Hamas votes for extinction
■"Shadowy Hamas Leader Issues Threat to Israel and Warns Abbas Not to Seize Guns: A stern warning, "These arms must be used to free our occupied motherland," by Steven Erlanger, New York Times, 28 August 2005, p. A9.
Hamas says its violence is why Israel gives us the Gaza. This is the claim of the Fourth Generation Warfare types throughout history, and as with virtually all cases, it's fundamentally untrue here. Israel gives up because it has a conscience, democratically expressed.
Hamas could be running Palestine if its leadership wasn't too stupid to look this gift horse in the mouth, and so they repeat Arafat's mistake, and—by doing so—sign themselves up for extinction.
The wall is basically up, and once the settlers are gone, Israel will close that border for the long haul, lobbing over shells and missiles as required. Hamas will keep that dynamic going because it's all that group knows after so many years of fighting. Gaza will remain disconnected and poor, but Hamas will claim "victory" for years, drowning out the voices of the moderates. The wall will stay up for a couple of generations, waiting out these idiots and madmen.
Abbas has his work cut out for him. He better be prepared to wage some serious war if he hopes to achieve some serious peace and prosperity for the next generation. Frankly, the current generation of youth is mostly lost already.
There will be no sympathy for Palestine once Israel pulls out and is guilty of nothing more than retaliations. That wall will cauterize the wound. The world will wait out the crazies, and will turn a blind eye to Israel's killing the most nasty ones.
And if any leave the country, hoping to internationalize the conflict, we should shoot them on sight.