but the Palestinians are poor practitioners of democracy. Hamas has only known fighting and bloodshed. The transition to a political power where you have responsibility to pay teachers, fix potholes and generally improve life is a lot tougher than it looks.

I was thinking about this whole situation this morning and I've long felt that Israel must find a way to peacefully co-exist with a two-state solution, but I don't blame them for not wanting to trust Hamas.

I'm not sure what the solution is. The current situation is horrible for every day Palestianians and give Al-Qaeda all kinds of PR. A complete takeover by Isreal again will never work. An all-out war for the region would be horrible and, of course, Israel must be guaranteed complete safety.

Let’s add the plague to the House of Khamenei. They must be well pleased to see their surrogates causing so much mayhem in the Arab world.

Someone from the left, please, explain to me again about the benefits of Palestinian self-rule.

This one isn't so simply divided between Dems and Reps. Many, and probably most, Dems favor Israel in this. Self-rule of the Palestinians is at most a marginal issue and only important inasmuch as it aids Israeli security. And, there are many Reps (notably Bush and the neocons) who think of Palestinian self-rule as some magical talisman that will transform it into a liberal republic. ("freedom on the move!" Remember that? Good times.)

They did not get up and walk in a direction that we did not want them to. They broke out into a full sprint precisely in the direction they have been gunning for (literally) for almost two decades. Of course Israel and the US have made mistakes, so has the EU, every single Arab state, and most importantly, the Palestinians who have been shooting themselves in the foot for many decades.

Hamas is a gang of fundamentalist jihadists. They are terrorist thugs, like many within Fatah and the PLO before them, but the nifty new twist is that they are radical Islamic terrorist thugs who will do their best to impose Shariah in Gaza and will (with the aid of Iran, at least) continue in their quest to destroy Israel. The lot of the average female Palestinian, already a pretty sorry lot, has just become decidedly worse. Hamas was able to project power without appearing as corrupt, and to an impoverished and poorly educated population, that was enough to win the election. Winning an election does not give the majority party a right to stage a military coup. It really does make you wonder why Israel has taken an aggressive stance against them, doesn’t it?

r.johnson, yours are naïve rants.

Fatah is a lesser of two evils. I think there may be some hope if elements within Fatah can clean up the corruption, at least enough to provide minimally competent governance, and stick with Salam Fayyad. This is someone Israel is likely to negotiate with in then near future (if they are not already doing so “behind the scene”).

r.johnson,
Right, "impoverished and poorly educated" that is why middle and lower income conservatives consistently vote against their economic self-interest. While mulling over leftist delusions regarding US voting behavior can sometimes be amusing, it is of little value to the topic at hand.

I was not assuming my own conclusions, I was merely stating them. Your comments are naïve because you have, throughout your comments above, persisted in asserting that the US and Israel should have supported the nascent Hamas government by providing them with funds and that this would have averted the current mess. Funding Hamas would have presumably created a context in which talks could be held, and steps (of whatever size) could have been taken by all toward peace.

Hamas seeks the end of the occupation, and by occupation they mean the West Bank, Gaza, AND Israel. Hamas might be talked (or forced more or less) into a temporary ceasefire. For a real ceasefire to take place Hamas would have Israel withdraw to its 1967 borders (among other things). For Israel, the preconditions for negotiations of any kind were that Hamas renounce violence and recognize the right of Israel to exist (note that it would be hard to believe the former without the latter, noticeably absent from your comments is the importance of the latter. It is also why anti-Israel arguments tend to address the (easy) violence thing, "it is all just self defense" but not so much the existence thing). It is extremely unlikely that Israel will withdraw to its 1967 borders. Hamas will never recognize the right of Israel to exist. Finally, and importantly, Hamas is not seeking a cease-fire in the sense that it is commonly understood by Westerners. They mean hudna, of course, and I assume you know this but choose not to take them seriously, another reason I chose the term naïve.

Kate (r.johnson),
You may also find bitterlemons interesting. It is useful because it poses a single question and posts responses from multiple perspectives (Palestinian, Israeli, American, etc.).

You may have seen these before, but in case you have not check out these Israeli papers haaretz and jpost. The first is more Labor oriented and the second is more conservative.

Oh, good, I was worried I might not see a reference to pots and kettles again. I use impoverished and under educated in the one case because it is relevant; I mock it in the other because it is not. By the way, parallel to what? Bush won the election by winning the votes among the impoverished and poorly educated? I thought Democrats hold the larger share of allegiance within that subpopulation. If I am wrong let me know, I am probably missing your point.

I do not denigrate the Palestinian people by pointing out that they are impoverished and under educated. Not all Palestinians, but the majority (two-thirds or so) live in poverty, it is not denigration to point out that fact. The majority are under-educated--not denigration to point that out, and not surprising given the impoverishment. The two combined yield a population more susceptible to a group of fundamentalist jihadists like Hamas preaching a religious message of hope for the oppressed, especially when that group is doing much for the population's daily needs.

I am familiar with Shikaki's polling efforts. Not the most reliable of sources. Israel would do well not to put much faith in them.

"Hamas has implicitly recognized that Israel does exist," how nice. Hamas will not recognize the right of Israel to exist, which is of course the point. They are not so stupid as to run around saying there is no such thing as Israel. Israel is there and has been for many decades. What they believe is that Gaza, the West Bank and Israel belong to Islam, and that no one can change that (Jew, Arab, the UN, US or any other). They take a long view. They can live with the 1967 borders for a while (if they ever get that concession), because they believe they will one day reclaim the rest according to god's will. So it is different from the demand for recognition, because Hamas does not give one fig about the 1967 borders, except to the extent that they can use it as a means by which to achieve a ceasefire (hudna) and consolidate power in order to pursue their ultimate goal, which is to reclaim Israel for Islam.

Here is a Zahar representative, about one year ago:

"However, Zahar denied that he in any way recognized Israel's right to exist or a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his letter to Annan, according to a statement from Zahar's office. An official in Zahar's office said there was "not even a hint" of such a statement in the letter."

Here is Zahar, October last year.

"ZAHAR: We will never recognize Israel. The Zionists have occupied our land like the Nazis did with France during the Second World War. Israel is a foreign element in the Middle East. Why don't the Jews establish their state in Europe?"

Similar expressions by Hamas leaders are not that hard to find. This is not just about some dusty old charter that the current leadership has forgotten about, or simply has not had the time to edit. This is a deeply ingrained belief among many Palestinians (Hamas and others). Throwing some money at Hamas and Fatah and sitting down to chat about peace will not change this.