Whether or not gaza is independent is complicated, since they have some features of independence but not others and don't quite squarely fit in either camp. Nonetheless if your suggestion is that israel should have called in whatever their equivalent of a police swat team is - that's impossible because hamas controlled all domestic government functions in gaza. You can't use domestic police techniques on land where you only control the border but not the land itself.
Like, if Israel doesn't want the Gaza strip/west bank, then why hasn't there been a two state solution?
> The UK was always Northern Ireland's government and controlled all state functions.
This is 100% not true, Ulster (the majority of which is in Northern Ireland) was historically the part of Ireland that resisted British/English invasions the most, such that the British brought in lots of scottish settlers to try and make the area more favourable to them.
Honestly though, Northern Ireland is more similar to the West Bank, rather than Gaza due to the settlers.
Like, fundamentally, oppressing the nationalist aspirations of the Palestinian people is never, never going to work, and October 7th will happen again and again until the Israeli people realise this, and make attempts towards peace (which the Palestinians should also do, but right now the Israeli's have a lot more power in the situation).
Because Hamas wants Israel destroyed, and a state actor doing that is a much bigger problem for Israel than a non-state actor.
Hamas is fundamentally a response to the co-option of the PA by (perceived) western/israeli governments. It's rather like the provisional IRA versus the constitutional nationalists in Ireland.
If people see that only violence has any impact, there will be more violence. The events post October 7th (i.e. what's happened in Gaza) have basically created the next Hamas, even in the vanishingly unlikely case that the IDF can wipe them out now.
Israel has had a long-standing policy of propping up Hamas in order to divide Palestinians and thwart the creation of a Palestinian state. Here's an actual quote from Netanyahu on this from 2019 :
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas … This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/20/benjam...
My understanding is support for a 2 state solution is relatively low on both sides. Especially now that things have deteriorated, but even before oct 7 it seemed unlikely.
Even if Israel doesn't want Gaza, they still have an interest in not getting shot at. I don't think they believe that they would be safe from attacks if they left Gaza alone, and based on both history as well as current rhetoric from Palestinian leaders, it doesn't seem like an irrational fear.
> Like, fundamentally, oppressing the nationalist aspirations of the Palestinian people is never, never going to work, and October 7th will happen again and again until the Israeli people realise this, and make attempts towards peace (which the Palestinians should also do, but right now the Israeli's have a lot more power in the situation).
I think a fundamental problem here is historically, israeli overtures towards peace (imperfect as they may have been) have often been met with an increase in violence. Its hard to sell peace to someone when they don't have a lot of reason to believe it will actually result in peace and not increased violence.
I find that pretty hard to believe (particularly from the Palestinian side). I agree that Israel's government doesn't want this (Netanyahu has been against since forever), but the options are occupation and the consequent destruction of Israel as a liberal democratic state, or a two state solution. Fundamentally, nothing else will work.
> Even if Israel doesn't want Gaza, they still have an interest in not getting shot at. I don't think they believe that they would be safe from attacks if they left Gaza alone, and based on both history as well as current rhetoric from Palestinian leaders, it doesn't seem like an irrational fear.
I completely understand the fears that many Israelis have, but fundamentally if they stopped settling the west bank and moved towards actually working towards a two state solution, there would be a lot less violence.
> I think a fundamental problem here is historically, israeli overtures towards peace (imperfect as they may have been) have often been met with an increase in violence. Its hard to sell peace to someone when they don't have a lot of reason to believe it will actually result in peace and not increased violence.
Can you give me some examples here? I'm open to being convinced, but I haven't noted much of this over the twenty years I've been following this conflict.
> I completely understand the fears that many Israelis have, but fundamentally if they stopped settling the west bank and moved towards actually working towards a two state solution, there would be a lot less violence.
To be clear, i 100% agree with this, for moral reasons if nothing else. However i imagine its not lost on israelis that the violence seems to be coming from Gaza not the west bank.
> Can you give me some examples here? I'm open to being convinced, but I haven't noted much of this over the twenty years I've been following this conflict.
I was referring to the second intifada, as well as the rise of hamas and their general kill israel rhetoric. Which both came after Oslo (or arguably its semi-failure) To be clear, i am aware that both of these have complex causes, and perhaps my simplification is unfair, but i also don't think that matters to the optics of the situation.
Israel has never lived up to their side of the agreement. How do you expect anyone to trust them at this point. So yes, confidence is low and will continue to be low as long as Israel is not beholden to international law and continues to be protected by the USA.
There are many murmurs that Netanyahu orchestrated the death of the accords starting with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Yitzhak_Rabin
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/assassination-...
- https://iacenter.org/2023/11/15/behind-israels-end-game-for-...
- https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/israel-gives-nod-gaz...
- https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/6/21/palestines-forg...
Follow the money
This war in Palestine is much closer to a civil war than to any country-to-country combat, especially since Palestine is simply not an independent country. Since Israel is in control of the Gaza strip for 50+ years (explicit military control till the 2005, still in full control of their borders today), it is on them to treat this as authorities in any country are expected to treat insurgencies on territory they control, not as if they were attacked by a foreign country.