Israel seizes democratically elected leaders

As far as foreign coverage goes, I got the impression Hamas mainly got elected because of the corruption of Fatah and the care and education system Fatah had established. Both Israelis and Palestinians have pretexts and serious reasons for doing their shticks. Hopefully more and more will come to realise they are both held hostages, by killing and repressing/terrorising the other side. For good or for bad they live in the same area and have to live together.

Israel can’t really choose to deal with the Palestinians as a whole as an enemy military force, Curtis, unless it considers every single Palestinian an army member. And I don’t think it wants/can do that.

Fatah was garbage and the Palestinians had little else. Saying the Israelis are so much better than the Palestinians is not looking at the reality that Israel has and will continue to cause a lot of suffering. I’m not saying its entirely unjustified. I’m saying the cycle perpetuates for a reason. Honest, good living Arabs trying to make a living in Israel are severely discriminated against, the cover up of the shelling of the family on the Gaza beach, these are just a couple recent examples.

I’m not going to debate te Israeli points, Cid brings up some good ones. The reality is the situation is shit and people need to put down their guns and stop the bullshit for the good of their people and their people’s children. Governments with Hamas’ mentality are not helpful. Responses like Israel’s are not helpful. Kidnapping Israeli citizens and killing him because he existed is not helpful.

Israel can’t really choose to deal with the Palestinians as a whole as an enemy military force, Curtis, unless it considers every single Palestinian an army member. And I don’t think it wants/can do that.

Unfortunately, I think Israel does do that. The Palestinian people provide the terrorists with hiding and supplies. Hamas could not be as effective as it is without the wholesale support of the Palestinian people. And of course, the Palestinian people elected Hamas into power. Really, Israel can’t effectively fight the terrorists without considering the Palestinian people themselves to be a military force. We(the United States) had to wage war on the Japanese and German people themselves to win WWII - and part of the reason why we’re doing badly in Iraq is because we refuse to wage war on the Sunni people.

As far as foreign coverage goes, I got the impression Hamas mainly got elected because of the corruption of Fatah and the care and education system Fatah had established.

This is only half the truth. Unfortunately, the Palestinians consider Hamas heroes for standing up to Israel through the use of suicide attacks. So many times people fail to realize the reality of situations because they think other people are rational. Most of the times, people act emotionally. Hamas’ suicides have brought nothing but misery upon the lives of the Palestinians, yet because of simple pride, the Palestinian people love Hamas.

The shiites also cause problems in Iraq, jsyk.

The Shiites do cause problems, but the Sunnis are the ones supporting the military insurgency.

Because the Badr brigades are Sunnis?

Hm, wage war on people. When the army targets civilians, which is the aim of that kind of war?

The Palestinians elected Hamas, the Israelis elected their governments and we elected ours. Does this justify civilian deaths by any party?

[QUOTE=]
This is only half the truth. Unfortunately, the Palestinians consider Hamas heroes for standing up to Israel through the use of suicide attacks. So many times people fail to realize the reality of situations because they think other people are rational. Most of the times, people act emotionally. Hamas’ suicides have brought nothing but misery upon the lives of the Palestinians, yet because of simple pride, the Palestinian people love Hamas.[/QUOTE]

Both sides defend their position with what they’ve got. The problem with those situations is that both sides become “the Israelis” and “the Palestinians”. Not every one of them has the same opinion.

As far as foreign coverage goes, I got the impression Hamas mainly got elected because of the corruption of Fatah and the care and education system Fatah had established.

Yes, that’s the main reason - but there were plenty of people campaigning, and not all of them belonged to Fatah or Hamas. The fact that they voted for Hamas means that while they didn’t like Fatah, Hamas and terrorism was their next option.

Hm, wage war on people. When the army targets civilians, which is the aim of that kind of war?

We then run into the problem of “who is a civilian”? There have been documented episodes of terrorists who deliberately run into a mob of civilians or into civilian houses in order to leer at Israeli forces who then can’t attack them, and of civilians who fully support the war against Israel and will give terrorists supplies and places to hide. There have been women and children caught carrying explosive belts, and Red Crescent ambulances which have been carryinig explosives.

Israel’s situation is a very, very difficult one. Practically nothing they do is ever lauded by the international community; everyone keeps putting them down and demanding more. Israel got out of Gaza (one of the only countries in history to ever do so voluntarily) and all anyone can say is “let’s see you get out of the West Bank” - despite the absolute disaster that was the withdrawal from Gaza, and despite the fact that this would uproot over a hundred thousand Israelis (compared to Gaza’s eight thousand).

Seriously, what could Israel possibly do that would a) have results, and b) garner approval, short of committing national suicide? Even if Israel would give back the entire West Bank and Gaza and bring down the security fence, Hamas and their ilk won’t stop in their war against them. Israel suffers through suicide bombs and puts up checkpoints to make sure these bombs don’t get through, and everyone starts complaining about it. Israel puts up a passive fence to keep out terrorists, and everyone starts complaining about it. Israel executes pinpoint attacks on terrorists which often result in no civilian casualties at all (and almost every civilian casualty results in an apology and a full investigation), and everyone starts complaining about it. Israel tries negotiating with the Palestinian government, many times over, and gets worthless pieces of paper in exchange for precious land, with attacks on their citizens continuing, and everyone says it’s not enough.

And which country is the subject of boycotts by Canadian unions and churches and British professors? Why, it’s Israel, of course. The only democracy in the Middle East, where Arabs are in parliament and have a full vote, and with a decidedly liberal court system which has often upheld suits by Arabs. Not, obviously, countries like China or Iran or Sudan, whose human rights records results in tens of thousands of deaths. Not a whisper of mention of the constant barrage of attacks against Israeli civilians in the past ten years. Of course not.

Hamas won because it was a popular movement for many reasons, not just terrorism. Hamas was known. The others were not. Hamas is a political organization as well as a terrorist group. They just played their cards well politically.

As for civilians, I don’t think you really answered Sorc’s point about how you wage war on a civilian population. While there are problems with the way the guerilla warfare is waged, the appropriate response to nail your opponent doesn’t apply here. That’s called genocide.

Your points are well taken nevertheless. I agree its bullshit.

You’re right about the reasons for Hamas winning - but again, the end result is that Hamas is now in power. We want to make sure that doesn’t happen again. The only way to influence a democratic election from the outside (keeping our consciences intact) is to exert international pressure on them - you can pick whoever you want, but you should just know that if you try this one again, you’ll have a really really hard time with it.

Of course attacking civilians is not something the Israelis want to do. My point is that it’s practically impossible to attack terrorists in a foreign country without the occasional “collateral damage” (as sick as that term is). If the Palestinians want to stop that happening, the only thing they can do is to turn over the terrorists themselves. Since they’re not doing it, because they implicitly support the terrorists, the occasional civilian death is unfortunately unavoidable. Israel happens to have an excellent track record in collateral damage, actually, as compared to pretty much any country in history, but they can’t be perfect. Their first and foremost job is the security of their citizens, which means cracking down on terrorists.

Israel does not actively attack civilians; any time it turns out that civilians died as part of an Israeli offensive, they investigate and apologize (and don’t instantly assume that if Palestinian civilians die, it’s an Israeli offensive; “work accidents”, i.e. bombs exploding while being worked on, happen all the time. And note that Israel emphatically denies having any part in the Gaza family of seven who died a few weeks ago.) If they wanted to, they could carpet-bomb whole cities. You remember that whole Jenin fiasco a few years back, where everyone was shouting “genocide”? Israel could have attacked using helicopters and bombs. They didn’t. They went hand-to-hand in a ground assault on enemy territory. A total of 54 Palestinians died, perhaps 20 of whom were civilians, and 23 (I believe) Israel soldiers were killed. They could have avoided those 23 deaths if they wanted - but they preferred to minimize civilian casualties. Find one other country today who would go to such lengths.

Well on the upside, there is one, with hamas being elected, it put them in the spotlight and put on them the responsibilities that come from being at the head of a state (or a pseudo state in this case). While the progress has been slow and the world isn’t a perfect place, we are seeing Hamas make concessions and slowly, they are becoming more moderate. Its slow and non-dramatic, but I think it is noticeable and important. I think that in the end, if the cards are played well, it could prove better for Israel. We’ll just have to wait and see. To put another spin to it, we don’t want another government like hamas, which is a terrorist government that wants to destroy Israel and says so explicitely in their charter. If we look at the changes that are occuring and will keep occuring, even if Hamas were to be re-elected, it wouldn’t be the same Hamas. It also puts pressure on Fatah to better itself, providing the people with better governments in the future. As things stand, what we don’t want is Islamic Jihad or some Hezbollah equivalent.

I agree with your points about collateral damage. People don’t understand war and the necessities of war and the media and sentimentality of western nations that haven’t had to deal with these kinds of tragedies makes it hard for them to understand the implications of what is going on and what needs to be done. However, while I don’t doubt that there are occasionally investigations into these things, I don’t think they are_always_honest. I myself was greatly disapointed in Israel with how it tried to cover up the beach shelling by saying it was caused by a landmine. I think that is inapopriate and it echoes some complaints the palestinians have made about how Israel was not always honest. As much as I’d like to think Israel is as honest as you say they are, I think its important to remain objective.

The only reason why the Shiites haven’t joined the military insurgency yet is because they think that they can get everything they want if they cooperate with the American occupation <i>for now</i>. So far it’s working, because Bush is so desperate to make people believe that Iraq is stabilizing that he’s letting the Shiites take over. But the second we do something that the Shiites don’t like, such as going after al-Sadr, or attempting to rein in the Shiite death squads that are terrorizing all of southern Iraq, they’re going to turn against the occupation and probably drive us out.

The problem with this analysis is that “civilised” Western governments did everything they could to keep Arab societies in their “barbaric” state. We might start with the British Empire’s unbelievably half-assed creation of national borders throughout the Middle East, whose effects we’re still dealing with right now in Iraq. Later, when Western governments thought that secular Arab leaders like Arafat or Hussein were becoming too influential, they switched to supporting Islamic radicals, who were far more “barbaric” in comparison. The Taliban, by far the most barbaric government of all, was carefully cultivated by the American government, which turned them into a significant political force by giving them extensive military training and technology. In Iraq, Bush has just empowered Shiite fundamentalists, and Hussein’s dictatorship is soon going to look moderate compared to what they’re going to set up. Western countries have spent immense amounts of their taxpayers’ money to consistently, deliberately encourage the most barbaric elements of Muslim society because it served their own “interests.” For them to write Muslims off as barbarians after that is just empty self-righteousness.

I myself was greatly disapointed in Israel with how it tried to cover up the beach shelling by saying it was caused by a landmine.

I’m not sure why you believe the Palestinians over the Israelis on this one. The Israelis haven’t retracted their position on this, as far as I know, and these “accidents” have happened in the past. In any case, I agree that Israel’s record isn’t absolutely perfect (which, again, would be difficult).

Thus war on civilians should never be the name of the game. If it doesn’t have a clear aim (rooting out the terrorists among them is impossible) and all it brings on the table are deaths of ordinary people. The best bet of both sides is a political solution. Neither Israel nor the Palestinians can exterminate the threat from the enemy army/suicide bombers. If the Israeli peace movement begins to get heard and the Hamas-government in contrast to the Hamas-extremist group slowly learns to play by the book, they may reach a realistic conclusion. They will still have to live side by side.

It is true that Israelis get a lot of shit sometimes, but that goes for the other side as well. I can’t imagine how it is, knowing that any moment a bomb may go off next to you. I just can’t. I can’t neither imagine the humiliation sometimes Palestinians suffer in checkpoints, or having the army enter a city and raze buildings.
And then again any side can blast the peace talks to smithereens under any pretext.

And let’s not forget that if the international community is represented by the U.N. Israel has plenty of resolutions to conform to, and a good record of more that get vetoed by the U.S.

On the original point, Israel kidnaps half the cabinet for retaliation and then bombs the E.U. sponsored facilities. This seems a bit vengeful toward the Palestinans. (And that 18 y/o Israeli boy that got killed
, what bullshit!)

The fence is so 1961.

If it doesn’t have a clear aim (rooting out the terrorists among them is impossible) and all it brings on the table are deaths of ordinary people.

Rooting out terrorists is not impossible, since Israel’s been doing it pretty well. Its targeted executions have largely been quite successful. In 2003, there were suicide bomb attempts every day, and at least one went through every week. That’s been reduced to almost nothing, largely because of the security fence and Israel’s relentless pinpoint attacks against terrorist leaders. Current terrorist leaders have to act from the shadows, and are constantly on the run from Israel. I’d say that works pretty well.

And let’s not forget that if the international community is represented by the U.N. Israel has plenty of resolutions to conform to, and a good record of more that get vetoed by the U.S.

Don’t get me started on the UN. The UN has an amazingly anti-Israel bias. Israel is the subject of more resolutions every year than China, Cuba, Syria, Saudi Arabia, hell, any tinpot dictatorship you can imagine, all of which pass with an enormous margin due to the high volume of Arab countries on the voting blocs. The Palestinians are the only group in the world with their own refugee committee, the UNRWA, whereas every single other refugee group in the world, many of which are more numerous, are lumped together into one group. And let’s not forget the UN’s “human rights” conference in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, which degenerated into outright, blatant anti-Semitic canards reminiscent of pre-WWII Germany. Israel has no faith in the UN, and their clout is pretty much gone at this point.

I can’t neither imagine the humiliation sometimes Palestinians suffer in checkpoints, or having the army enter a city and raze buildings.

Once again, there’s a very simple solution to that, which is to stop supporting the terrorists and start turning them in. Once Israelis feel safe from terrorist attacks, the checkpoints will be lifted and the army will have no reason to invade - just like it was before 2000 when Arafat started this whole stupid intifada. People forget that Palestinians made up a huge amount of the workforce inside Israel before that time - i.e. before they decided to wage war against it. Since then, their economy has been decimated. Ask any Gaza dweller if he’d prefer living under Israel or under Hamas and see what he answers.

If the Israeli peace movement begins to get heard and the Hamas-government in contrast to the Hamas-extremist group slowly learns to play by the book, they may reach a realistic conclusion.

Except that there isn’t much difference between the Hamas government and the Hamas extremist group. Trying to say that there is is indulging in wishful thinking. They both answer to the same bosses and toe the same lines, and if they want to keep their little religious war going, they will have to keep demanding that Israel be destroyed. Even if they realize that, to be pragmatic, they’ll have to negotiate with Israel, if they do get a state, the result will be a neighboring state which will suddenly have allies, treaties, diplomatic immunity, arms trading, sovereign ports and airspace, and what’s all this artillery suddenly pointed our way?

On the original point, Israel kidnaps half the cabinet for retaliation and then bombs the E.U. sponsored facilities. This seems a bit vengeful toward the Palestinans.

Again, what would you like them to do? Ask very nicely for the government to give back their kidnapped soldier? That doesn’t seem to be working. And I certainly hope they don’t go ahead and release a thousand prisoners like they demand, because a) they’re generally in prison for a reason, and previous prisoner releases have been disastrous, since many of them went right back into fighting Israel; and b) it sends a message that all you have to do to get out of jail is kidnap a few soldiers and we’ll do whatever you want. Again: Israel has not killed a SINGLE PERSON over this spat, which in any other country would have been an act of war.

The fence is so 1961.

The fence has saved more lives than any Middle East peace treaty ever has.

Even if they manage to kill most of the terrorists who are active now, new terrorists are bound to spring up. Otherwise Israel would have already solved its terrorist problems, wouldn’t it?

Disregarding the U.N. doesn’t really strengthen the position of Israel. I can’t comment on the Durban episode, I will check it out later. The Israel/Palestinian situation has been on the spotlight for so long, it gathers its share of attention and resolutions. The U.N. isn’t immaticulate, it’s a political organisation after all, but don’t you wonder what the rest of the world makes of this situation? Can the Arabs themselves control the U.N.?

[QUOTE=]
Once again, there’s a very simple solution to that, which is to stop supporting the terrorists and start turning them in. [/QUOTE]

People of both sides removing their support from warmongers is the ultimate solution.

[QUOTE=]
Except that there isn’t much difference between the Hamas government and the Hamas extremist group. Trying to say that there is is indulging in wishful thinking. They both answer to the same bosses and toe the same lines, and if they want to keep their little religious war going, they will have to keep demanding that Israel be destroyed. Even if they realize that, to be pragmatic, they’ll have to negotiate with Israel, if they do get a state, the result will be a neighboring state which will suddenly have allies, treaties, diplomatic immunity, arms trading, sovereign ports and airspace, and what’s all this artillery suddenly pointed our way?[/QUOTE]

I wouldn’t call it wishful thinking. “The Islamist group Hamas has reached agreement with other Palestinian factions on a statehood initiative that implictly recognises Israel’s right to exist”. That’s quite a change. Hamas gov has to answer to the people like it didn’t have to. Now their well being is Hamas’ responsibility. It won’t be a one day process but it’s already happening.

The state you describe sounds like every other Arabic state in the region and Israel as well. I don’t think Israel wouldn’t be able to match the firepower of such a state, as it already matches all of the Middle-Eastern states. But that’s not the point. Both people have to live side by side and it’s in their long term best interest to live in peace.

[QUOTE=]
Again, what would you like them to do? Ask very nicely for the government to give back their kidnapped soldier?[/QUOTE]

:slight_smile: My question is, why do they destroy the facilities Palestinians use. The more miserable they get, the more likely they are to support attacks against Israel. Bombing the Gaza office of the Hamas minister for security doesn’t sound like a measure that checks in violence.

In general, for every Israeli point there’s a Palestinian one and vice versa. Ultimately it’s a matter that only the people living there can solve. We may only protest against both sides’ extremities.

When I say “attack the civilian population”, I don’t mean literally shooting bombs or missiles at civilians. I mean taking actions to hurt them economically and socially, so that their efforts to support the terrorists are hampered. Which Israel, of course, has done - the whole purpose of building the wall is to be able to shutdown the West Bank economy.

Even if they manage to kill most of the terrorists who are active now, new terrorists are bound to spring up. Otherwise Israel would have already solved its terrorist problems, wouldn’t it?

Israel hasn’t solved its problems because it keeps coupling smart military decisions with dumb political ones - like giving back Gaza, which infused the terrorists with a lot of hope for the future. They have to keep the pressure on them until they realize that winning this war simply isn’t possible.

Disregarding the U.N. doesn’t really strengthen the position of Israel.

Yes, but if they’d listen to everything the UN says, their position practically wouldn’t exist. See my earlier post about how the UN consistently slams Israel for absolutely everything it does. And I won’t even go into the resolution the UN made in the 1970’s (since rescinded) that equated Zionism with racism.

but don’t you wonder what the rest of the world makes of this situation? Can the Arabs themselves control the U.N.?

The entire world thought that getting rid of the Jews in the Holocaust was at best a good idea and at worst something they shouldn’t have to worry about. Believe it or not, often the entire world is dead wrong.

People of both sides removing their support from warmongers is the ultimate solution.

Tarring the Israeli side as “warmongers” is unfair. While there are some people who want this conflict to continue, they’re few and far between. Most people want peace. Sometimes that means getting rid of bad guys to get it. Again, Israel’s main goal is the security of its citizens. If they sit back and do nothing, that goal is compromised. They’ve tried diplomacy for the last fifteen years, and it hasn’t worked.

The Islamist group Hamas has reached agreement with other Palestinian factions on a statehood initiative that implictly recognises Israel’s right to exist

This sentence is being bandied about by people who never actually read the document. Practically anything can be “implicit” if you’re looking for it - but Hamas has never said it recognizes Israel’s right to exist, and has often said that it doesn’t. How exactly do you plan on having talks with someone who wants to destroy you?

The state you describe sounds like every other Arabic state in the region and Israel as well.

The difference is that no other Arabic state a) has a sizable Jewish population, or b) is right in Israel’s backyard, or c) consists of two wedges of land which straddle Israel and needs a passageway smack through the middle. Security concerns would be far more serious.

My question is, why do they destroy the facilities Palestinians use. The more miserable they get, the more likely they are to support attacks against Israel. Bombing the Gaza office of the Hamas minister for security doesn’t sound like a measure that checks in violence.

There are long-term goals and short-term ones. Think about it this way. The Palestinians currently want Israel to stop existing in any way possible. Being nice to them is not suddenly going to get them to stop thinking that way. All it’ll do is reinforce the idea that Israelis are weak and hence are easy targets. This has been proven in the past, e.g. after Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon. Pressure has to be put on the Palestinian government to stop their destructive tendencies. And note that Israel is not abandoning the Palestinian people - while they’re making the job of their government more difficult, they’re also sending humanitarian aid to them. Yes, they’re sending aid to their enemies. Their faith in their government is already reduced; we have to start reducing their faith in the terrorists, and show them that their way will not result in any profits whatsoever.

for every Israeli point there’s a Palestinian one and vice versa.

The Palestinian ones are often made by people who know little about the situation, do not appreciate Israel’s position in the least, and are touting stuff that “everyone knows”. For example, the Palestinians did not live in the West Bank or Gaza before 1967. In fact, there was no such thing as a Palestinian before 1967. The “territories” are not Palestinian land; the best you can say is that both Israel and Palestine have claims to it and it’s “disputed”.

This is not an equal argument. People like saying it is because that way they get to sit on the fence. But moralistically, strategically, and ethically, the two sides are not the same at all.

That’s like saying that there was no such thing as a Jew before 1947. There was “no such thing as a Palestinian” because the British (and previously the Turks) were sitting on the land before Israel’s appearance, and they drew up the borders however they pleased. But the Palestinians viewed themselves as such long before then. As for whether they lived in Gaza and the West Bank, roughly those same regions made up the potential “Arab state” in the UN “partition plan” of 1947, which was drawn up largely along demographic lines.

Israel closed its settlements in Gaza and passed over certain administrative functions. But Gaza has no access to the sea or the air, and Israel controls all the crossings, so in reality Israel still has a lot of control over the Palestinian economy. Similarly, the wall as it was planned does more than just separate Israel from the Palestinians - it isolates Palestinian settlements from each other and in some cases encircles them entirely. Thus, these Palestinians’ houses are on one side of the wall, and their agricultural land is on the other, to say nothing of their workplaces if they work in other cities. In this way, Israel has total control over their livelihoods.

Now, I don’t want to deny that these various measures might be based on legitimate security concerns. I don’t live there after all, so I don’t have to make these decisions, and furthermore you’re right that Israel’s first duty is to ensure the security of Israelis. But it seems to me that two things follow from this. One is that this security system, whatever its intentions, has the effect of making it much more difficult to engage in normal civil life for people who might have nothing to do with terrorism. In particular, it makes it next to impossible for these people to build any kind of political structure to rival that of the terrorists, or to create any kind of civil institutions in general. The other is that, in doing so, it plays right into the hands of the terrorists (who thrive in the absence of normal civil life) and increases their support. The strategy of “collective punishment” usually has this effect. For instance, the United States’ crippling economic sanctions against Iraq in the nineties led Iraqis and Arabs in general to support Saddam Hussein more than they probably would have otherwise.

I seriously doubt that it’s possible to generalize in this way about what “the Palestinians currently want.” For instance, a poll taken in early 2005 found that a majority of Palestinians supported “a two-state solution on the basis of the 1967 lines, with border corrections and no massive return of refugees.” This proposition may be unworkable or unacceptable or unrealistic or whatever, but it isn’t the same thing as wanting Israel to “stop existing in any way possible.”

As for whether they lived in Gaza and the West Bank, roughly those same regions made up the potential “Arab state” in the UN “partition plan” of 1947, which was drawn up largely along demographic lines.

Depends if you’re going on the original plan, which provided the Arabs with the country of Jordan and the Jews with Israel, or the much-truncated plan, which also provided Arabs with nine-tenths of what was originally Israel - which they still refused to take, and proceeded to wage war on Israel.
I’m not sure how you can say that they “thought of themselves as Palestinians”, since the appelation didn’t exist yet. But in any case, people do have this idea of the Palestinians “owning” the West Bank before 1967, and Israel cruelly barging into it and evicting everyone.

One is that this security system, whatever its intentions, has the effect of making it much more difficult to engage in normal civil life for people who might have nothing to do with terrorism. In particular, it makes it next to impossible to build any kind of political structure to rival that of the terrorists, or to create any kind of civil institutions in general.

The Palestinians had the chance to create those civil institutions before 2003. Instead they chose to use the impressive funds given to them by the international community to fight Israel rather than build things like schools and hospitals. Now they’ve lost the chance and Israel won’t give it back until they get some kind of indication that when the walls come down, Israelis won’t suddenly start dying again.

The other is that, in doing so, it plays right into the hands of the terrorists (who thrive in the absence of normal civil life) and increases their support. The strategy of “collective punishment” usually has this effect. For instance, the United States’ crippling economic sanctions against Iraq in the nineties led Iraqis and Arabs in general to support Saddam Hussein more than they probably would have otherwise.

Except that giving in to the terrorists by conceding land would increase support even more; this is what happened with Lebanon and Hezbollah. At least this way there’s a possibility that since every action by terrorists provokes a harsh reaction by Israel, people will start seeing the terrorists themselves as being useless or not worth supporting. This was actually happening, at least according to the articles I’ve read, up until the Gaza withdrawal, which Hamas touted as a victory for the resistance and probably played a large role in why they were elected.

Both points are good ones. But, as usual, we have to try for the least of the possible evils. Dialogue with the Palestinians has not been fruitful for Israel in the past, though they’ve tried. Simply giving them everything they want isn’t feasible, nor is removing the security barriers and checkpoints. I won’t deny that life is hard for the Palestinians this way, nor to say that absolutely everyone deserved it, but the solution to it is clear.

As for “collateral punishment”… is it the fault of the eighty-year-old grandfather in a hotel that he was blown up by a terrorist? Unfortunately when two countries are fighting, people will be hurt and not always will those people be guilty. Israel at least tries to minimize the actual injuries and deaths on its side, and provides economic help to the Palestinians. People forget that Israel is the one that actually provides them with electricity and water in the first place.

This proposition may be unworkable or unacceptable or unrealistic or whatever, but it isn’t the same thing as wanting Israel to “stop existing in any way possible.”

Again: The Palestinians voted in a government whose entire raison d’etre is the destruction of Israel. Plain old polls are fine, but they don’t speak as loudly as political votes.