As far as i can tell you are advocating to punish the residents of pallestine because some time ago, when most of the current residents were either children or unborn, someone else did a bad thing.
How am I saying anything of the sort? Regardless of when the people were born, it is a fact that they do not have a functioning government. It is a fact that Hamas derailed the effort to establish that government, and that Hamas has repeatedly interfered with those efforts over the past 15 years and continues to do so now. I am not "advocating" anything, I am simply stating the reality of the Palestinian situation today and why they are in that situation.
You seem to think Hamas is some long-past group. Hamas controls Gaza today; they are the ones launching rockets at Israel right now. Hamas remains the most significant obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians right now. As the rulers of Gaza, Hamas has been a brutally repressive regime, roughly on the level of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Hamas deliberately spreads their military assets across densely populated civilian areas in order to maximize civilian casualties during war. The Hamas charter says that the role of women in society is to produce more men. They have cracked down on hip-hop, baggy pants, hair salons, and even indigenous Palestinian folk tales.
I personally think the Palestinians deserve better than Hamas. Why do you keep dismissing the overwhelmingly negative impact this group has had on the Palestinian people? Why do you keep looking for a way to deny the role Hamas has played and continues to play in preventing the formation of an effective civil government and a functioning Palestinian state?
I think Hamas is a horrible organization. But if we could eliminate the entirety of the hamas leadership today, in a single moment, another similar organization would spring up because israel is creating the conditions that encourage such an organization to exist.
Israel holds all the cards here, not the palestinians. Not hamas. Israel is the party that must step up and provide a real solution. Israel's solution over the past decade has been to contain the palestinians, lock their borders, and knock over their buildings whenever they get too uppity. This policy will never result in a reduction of terrorists. It will never result in removing the conditions that allow hamas to exist.
Imagine if you are a 20 year old gazan (older than the average gazan) and all you know, your entire life, is israeli control of the strip. The death tolls aren't high enough that everyone has a dead family member, but i wouldn't be surprised if everyone knows someone the IDF killed. This is how america created terrorists in the middle east. This is how Israel is creating terrorists in their own backyard. Foreign politicians enforcing their will, through force, upon a people that don't want it.
Hamas isn't long past, the fact is Hamas is not particularly important. Hamas is a symptom, not the problem. If Israel had the will to fix their structural problems, Hamas would have no reason to exist.
Hamas is throwing unguided missles randomly and Israel is hitting them back by leveling buildings. Hamas is no more than a small child throwing a tantrum with no possibility to actually cause a change. All they can do is scream louder and hope someone else will do something. Again, Hamas is not the problem, they are a symptom of Israel's policy regarding palestinians.
Where are you getting this from? A 20 year old Gazan would be old enough to remember the day Israel withdrew from Gaza, both its military presence and settlers. A 20 year old Gazan would also remember that that shortly thereafter, when Palestinian businessmen were talking about converting former settlements into resorts and all the money they would make from tourism, Hamas took over. A 20 year old Gazan would remember life before the blockade.
Take a minute to think about that. Israel left Gaza completely, and then Hamas took over. Are you saying that turning over Gaza to Palestinians is the sort of restrictive measure that gives rise to terrorist groups?
You are absolutely wrong about Israel holding all the cards. The blockade of Gaza is a joint effort between Israel and Egypt. The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank refuses to pay for electricity in Gaza. Hamas has diverted aid shipments to its own military infrastructure, preventing Gazans from repairing their buildings, and Hamas has previously insisted that shipments of fuel enter through the border crossing with Egypt because they do not want to accept any help from "Zionists." So how does Israel hold "all the cards?" In reality the cards are held by Israel, Egypt, the PA, and Hamas itself.
Meanwhile, over in the West Bank, Palestinians have plenty of legitimate complaints yet the PA manages to engage in joint security, law enforcement, and economic efforts with Israel. Sure, things could be better for the Palestinians in the West Bank, but that is exactly the goal of the peace process and all those joint efforts.
You seem to be confused about cause and effect. The situation in Gaza today is not the reason Hamas took power; Hamas is the reason for the conditions in Gaza. Hamas started a civil war among Palestinians, and as a result the PA refuses to pay the bills for Gaza, leaving them with sporadic and unreliable electricity. Hamas kept smuggling rockets into Gaza, then firing those rockets at Israeli cities, resulting in the Israeli blockade. Hamas kept smuggling rockets into Gaza through Egypt, arming Egyptian rebels, and using Sinai as a staging area to fire rockets at Israel, resulting in Egypt joining the blockade. Hamas spread its military assets across densely populated civilian areas, resulting in far higher civilian casualties and widespread damage to civilian buildings when the IDF responds to the rocket fire. Hamas diverted aid shipments of construction supplies to its tunnel network, preventing Gazans from rebuilding their damaged buildings during the ceasefire. What kind of mental gymnastics do you have to perform to conclude that Hamas is merely a symptom of some other problem?
