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A Hamas leader says they will give up governing Gaza, but won’t lay down arms (www.npr.org)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This shows that Hamas was more interested in being warlords than the actual business of governing. Just like the Israeli government is more interested in conquering a tiny bit of bombed out desert than actually living in peace.

Both sides are clearly led by pieces of shit. Israel has a democracy though, so they are choosing to be led by pieces of shit. Palestinians might have some shitty beliefs about Jewish people, but they don't have a voice in their government.

Literally no country actually cares about Palestinians. Iran and their proxies (Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, Syria) just want to be warlords. Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia just want to distract their domestic audience. Europe is just going to wring their hands and hope the killing stops.

America is actually the biggest force for peace in the region. All of these were signed in Washington DC (or nearby at Camp David):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_Accords

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_17_Agreement

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Jordan_peace_treaty

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Actual brainworm comment. Maybe take a look at the proposals in the Camp David/Oslo accords and consider why Israel was so excited to sign a "peace deal" which have them 80% of the land, 100% of the military control, and total domination of political and economic affairs over Palestine.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don't know why you're getting downvoted when you're right. The right-wing of the Israeli Government even assassinated Rabin because any concessions to Palestinians was seen as too far. Instead, Israel continued the settlements based on the Areas A,B and C from Oslo, while the PA denounced and rejected Resistance of the encroaching settlements/military bases and violent settlers. Meanwhile Palestinians were never given self-determination and the Right of Return was never even considered. These failures led directly to the conditions for the 2nd Intifada

The Oslo Accords were supposed to bring about Palestinian self-determination, in the form of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. This would mean that Israel, which was formed on the land of historic Palestine in 1948 in an event Palestinians know as the Nakba, would accept Palestinian claims to national sovereignty. The claims, however, would only be limited to a fraction of historic Palestine, with the rest left to Israel’s sovereignty.

Elements of the far-right were so opposed to the Oslo Accords that Rabin himself was assassinated in 1995 for signing them. Among the people who had threatened Rabin before his death was Itamar Ben-Gvir, now Israel’s National Security Minister.

Meanwhile, Palestinian groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, warned that a two-state solution would forgo the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the historic lands seized from them in 1948 when Israel was created.

What were the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Because the idea that America is a "peacemaker" and that Hamas is an ontologically evil party on par with Israel is an easy way out of having to recognise that the US government is actually a barrier to peace around the world.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Did you read the article or just the headline?

In order to achieve a cease-fire deal that leads to international funds to rebuild Gaza, Hamas understands it must make concessions.

“We are not willing to come back to govern the Gaza Strip,” Naim says, though he doesn’t say for how long.

“What we are calling for is a Palestinian unity government, formed from technocrats who are not affiliated to any faction but supported from all factions … to run the situation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,” he says.

Palestinian rivals Hamas and Fatah, which has a bigger presence in the West Bank, struck a deal recently, with China as a broker, that calls for the creation of a unity government. It’s unclear when, or if, this will happen. The two factions fought one another for control of Gaza in 2007, leading to Hamas’ takeover of the territory and an Israeli-led blockade strictly controlling movement in and out of the enclave.

Both Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a Two-State solution based on the 1967 borders for decades. Oslo and Camp David were used by Israel to continue settlements in the West Bank and maintain an Apartheid, while preventing any actual Two-State solution

Oslo Accord Sources: MEE, NYT, Haaretz, AJ

How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution

‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

They probably didn't, but it's okay because they quickly googled a few terms and linked their Wikipedia articles to seem smart.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

What's left to govern?

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 months ago

That's not giving up.

[+] [email protected] -19 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Er... waitaminute I thought the claim all this time was that Hamas != Palestine, that Hamas was not in control of the territory but merely using the people of Palestine as a shield. Isn't the government of Palestine supposed to be distinct and separate from Hamas?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (2 children)

It's complicated. Hamas won a majority of seats in Palestine's parliament in 2006, but Fatah didn't like that. There was a bit of a civil war, and it ended up with Hamas controlling Gaza and Fatah controlling the West Bank. There haven't been any elections since. So no, Hamas doesn't represent all of Palestine, but they were democratically elected in 2006. They are in control of Gaza, but neither the West Bank, nor both territories as one Palestine. Really, there is no united Palestine right now. And I'm sure Israel is very happy to keep it that way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_election

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

And I’m sure Israel is very happy to keep it that way.

It also seems like the people in charge of the split groups are happy to keep it that way. I'm sure there's a substantial amount of foreign influence, but it looks like neither PNA or PLO have had elections since 2006. PNA under Hamas clearly has some religious/military motivations that they play out with authoritarian style, but it seems that the current leadership of the PLO has inherited Arafat's financial empire:

According to a 1993 report by the British National Criminal Intelligence Service, the PLO was "the richest of all terrorist organizations", with $8–$10 billion in assets and an annual income of $1.5–$2 billion from "donations, extortion, payoffs, illegal arms dealing, drug trafficking, money laundering, fraud, etc." Estimates of the Palestine Liberation Organization's alleged hidden assets vary wildly and only Arafat had the whole picture. A former PLO finance minister said it was $3 billion to $5 billion.

So why would they be interested in sharing/dividing control of that? Israel is probably fanning the flames of the internal divisions, but I bet the self-interest of the leaders of the various groups carries more weight.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

They were pretty fast from a majority in 2006. So they may have been democratically elected but it was not by most Palestinians.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Who has been making that claim? There was no authority except Hamas in Gaza prior to the ongoing fighting.

[+] [email protected] -8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Hmm... are you implying that the PLO doesn't exist/isn't functional, or just that the PLO has no authority within Gaza specifically?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The Palestine Authority governs the west bank. Hamas governs Gaza. A divide and conquer strategy pushed by Netanyahu for years to prevent Palestinian unification

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Hamas fought and killed the PLO in Gaza back in 2007.

Are you trying to say that Netanyahu was involved in that, or merely that he benefitted from it?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

He literally funded Hamas for the purposes of dividing Palestinians and creating a more convenient scapegoat for his ongoing genocide than the moderate left wing PLO.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

11 years after Hamas took over Gaza, and as part of a ceasefire deal brokered by Qatar.

It serves his purposes, but again, was done long after Hamas took over Gaza.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So that's where you want the goalposts to be now? The TIMING of the thing you so confidently claimed never happened?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 months ago

I'll spell it out for you explicitly. The PA cannot govern in Gaza because all their personnel there have been dead since 2007. There are more barriers to the PA taking back governance in Gaza, and that should be plain as day. Yet here we are, with you making immature accusations of moving goalposts.

He benefits from it, sure. But saying he's solely responsible is just false.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The cause for the split was that Fatah was viewed as corrupt. Since at least 2012, Israel has focused on strengthening the split to keep Palestinian leadership fractured while the settlements continue.

This really turned and came to a head in 2007, when Hamas, after winning democratic elections in 2006, rose to power, and the Israeli authorities, along with the U.S., attempted to initiate a regime change operation, which facilitated a civil war between Hamas and Fatah and allowed Hamas to take over the Gaza Strip. Since then, Israeli authorities have actively embraced the idea that Hamas would be accepted as a governing authority in the Gaza Strip. Now, part of the calculus in that is because of Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians. This is a demographic issue. Israel wanted to sever the Gaza Strip from the rest of historic Palestine in order to reinforce its claim that it’s a Jewish-majority state. By getting rid of 2 million Palestinians, two-thirds of whom are refugees demanding return, Israel can claim to be both a Jewish state and a democracy and restructure what is its apartheid regime.

“Divide and Rule”: How Israel Helped Start Hamas to Weaken Palestinian Hopes for Statehood

As far back as December 2012, Netanyahu told prominent Israeli journalist Dan Margalit that it was important to keep Hamas strong, as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Margalit, in an interview, said Netanyahu told him that having two strong rivals, including Hamas, would lessen pressure on him to negotiate toward a Palestinian state.

Israel’s goal was “to ensure that the next confrontation between Israel and Hamas will be the final showdown”, he wrote in the memo, dated December 21st, 2016. A pre-emptive strike, he said, could remove most of the “leadership of the military wing of Hamas”.

‘Buying quiet’: Inside the Israeli plan that propped up Hamas - Irish Times

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

I'm not sure I would call the PLO functional but it exists in the West Bank. It has no presence at all in Gaza.

[+] [email protected] -9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

When the conflict started in October there were a lot of critics of Israel saying that attacks against the people of Gaza were unethical because Hamas does not represent them, and they were not responsible for Hamas' actions.

Attacks against civilians are unethical in any case, but my point here is that the claim that Hamas does not represent Gaza is spurious.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

“Does not represent” as in “My government does not represent me when they abolish the right to abortion and ban library books”.

They’re in charge but not actually acting with the will of the people they’re in charge of in mind.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

I think there's a difference between ruling and representing. I would argue that a government is not representative if there is no free speech and no democracy even if that government has widespread popular support. However, I'm not sure why this question is relevant in the context of the ongoing conflict. There's no principle dictating that a war may only be fought against a representative government.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

The vast majority of Palestinians were too young to vote for Hamas the last time there was an election, if they were even born yet.

And yes, killing children to get to your enemy is unethical. I'm not sure why you would think otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The majority of Palestinians weren't even born when that last vote occurred.

There is no intellectual integrity in this question.

I honestly can't think of a non-bad faith reading of this comment.

Sorry, I should have said the majority of Palestinian's before the war weren't even born.

Given that starvation kills children first and the lancet medical journal estimated the dead at around 200,000 (or 10%) of the population, that may no longer be true.

EDIT: Does the CCP represent the will of the Chinese people? They have more of a say in their leaders than Gazans did. Or is this just a double standard that only applies to the enemies of the state of Israel?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don't understand why you're getting down voted because I remember seeing that too.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 months ago

Some people seem to have built their identity around the "Israel bad" opinion, and otherwise struggle with nuance.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They are not completely distinct at the moment but to say that Hamas represents Gazans would be incorrect. Hamas win about a third of the vote in 2006 but that was the most so they got control of the government but have not had an election since. Many in the Israeli government were happy with the result because it weakened the PLO and therefore calls for a two state solution. Hell, Israel funded Hamas' startup back in the 80s for exactly that purpose.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Would you bother continuing to claim to control territory that was just a bunch of bombed out rubble?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago

I think it's more that they have no issue with someone else, a unity government of Palestinians, to rule both Gaza and the West Bank. But they don't want to give up resistance to the Occupation