I think the implication is that Gaza does have semi-autonomy (it is a complicated situation - there's a blockade, but it has security autonomy within its region. Or did before October 7th).

And Gaza was pushed towards democratic elections, which they held, elected Hamas, and Hamas hasn't permitted a democracy since then.

Let's not forget that Likud and Netanyahu were instrumental in funding and arming Hamas. The PLO and Arafat were becoming increasing moderate and willing to sit down and work out a peaceful two state solution. But the ultra right wing of Israel didn't want that, and didn't want awkward questions like "If they're willing to negotiate and work through diplomacy, why isn't Israel?" so they thought it'd be better to fund the rise of the extremist Hamas.

"From the River to the Sea" (Jordan River to the Red Sea) was not just a comment by Palestinian extremists, but was Likud's actual election campaign and slogan throughout the 1970s.

And it's hard, as a Gazan, to argue with Hamas, considering Hamas are about the only ones armed, thanks to Israel's ongoing air blockade (Arafat International Airport bombed in early 2000s), and the Israeli navy blockading Port of Gaza since 2007.

> The PLO and Arafat were becoming increasing moderate and willing to sit down and work out a peaceful two state solution.

You said this in another comment. While I agree that Netanyahu has done a lot of harm over the last 15 years, specifically by on-purpose shooting down chances for peace, I think you are giving the PA and Arafat too much credit. They were offered multiple deals that they turned down, walking away from negotiations without offering alternatives.

It's totally possible that with leadership towards peace on the Israeli side, that might've changed and we would've eventually seen a true peace deal signed. And for sure Netanyahu put effort into quashing that, one of his many sins. But we don't need to pretend that the PA was better than it was. It's not at all clear that, absent Netanyahu, a deal coudl've been agreed on.

You do make a good point with this. Certainly the PLO and Arafat were responsible for many heinous acts, and I didn't mean to downplay that or unduly make them out as harbingers of peace who were just being derailed by Israel.

I don't pretend to understand their motivations for moderation - maybe it was the feeling that their "way" was never going to out stubborn Israel, maybe Arafat grew tired in his old age of the conflict. There were many failed attempts, some briefly successful, others not at all, much like the Troubles. And Arafat and the PLO should shoulder a large chunk of that responsibility.

But like you say, it's entirely possible that an accord could have been reached, and also entirely possible that it would have tripped over 1,000 other hurdles and not happened.

I just feel way too much is going into overlooking not just the early tolerance of Hamas because it was politically expedient to the Israeli right wing, but the active enablement and fostering.

> I just feel way too much is going into overlooking not just the early tolerance of Hamas because it was politically expedient to the Israeli right wing, but the active enablement and fostering.

I mean, that's true, and I think Israel has done immoral things for at least 15 years, mostly by not strongly pursuing peace, with or without a partner.

Still, I think you might be over-indexing on the idea of "Israel propped up Hamas". What would the alternative have looked like exactly? Israel fighting more wars against Hamas? Israel not letting Qatar money in (which is one of the big claims against Netanyahu)? I'm sure that had that happened, the world would've condemned this as "depriving Gazans of aid they desperately need".

After Hamas was elected in 2006, in elections deemed democratic and fair by international observers (Jimmy Carter's organisation, The Carter Center) the US government at the time armed and trained a Fatah faction to stage a coup, that backfired, leaving Hamas in control of Gaza.

Ever since that, there has been constant interference with Hamas' government, including multiple military campaigns by Israel - in "Operations" Cast Lead, Pillar of Defense, Swords of Iron and I forget which others, Wikipedia has a timeline [1].

Basically, ever since the election, Gaza has been under attack every few months or years. Hamas probably weren't in a great hurry to have elections, although it should be noted that their ideology is to take power democratically and not through power of arms [2]. In any case, they're in a constant state of war and it's hard to hold democratic elections under the circumstances. Netanyahu has used the same excuse, repeatedly, to avoid being kicked out of government in the current crisis.

Btw, all that about the interference with the democratic process in Gaza after Hamas' election is on wikipedia [3] (meaning it's easy to get a first idea of what happened; then you can check their sources).

_________________

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza%E2%80%93Israel_conflict#2...

[2] I don't have a reference for that handy. Ask and ye shall be given but I'll have to dig a bit.

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e...

> Ever since that, there has been constant interference with Hamas' government, including multiple military campaigns by Israel - in "Operations" Cast Lead, Pillar of Defense, Swords of Iron and I forget which others, Wikipedia has a timeline [1].

Just to state the obvious context you didn't include, these operations were usually the direct result of rocket attacks on Israel. Every time an operation ended in ceasefire, a few years later, Hamas would start up rocket attacks again, and Israel would retaliate.

That was not the case "every time" and I'm not sure it was the case "usually", or in the largest operations. For example, according to Wikipedia, Operation Cast Lead (2008, ~1400 Palestinians dead) started with an Israeli strike:

A six month long ceasefire between Israel and Hamas ended on 4 November, when the IDF made a raid into Deir al-Balah, central Gaza to destroy a tunnel, killing several Hamas militants. Israel said the raid was a preemptive strike and Hamas intended to abduct further Israeli soldiers,[37][38] while Hamas characterized it as a ceasefire violation,[37][39] and responded with rocket fire into Israel.[40][41]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_War_(2008%E2%80%932009)

Operation Hot Winter (2010) started with the assassination of a Hamas commander and an incursion into Gaza by IDF:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_2010_Israel%E2%80%93Gaza...

Operation Breaking Dawn (2022) started with pre-emptive assassinations of Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders:

The initial attack included the targeted killing of Tayseer al-Jabari, a military leader of the group.[21][22][23] On the second day, the PIJ commander of the Southern area of the Strip, Khaled Mansour, was also targeted and killed. Islamic Jihad stated that the Israeli bombardments were a 'declaration of war' and responded with retaliatory rocket fire towards Israel.[24]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Gaza%E2%80%93Israel_clash...

Other "operations" and bouts of violence started without any side clearly breaking a ceasefire, but instead with violence that kept escalating during a period of calm.

The 2021 violence (not a named "operation") e.g. started with violence against, and suppression of the religious rights, of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, and subsequent riots:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Israel%E2%80%93Palestine_...

The crisis was triggered[34] on 6 May, when Palestinians in East Jerusalem began protesting over an anticipated decision of the Supreme Court of Israel on the eviction of six Palestinian families in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.[35] Under international law, the area, effectively annexed by Israel in 1980, is a part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank;[36][37] On 7 May, according to Israel's Channel 12, Palestinians threw stones at Israeli police forces,[38] who then stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound[39] using tear gas, rubber bullets, and stun grenades.[40][39][41] The crisis prompted protests around the world as well as official reactions from world leaders.

But you're right, let's not omit any context. In particular, let's not forget that the Palestinians made several attempts to make progress in the relations with Israel that did not include any rockets whatsoever, after Hamas' election, for example The Great March of Return (2018):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%932019_Gaza_border_...

At least 189 Palestinians were killed between 30 March and 31 December 2018.[28]: 6 [29][30] An independent United Nations commission set the number of known militants killed at 29 out of the 189.[5] Other sources claim a higher figure, of at least 40.[31][20][32] Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and live ammunition.[33] According to Robert Mardini, head of Middle East for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), more than 13,000 Palestinians were wounded as of 19 June 2018. The majority were wounded severely, with some 1,400 struck by three to five bullets.[34]

All of which were crushed with overwhelming force by Israel. And of course, let's not forget what happened when Hamas seemed willing to agree to a long-lasting ceasefire (before the elections): its leaders were assassinated.

According to Tristan Dunning, Israel has never responded to repeated offers by Hamas over subsequent years for a quid pro quo moratorium on attacks against civilians.[176] It has engaged in several tadi'a (periods of calm), and proposed a number of ceasefires.[176] In January 2004, Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin, prior to his assassination, said that the group would end armed resistance against Israel for a 10-year hudna[k] in exchange for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, and that restoring Palestinians' "historical rights" (relating to the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight) "would be left for future generations". His views were quickly echoed by senior Hamas official Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, who added that Hamas envisaged a "phased liberation".[178] Israel's response was to assassinate Yassin in March in a targeted Israeli air strike, and then al-Rantisi in a similar air strike in April.[179]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Second_Intifada

Let's include all the relevant information, indeed.

"Democratic" is pushing it a tad too far—none of the Islamic world follows a rule of law that would be something akin to a democracy; they're monarchies, theocracies, or in many cases autocracies. The only actual democracy in the middle east is—well, Israel.

> The only actual democracy in the middle east is—well, Israel.

An apartheid is no democracy. Calling an apartheid regime 'democracy' debases the concept of democracy, and gives it bad reputation.

So you believe that Muslims and/or Arabs are incapable of democracy?

Also, Israel is absolutely not a democracy. Gazans were/are ultimately subject to Israeli law and could not vote in Israel's elections.

Incapable is a strong word—but much (if not most) of the Muslim world advocates for Sharia law which is essentially the opposite of a democracy. When it's practiced in it's truest form it's the most repressive system of laws against women in the modern world.

As the world becomes more modern and democratic principles become more highly prized, I think we see some glimmers of hope in the muslim world as parts of the population begin to value more democratic principles. But they have to do this in the context of the theocratic states in which they live in where these values were never first class citizens—so I think that's why we haven't seen much progress on these fronts in that part of the world.

I agree with you that there's a double standard in regards to the application of the law—I'm not privy on why Palestinians are subject to Israel's laws, and I wouldn't charitably say it's for reasons that are morally sound. I do think that allowing Palestinian's to vote in Israel's parliamentary elections is a non-starter for obvious reasons.

These racist Islamophobic talking points are so grimy to read.

The "modern and democratic" world leaders are currently trying - and failing - to whitewash an undeniable, livestreamed, openly boasted genocide and land-grab.

This is enabled by a variety of full-on unapologetic apocalyptic death-cult religious extremists and a complicit media who happily run fossil fuel greenwashing campaigns and silence anti-war voices.

Compare Muslims killed by Jews and Christians over the last few decades to the reverse. It's hard to argue for any moral high ground whatsoever when you look at the raw numbers.

If the best argument you have is that the West treats women better, maybe look at how many women we've murdered in the middle east, or the 26,000 rape-related pregnancies in Texas, or the Ethopian Jews sterilized without being informed in Israel, etc, etc, etc.

Those vastly wealthy ME leaders repressing women the hardest? They got all that money selling oil to us.

It's a lot of work unpeeling the layers and layers of Western hypocrisy and bullshit, but it has to be done. It has to. We can't keep killing millions of brown people for their natural resources and expect to have a nice society/planet to live on.

Iran had a democracy, until the CIA toppled it in 1953. In general having oil means foreign powers will keep installing useful puppets as leaders. The middle east having few democracies may have more to do with Western greed than with the preferences of Arabs or Muslims.

I think everyone even the israelis would love to not be responsible for the palestinians in any way but unfortunately whatever autonomy they have is used to build infrastructure to attack israel. So what is israel supposed to do?

Stop occupying and brutalizing them, and agree to two states along the 1967 borders, as called for by both international law and every other country in the world.

They did, in Gaza, in 2005. Only to wake up to a Hamas takeover and rocket shooting on Israel civilians (war crime), which brought the Gaza siege.

Or maybe the world can give some new suggestion that was not disproven by history?

Please check your facts. Nobody woke up to a Hamas takeover. Quite the opposite: there was a takeover attempt by a Fatah faction (a coup) armed by the US. The coup backfired, there was a civil war, Hamas won and it came to control Gaza.

You can find this on wikipedia, so it's not like it's some conspiracy theory brewing in the dark corners of the internets. Even Vanity Fair has written about it:

In April 2008 Vanity Fair published "The Gaza Bombshell":

There is no one more hated among Hamas members than Muhammad Dahlan, long Fatah's resident strongman in Gaza. Dahlan, who most recently served as Abbas's national-security adviser, has spent more than a decade battling Hamas. ... Bush has met Dahlan on at least three occasions. After talks at the White House in July 2003, Bush publicly praised Dahlan as "a good, solid leader." In private, say multiple Israeli and American officials, the U.S. president described him as "our guy."

Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America's behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. (The State Department declined to comment.)

Some sources call the scheme "Iran-contra 2.0," recalling that Abrams was convicted (and later pardoned) for withholding information from Congress during the original Iran-contra scandal under President Reagan. There are echoes of other past misadventures as well: the C.I.A.'s 1953 ouster of an elected prime minister in Iran, which set the stage for the 1979 Islamic revolution there; the aborted 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, which gave Fidel Castro an excuse to solidify his hold on Cuba; and the contemporary tragedy in Iraq.[66]

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

In 2005? Nope. So the point still stand. And in later 2020+, Armed? Nope. only allowing Qatar money to pass was choosing between 2 evils which doesn't mean you support them. I mean, what is the option you try to refer to which would not lead to this point with a Dictatorship Terroristic Religious government of Gaza, which only backed by Iran?

Isnt this pretty much what they were offered in 2000 but rejected? And if we're just talking about Gaza, Hamas wouldn't accept this. They'd just use the autonomy to make more rockets and rape tunnels. Do you have any answers that aren't just magical thinking?

> So what is israel supposed to do?

Not be an genocidal apartheid state? It's actually quite simple.

Kind of hard to do when you elevate any conflict to a genocide, while literally ignoring the wrong doing that caused this war. Especially when the INT. community don't agree with you (other then just increase aid, which is totally fair).

I mean, can explain why some hostage are kept STILL as "domestic slaves" [1] by Hamas? Any buzzword on this one for the Gaza State?

[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13234071/Israeli-fa...

Pure hasbara to call this a war.

The fact that you try to dismiss the genocide means you're not acting in good faith. Stop with the disingenuous questions and own zionism.