Comment by its_ethan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by its_ethan | Hacker News Reader

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The Palestinian authorities were in the midst of an election, and the coordination with them that took place was in the form of US/Israel interference of the election to try and prevent Hamas from winning. Hamas won anyway. Fatah resisted in Gaza, and Hamas ended up taking over by force anyway.

So what should Israel have done to not hand control over to Hamas on a "silver platter"? They + the US tried to keep Fatah in power, that was everyone's preferred outcome where some stability could've emerged. That failed due to real Palestinian support of Hamas, as well as Hamas' military force.

Israel's options were basically to intervene militarily, overriding the results of the election; or "accept" the results and deal with/ reduce Hamas' military ambitions (which is what they've tried to do ever since). Both options put Israel in a losing situation. Override the will of Palestinian elections and you're denying them their sovereignty, interfere with the obvious military threat, and you're doing apartheid. Lose lose.

> Override the will of Palestinian elections and you're denying them their sovereignty, interfere with the obvious military threat, and you're doing apartheid.

So it is decided that it will do both. Maybe, just maybe, reconcile? No. Acknowledge the right to return and pay reparations? No. We will run apartheid and blockade sea, air and land. And the Egypt border will be controlled by way of a trilateral treaty. Increase illegal and immoral settlements in West Bank? Yes. Shield and promote settler terrorism? Yes.

Brother, how and why are you trolling around this thread 3 days after the link was posted?

In lieu of just matching snark with snark, I'll just suggest you take 5 minutes of self reflection to ask yourself if you're maybe being over-reductive of the situation, if you're really considering what reconciliation (+ it's risks) means to people who live in Israel/Palestine, and what a practical solution might actually look like.

I'll do the same. Have a nice day.

Hey there! I'm really sorry if that came as snarky, but didn't mean that way. But you have to see that most of the comments are just plain disinformation and just could not let them hang in a no-way-out situation. I hope there would be a way out, without harming the people born into it. But I believe that has to come without this overpowering and dehumanising by those who definitely have the upper hand. This place does have all it takes to be a unifying idea for the vast majority of the world, and I sincerely hope peace prevails. You have a nice day too!

So what should Israel have done to not hand control over to Hamas on a "silver platter"?

In terms of preventing the Hamas-Fatah war and the initial takeover of the Strip -- there probably wasn't very much it could have done.

But after that juncture -- perhaps if the Prime Minister did not have an explicit policy of keeping them in power for 14 years (in order to "smash the vision Palestinian state into two pieces" as he would boast of his genius plan), backed by allowing $1.8 billion in transfers of Qatari cash from 2012 to 2018 -- that might have helped turn the tide.

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