Reply #28: It is fairly long standing U.S./ Israeli policy to arm Fatah and try to separate Hamas from their

[Douglas Carpenter]

their people

link:

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804

http://www.economist.com/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=8109652

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/12/14/MNGIPMV3N61.DTL&type=politics


and this policy has failed misserably.

The vast majority of Israelis seem to recognize the necessity of talking with Hamas. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/27/world/main3882055.shtml

There have been numerous attempts going back decades to try and separate the Palestinians from their leaders -- in early times the Israeli leadership tried desparately to separate the PLO from the Palestinian people - As with all these attempts - the result always ends up the same - total failure.

As Uri Avnery put it in a recent article of his, "As always happens, when a liberation organization does not attain its objectives, another more extreme one springs up beside it or instead of it and wins the hearts of the people. Hamas-like organizations take over from Fatah-like ones. The colonial regime, which has not reached an agreement in time with the more moderate organization, is in the end compelled to come to terms with the more extreme one."

"What to do? To starve all of them? That has led to the collapse of the wall on the Gaza-Egypt border. Kill their leaders? We have already killed Sheik Ahmed Yassin and countless others. To execute the "Grand Operation" and re-occupy the entire Gaza strip? We have already conquered the Strip twice."

"SO WHAT can we do that we have not already done?"

do what all occupation regimes have done in the end in all the countries where the population has risen up: to reach a political settlement that both sides can live with and profit from. And get out.

After all, the end is not in doubt. The only question is how much more killing, how much more destruction, how much more suffering must be caused before the occupiers arrive at the inescapable conclusion."

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1202631015