands created under international agreement. The Palestinians can then argue they want their lands assigned under the same international agreement. If not, they want the right to defend themselves and fight for it back.

What I wonder about is will any of them wake up before, or after the West has to burn the place down.

There is very little to burn down. The palestinians are already close to being a refugee nation. You'll only be shifting angry people from one patch of desert to another patch of desert. What will that solve? They'll only hate us more than ever.

Correct me if I am wrong. After WW2 the Allies created Israel. A decade or two later, Eqypt attacks, and loses badly, Israel occupies and refuses to give up land. Israel performs a land grab into the West Bank sometime later, and it's been one drawn out resistance/insurection ever since. There isn't a single angel in the mix, just a people who have been wrong less often.

Ok, a hugely condensed version:

In '48 Israel and Palestine were to be created by UN mandate as two nations in the area that is now Israel and the 'occupied territories'. On the day that was supposed to happen, the Arab League invaded and lost. Israel was formed and the land which is now called the 'occupied territories' and 'Palestine' and which was supposed to form the nation of Palestine was then held for the next 19 years by the various Arab nations.

Then in '56 Egypt nationalized the Suez and blockaded the Red Sea, cutting off a huge portion of Israel's income with trade to Asia and eastern Africa. While Israe appealled to help on the matter from the UN, Egypt and Syria amassed armies on their respective borders with Israel. On the day Israeli Intelligence had determined Egypt was going to attack, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike on the Egyptian forces and drove them back across the Sinai to the Suez, where British and French paratroopers joined the fight because both nations did not want an Egyptian Suez. The battle stopped with Israeli, British, and French armies surrounding Cairo.

In the end, Israel gave back the Sinai.

In '67 (the Six Day War)basically the same thing. Egypt blockades the Red Sea. Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian, and Iraqi armies threaten Israel's border. Israel petitions for help from the UN, the Arab League ensures nothing is forthcoming. Israe, again, launches a pre-emptive attack on Egyptian forces and settles down to defend itself against the Syrian invasion. In the end of six days, Israel again holds the Sinai (along with Gaza) and the West Bank and Golan Heights, which until that time had belonged to Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, respectively.

It is around this period when the idea of Palestinians and Palestine starts becoming popular, as the Arab League realizes it may not be able to secure the destruction of Israel through military action alone. 'Palestinian Refugees' are kept in hovels and tents by the Arab nations and to this day Palestinians are not permitted citizenship rights in any Arab Nation, so far as I am aware.

In '73 the Arab League invades Israel on Yom Kippur (Holiest day of the Jewish religion). At one point the Arab armies are but hours away from Tel Aviv and Israel has its nuclear arsenal ready to launch. Resupply of armaments and parts from the US permits Israel to turn back the attack and defeat the combine Arab forces, again.


In '78 the Camp David Accords are signed, securing an end to the state of war which had existed between Egypt and Israel since '48 in return for Israel relinquishing control of the Sinai and the placement of UN/US(?) monitoring force in the Sinai to ensure Egypt never again can amass an army on the Israeli border.

At the risk of using a trivial (and therefore insulting) analogy, let me tell you about a car pool I was in many decades ago.

There were four of us and car-pool driving responsibilities were divided up quite fairly in the opinion of three of us. Lester didn't think it was fair at all. He kept complaining about getting the short of the stick, driving too often etc. etc. The rest of us were pretty exasperrated. Finally we gave up. We agreed to let Lester assign all of the car pool driving responsibilities. It was better than fighting.

An amazing thing happened. Lester organized things well and fairly!! He had both the power and the accountability, and he handled them responsibly. There were no more problems.

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On a much larger and very serious scale, you have Hamas. They had the power (through violence and suicide bombers) but not the accountability, except as exacted by Israel.

As elected leaders of Palestine, they now have both, and you can see them squirm already. Before they could point accusing fingers at the PLO for poor leadership, but not anymore. Hamas knows that they are easy targets for Israeli attack since politicians are visible, whereas guerrillas are not. They crossed a fateful line when they decided to run in a democratic election.

Read the headlines and you will see that foreign funding will dry up unless Hamas radically changes their position towards Israel. They want to team up with other factions, including Fatah. You will also read that Hamas desperately wants the funding to continue. Without foreign money, Palestine will suffer badly, and Hamas will lose support.

State-sponsored terrorism is war, and Palestine cannot win a war against Israel. Hamas knows this.

I may be an eternal optimist, but I think that major changes are opportunities for improvements. The death of Yasser Arafat was one of those changes. It marked the end of Fatah's dominance. In the end, Arafat was an obstacle to peace efforts. The election of Hamas is another such opportunity. I pray it's a good one.

I have to agree with you, Thicket. And another thing Hamas has going for it is they're not named "Lester".

I essentially agree with Thicket. Drawing the IRA into the political arena has essentially curtailled their paramilitary IRA activity. It's still possible though that Palestine will be one unholy mess and become a bloodbath.

I suspect they're going to adopt an official position of peace, but continue terrorism behind the scenes. It would be the best of both worlds, for them.

Very good summary Aidon. Reading some of the earlier history you find that the Arab nations actually sent agents amongst the Palestinians to convince them, and bribe as necessary, to move off their lands and out of the way for the invading Arab armies. Once they destroyed Israel, promises were made of the land being totally turned over to the Palestinians (which most scholars believe was a lie).

This moving out of the way is what displaced the Palestinians and begun their real struggle for nation hood. The Arab armies lost of course and then had a huge refugee population on their hands they did not want and as you correctly pointed out never allowed any sort of citizen privileges (and in most cases lived in horrible conditions and poverty). Over the years many returned and of course the national policy of settlements in the occupied lands was in effect and this caused more problems to develop.

Was the UN division of the land after WWII perfect? Of course not, but the proceeding events at the hand of the Arab leaders is what really lead to the situation they face today. It never ceases to amaze me the Arab nations sit back and hypocritically condemn Israel (and often the US) for the complete situation of the Palestinians.