CharlesPhipps wrote: ↑Sat Nov 04, 2023 11:15 pm
They absolutely need to go and if they aren't removed, it's solely because Israel wants them still in power.
The trouble here is Hamas is overwhelmingly an Israeli creation coming and going. They systematically suppressed any other civil authority or political entity, leaving what are essentially warlords. Then they spent 17 years brutally controlling the lives of the people living there, a population that is now fully half under age 20.
Let’s repeat that. Half of the people in Gaza are so young they don’t REMEMBER a time before apartheid. From this perspective, it’s RATIONAL to adopt the view that all Israelis are equally guilty and there are no invalid targets. And because it’s a viewpoint born of observable facts, it cannot be dissuaded with half measures.
So ending Hamas can only happen one of two ways.
1) the complete depopulation of Palestinians, an outcome Netanyahu has been manufacturing consent for for 25 years.
2) a radical shift in Israeli policy, featuring unilateral withdrawal on their part as the opening gestures of the decades-long process of rebuilding trust and letting non-Hamas viewpoints develop leadership again.
That’s it. And it will be a long process, Hamas will certainly try to provoke response to maintain their own power, but until Israel can simply absorb those attacks and use them as springboards to legitimize non-violent movements they will never have peace.