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Comment by rehitman | Hacker News Reader

This statement is very uninformed. Isreal left Gaza very logn time ago. They had an election and Hamas came to power, and they never hold an election after. There is no land dispute between Isreal and Gaza (Unlike Westbank where there are serious disputes). The main problem is that Hamas and its supporter Iran consistentnly in word and in practice declared that want to wipe out and destroy Isreal. It is not about some land disupte. They want the whole Isreal gone. Now, the question is would it be wise to let this group of people with clear intention to completely destroy Israel have open borders? They make missles even without open borders.

If you want to be really honest here. The issue is that Hamas need to agree that Israel has the right to exist. Period. As far as they don't, I see this war very well justified similar to the War with Japanese Empire or Nazi Germany.

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> Isreal left Gaza very logn time ago.

Israel has not left Gaza.

> They had an election and Hamas came to power, and they never hold an election after.

Israel has obstructed agreements between the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza on all-Palestine elections on several occasions since then (the fact that some people who would be voters in such elections live in occupied territory outside of what Israel claims as Israel but which is currently administered by Israel, among other factors, gives Israel the power to do this.)

> There is no land dispute between Isreal and Gaza

Yes, there is. Or, rather, there is no dispute at all that the kill zone of officially 100m and in practice up to 1500m that has been enforced by Israel since it supposed "disengagement" on the Gaza side of the security fence is Gaza, and not Israel, and that Israel is exercising control of that swath of Gaza territory, against the wishes and interests (and lives) of the people living in Gaza.

> The issue is that Hamas need to agree that Israel has the right to exist. Period.

Out of Israel, Fatah (the governing party of the PA centered in the West Bank), and Hamas, the only one that hasn't accepted the 1967 borders of Israel, with presently-occupied territories (plus Gaza, for those who accept Israel's claim that it is not presently occupied) outside of those borders as a Palestinian State is Israel.

Israeli rhetoric about other people needing to accept their right to exist is exactly backwards.

Israel left Gaza, and uprooted its own citizens, in an attempt to follow the 1990s model of gradually letting Palestinians have self determination and seeing if it lead to a corresponding reduction in attacks and planning of Israeli destruction. It proved a disastrous attempt, as Hamas (and Fatah who at that time still committed numerous terrorist attacks too) and lead many Israelis to double down on the belief that Palestinians would never give up on genocide against Israel.

The 100m "kill zone" has been proved necessary beyond doubt now. But if your claim is that total military and settler withdrawal besides 100m near the border for security means that Gaza was still occupied and its people justified in using terrorism, then it just shows the extremes that pro Palestinians will go to justify atrocities and explains why Israelis are tired of giving their implacable enemies the benefit of the doubt.

> Israel left Gaza, and uprooted its own citizens,

Those were settlers, attempting to lay claim to land in Gaza

Sorry, but this adds nothing to the discussion. Yes, they were settlers (I don't think anyone in this sub-thread argued otherwise). Yes, they shouldn't have been there in the first place. And yet the Israeli government uprooted them at great pain for all involved (after encouraging them to settle there in the first place). Some interpret this as some grand political manuever intended to divide the Palestinians and make a diplomatic solution impossible. This is an odd assertion in my opinion since how could anyone have foreseen that Hamas would be voted into power and spiral us into more than a decade of war? I for one believe it was a gesture of good will (probably brought about by external pressure considering it was Ariel Sharon who led it, originally a strong pro-settlments politician), and an experiment to see what would happen if Israel returned land without an official agreement as all attempts at negotiations have failed at that point in time. The fact that this did not work has a lot to do with the choices made collectively by Palestinians at least as much as those made by Israelis. To say otherwise ignores their agency and freewill in these events.

> There is no land dispute between Isreal and Gaza

Of course there's a land dispute! Something like 70% of Gazans are direct descendants of refugees, or refugees themselves, of the original 1948 Nakba, which was literally when the Palestinians were violently forced out of their homes and driven into perpetual refugee status. Now those that live in Gaza, even before October 7, live under a perpetual blockade which quite literally restricts the calories entering the region, along with every other necessary resource (gas, steel, etc).

How could one, knowing that context, characterize it as "not a land dispute"? Really what you mean is that there are no Israeli settlements in Gaza right now. Which is true but besides the point, and also ignores that there quite literally were settlements, but Israel forced the zionist* settlers out when they withdrew their physical occupation of Gaza all those years ago (replacing the physical occupation with the blockades, border restrictions, policies of shooting anyone approaching the border wall with sniper rifles, etc)

* I know this term is loaded with a lot of baggage, in part because many seem to think it's a dogwhistle for "the jews", but it's the most accurate descriptor for the philosophy motivating these settlers. Settling the west bank is wrong, but settling gaza is next-level crazy. You have to be extremely ideologically possessed to want to establish an Israeli settlement there because it sure as hell isn't a nice place to live.

> Hamas need to agree that Israel has the right to exist.

Agreed

And maybe Israel needs to agree that Palestine has the right to exist

The Hamas charter literally says that Israel will exist:

>It advocated for a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders, describing this as a "formula of national consensus".

1967 borders means two state.

The full quote

'Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.'

You are aware in Islam there’s a concept of God dealing with the oppressors, right?

What you're apparently referring to is slight change in Hamas charter in 1997.

In fact, what they actually said was "Hamas advocates the liberation of all of Palestine but is ready to support the state on 1967 borders without recognising Israel or ceding any rights"

i.e. they would support the creation a Palestinian state within 1967 borders in the interim but not give up their fight for the rest of Israel.

This "softening" (as one left-wing newspaper called it apparently unironically) was in contrast with their previous stance which would reject a Palestinian state offer if it was based 1967 borders.

They have never gone back on their stated aim to reconquer all of Israel and never indicated they will tolerate Israel existing.

Israel is a democracy made up of various parties with a whole spectrum of opinions. Some are for a two state solution (center-left), some for a one state solution in the form of "greater israel" (hard right, fringe elements if you ask me), and others that honestly just don't give it much thought. Hamas, on the other hand, is quite ideological about its stance with regards to the destruction of Israel.

> Hamas, on the other hand, is quite ideological about its stance with regards to the destruction of Israel.

> Israel is a democracy made up of various parties with a whole spectrum of opinions.

That may be so but the Israeli state as a whole has been quite consistent over the last few decades in its systematic destruction of any political or geographical possible basis of a Palestinian state, be it in the West Bank or Gaza.

Before Netanyahu there were at least four prime ministers - Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin - who've made honest attempts at peace. Not to mention Ariel Sharon who has, despite being a hard right-winger, lead the disengagement from Gaza (at a tremendous political cost). You seem to be placing the responsibility for these failures entirely on one side.

> Ariel Sharon who has, despite being a hard right-winger, lead the disengagement from Gaza

This was not an attempt to further the peace process. It was motivated by the expense and difficulty of a military occupation of a densely populated urban area.

> You seem to be placing the responsibility for these failures entirely on one side.

Please, no need for that. I'm aware of Hamas' efforts to counter any moves towards peace. And of the effects of the suicide bombing campaign.

Similarly any talk of peace from the Israeli government is meaningless while settlement of the West Bank continues.

> Similarly any talk of peace from the Israeli government is meaningless while settlement of the West Bank continues.

The same can be said of the terror attacks. I strongly agree that the settlements are an obstacle to peace and apologize if my comment came off as aggressive. But you have to realize that this is a deadlock. No Israeli leader can stop the settlements as long as there are terror attacks, and no Palestinian leader can stop the terror attacks as long as there are settlements. That is our tragedy I suppose.

Not true. There have been serious peace attempts and real changes in every decade since 1967.

True.

However as far as I can tell the settlements in the West Bank have grown through every government since the occupation - something which fundamentally undermines any moves towards a resolution.

Any attempt at peace has poor prospects if a significant part of civil society and army is dead set on colonisation.

Any yes, I'm aware of the complexities of Israeli politics and society.

Israel may have left but they have had a blockade since then, not just on their border but sea and air as well. UN considers it to be occupied territory, Israel controls food and water. Human rights organisations calls it an open air prison. Doesn't sound like a situation that would be fruitful for peace?

Hamas was elected as Bush pushed for elections too early as he wanted to solve the situation before his term ended, PA was unpopular due to corruption. When Hamas won the US pushed PA to do a coup which failed, this caused Hamas to take over Gaza completely and push out PA and stopping future elections.

Hamas is certainly the main problem now, but the situation was caused by typical US fuckery, Netanyahu supporting Hamas didn't help either. Others big problems are the apartheid state of Israel and their systematic stealing of land in the West Bank. If what they have in the West Bank is the kind peace that Israel wants then I can see why people are resisting them.

Israel supplies only a small percentage of Gaza water.

Israel left in 2005, the "blockade" (which ignores the third border with Egypt) started in 2007 after Hamas seized control and Israel found itself with an enemy worse than Fatah despite it's largest since the Sinai withdrawal to exchange land for peace.

Natanyahu "supporting" Hamas was a policy of containment (coupled with recent pre-Oct-7 increase in work permits to Israel amogst other overtures) and which led to the October 7th. Israelis think a ceasefire would result in resumption of containment and eventually another October 7th so no go.

Gaza requires fuel to pump water, who controls access to fuel?

While Egypt physically controls the border Israel decides what and who can move through it.

Nethanyahu supports Hamas (see money transports most recently, but they've done it for decades) to divide and conquer Palestine between Hamas and PA. And a good Boogeyman is always good for staying in power, though he is likely finished.

How does one keep an underground tunnel network abutting a large body of water dry?

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