*Most of this blog was written several months ago*
Perhaps it's a little bit late, but a number of people have asked my thoughts on the Gaza situation, and I'm finally ready to share. In case you don't know me, I've lived in Israel for six years and am a reserve soldier in the Israeli army (though I wasn't called up this time). I'm not unbiased (who is?). I also definitely do not have any inside information. Like many Israelis I've followed the news closely, but that's it. Before I share my own thoughts here's a bit of background on the conflict.
In 2005 Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza strip, which we had controlled since 1967, uprooting thousands of Jews who had moved there. In 2007 there was an election in the Gaza Strip. The ruling Fatah party (currently led by Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinians living in the West bank) was defeated by Hamas in what, as far as I know, was a fair and free election. At the time, Israel was against allowing Hamas, who is still designated a terrorist organization by most of the international community, to participate in the elections. The rest of the world, the US included, disagreed and allowed them to participate. I, as an American, couldn't imagine not allowing free elections. I remember thinking to myself that if Hamas won either they would moderate their position, or, if they didn't, it would mean that Gaza's elected government was attacking us, giving us all the legitimacy in the world to shoot back. No need to say that I now feel like an idiot.
My impression is that Hamas was voted in primarily due to the corruption and inept governance of Fatah, but, regardless, their charter clearly states their desire to kill all Jews (let alone their complete denial of Israel's right to exist under any circumstances). Shortly after winning the election they violently expelled or killed all remaining Fatah officials. As a result, Israel and Egypt, citing the fact that Fatah was no longer there to provide security, enacted a blockade. Regardless, Hamas was still able to acquire weapons to attack Israel, both through local production and shipments from Iran. They have used these weapons to more or less continuously attack the residents of southern Israel, resulting in Israeli military operations in 2008-2009 and 2012.
When, a few years ago, the Muslim Brotherhood (of whom Hamas is an offshoot) won the Egyptian elections and Morsi became the leader of Egypt Hamas was in great shape. There were hundreds of tunnels running between Gaza and Egypt through which a wide assortment of goods were passed. These tunneling operations were also taxed by Hamas, which generated significant revenue for them. The strong relationship with their important, populous neighbor to the south emboldened them to take a stand against the Assad regime in Syria, which has so far killed nearly 200,000 Sunni Muslims (Hamas is also Sunni), which, by the way, is more than twice the number of people killed in the hundred years of Arab-Israeli conflict. This stance, however, cost them the support of Assad's staunch ally, Iran, one of Hamas's biggest supporters for years. Unfortunately for Hamas, Morsi (the Egyptian leader) was quickly deposed and imprisoned and replaced by Sisi, a military strongman who clearly hates the brotherhood. Since he took power he has done a great deal to weaken the brotherhood and its offshoot, Hamas. In particular he closed the tunnels between Egypt and Hamas which were bringing all sorts of goods into Gaza and whose taxes were financing much of Hamas's activities.
This series of events left Hamas with few friends and no revenue, meaning all of their employees (many of them involved in building terrorist infrastructure such as tunnels into Israel) weren't getting paid. In response, Hamas agreed to join a unity government with Fatah, a move vehemently opposed by the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. However, due to Hamas's status as a terrorist organization Fatah, as a member of the international banking community, couldn't transfer them money even if they wanted to (and why would they want to?).
This brings us to the situation this past summer when three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed. Here it gets a little tricky. It's clear that the kidnappers were affiliated with Hamas, and that Hamas helped finance them. It's unclear whether there was a specific order from the Hamas leadership.(My own editorializing: it seems logical to me, given their desperate and rapidly deteriorating situation, that they would do something to try and "reshuffle the deck"). The search for the teenagers (or, as it turned out, their bodies) went on for nearly three weeks. There have since been accusations that Netanyahu intentionally withheld a recording of the phone call one of the teenagers made that gave evidence that the teenagers had been shot in order to inflame Israeli public opinion and to re-arrest a number of Hamas (and other) operatives that had recently been released as part of a prisoner exchange (for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit). While this may or may not be true, my understanding is that it's proper protocol to withhold that sort of evidence while even the smallest shred of doubt exists that those who were abducted are still alive (and if someone out there knows better than I do, please let me know).
A day after the three Israeli teens were buried three Israeli young men kidnapped and killed a Palestinian teenager (I'd like to include a really impressive string of profanities before "three Israeli young men" but I'll refrain), sparking riots by Palestinians and Israeli-Arabs throughout Israel. In response to the kidnapping and killing of the Palestinian teenager and the wave of arrests of Hamas members (among others) in the West Bank Hamas began firing more and more rockets from Gaza (there's never NO fire from Gaza, but there are periods of significant quiet, and it's possible that prior to this conflict much of it was from smaller terrorist groups rather than Hamas). Israel responded with air strikes, and, after several attempts to offer Hamas "quiet for quiet" or actual cease fires, most of which were violated, Israel eventually launched a ground operation.
After about a week and a half of air and artillery strikes the IDF (Israeli army) launched a ground invasion. At the time there were debates about whether this was to stop the rocket fire, topple Hamas or deal with the tunnels (dozens or perhaps hundreds of which now run throughout Gaza, many of which cross the border and were explicitly designed to commit terrorist attacks against the Israeli population living near Gaza). It seems clear in retrospect that the goal was to destroy the tunnels, which the IDF did (at least most of the ones that were coming into Israel), at the cost of more than 60 soldiers' lives. After fulfilling that objective the ground troops pulled out. Another couple of weeks of shooting back and forth, several attempts at negotiations and a few more broken cease fires brought us to the current situation. Egypt brokered a deal between Israel and Hamas which basically promised a very limited lifting of the blockade and extended fishing rights in exchange for a cease fire with an agreement to continue talks on the core issues. This is more or less what Egypt offered from the very beginning. So that's more or less a summary of the 2-3 months of conflict this summer. Here are some of my thoughts.
First of all, it should come as no surprise that Israel lost the public relations war. The Hamas strategy, often called the "dead baby" strategy, works. They have lots of pictures of dead kids, therefore they win. I can tell you all about how Israel invests its resources in protecting its civilians while Hamas invests its resources in protecting its rockets while leaving civilians to die, or how Israel virtually begs civilians to leave areas that will be attacked (which, in case it was unclear, sort of ruins the whole element of surprise) while Hamas orders them to stay, or how Hamas intentionally hides in civilian infrastructure such as schools and hospitals. I can talk about context until I'm blue in the face. There are many more dead Palestinians than Israelis. They have pictures of dead children. They win the PR war.
The dead baby strategy means that even a neutral, uninformed observer may well side with Hamas (or, at the very least, the Palestinian people). On top of that I believe that much of the world, and certainly organizations like the UN, are deeply antisemitic. For at least the last thousand years antisemitism has been a major issue. Pick any period you'd like in the last thousand years and it's easy to find an instance of Jews being persecuted. The Holocaust is merely the most recent and most heinous expression of it. In my opinion the Holocaust was so extraordinarily terrible that the world felt badly enough that the years since have seen relatively less antisemitism, but it never disappeared. This was keenly felt this summer throughout the world, especially in large European cities. There were violent riots throughout Europe in which Jews and Jewish property were attacked and slogans such as "send the Jews back to the gas chambers" were chanted. My father felt compelled to remove his yarmulke (Jewish skullcap) when he was in London. There have even been antisemitic events in Manhattan (though obviously much less severe).
International organizations also tend to be at the very least absurdly anti-Israel, and, in my opinion are often anti-semitic. One prominent example is the UN Human Rights Council, which has issued nearly as many condemnations of Israel as the rest of the world combined. Even the most ferocious opponent of Israel surely must recognize this is absurd. In this particular conflict the UN's antipathy to Israel was on clear display. In numerous instances Hamas rockets were found in UN schools, but perhaps we should blame Hamas for this, rather than UN. Unfortunately,when the UN "found" these rockets they handed them over to the "authorities" i.e. Hamas. The UN found Hamas rockets stored in its schools and then gave them back to Hamas!
Does all of this mean that Israel doesn't care about international opinion? Absolutely not! We devote a lot of resources to explaining and justifying our actions to the world. This is part of the reason why, in my opinion, we agree to cease fire after cease fire, even though we know perfectly well Hamas likely won't honor it. And, perhaps it's a bit naive, but I (as a member of the IDF and Israeli society) believe that we behave as morally as possible because that's simply the right thing to do. But international opinion is not at the top of the priority list (especially given the fact that we're probably fighting a losing battle on that front anyways). At the top of the priority list is keeping our citizens safe. Thankfully, Iron Dome mostly protects us from Hamas's indiscriminate rocket fire (though it's certainly scary hearing the alarm, running to the bomb shelter, the silence after the alarm has finished and, finally, after what seems like an eternity, the boom. my sister, Evelyn Gertz, wrote an excellent facebook post explaining what that's like if you're interested), though residents near Gaza still have to deal with mortars, etc. But the new threat is tunnels.
Since Hamas took over in 2007 they have devoted tremendous amounts of time, energy and resources into building tunnels, both within Gaza and from Gaza into Israel (often using child labor in extraordinarily unsafe conditions, by the way). The Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, for example, was kidnapped through the use of one of these tunnels. These are really really scary. Imagine knowing that terrorists were digging a tunnel under your child's preschool. I heard numerous times that these tunnels were being dug to launch a huge attack on Rosh Hashannah (the Jewish new year) on many settlements simultaneously. I have no idea if that's true; but the tunnels were certainly dug with the intention of launching attacks on Israeli civilians.
In my opinion the government and/or intelligence services must have known about these tunnels, if not their extent, and were waiting for a reason to deal with them. Again, these are tunnels from Hamas-controlled Gaza into Israel, often popping up right under kibbutz dining halls or preschools. They are VERY scary. (by the way one of the big new concerns in Israel is the threat of similar tunnels on our northern border, where Hezbollah is much better trained and financed, though currently busy in Syria) Given the existence of these tunnels I believe the government was just waiting for a good reason to go and deal with them, a reason Hamas gave by kidnapping the Israeli teens and increasing the number of rockets they were firing (obviously, as I explain above, it's more complicated than that). I also think the Israeli government acted correctly.
By waiting for Hamas to provide a smoking gun (or smoking rocket launcher as the case may be) and then agreeing to cease fire after cease fire, we were playing a dangerous game. If Hamas hadn't started shooting, or had accepted one of the cease fires, we wouldn't have had the pretext to go deal with the tunnels, something we urgently needed to do. Consider how severe the international reaction was to Israel's limited invasion; then consider that this reaction came after Israel was shot at and accepted numerous cease fires. In an attempt to prove the justness of our actions we endangered Israeli civilians (by giving Hamas a chance to save their terror tunnels). Perhaps we would have dealt with the tunnels regardless. Perhaps the international reaction would have been even more severe if we hadn't made such an effort. But, as it stands, we made every effort to avoid a conflict, Hamas continued to shoot, and then Israel was excoriated internationally for taking action.
So what's going on in Gaza today? As usual, rebuilding funds are being diverted to rebuild the tunnel infrastructure. Hamas and the Palestinian Authority continue to fight with each other. Many of the people of Gaza continue to live in wretched, squalid conditions. And everyone gears up for the next round of violence. From my Israeli perspective, this is all very frustrating. We pulled every last Jew out of Gaza, and yet they continue to shoot at us (which, by the way, is what happened when we pulled out of Lebanon). As someone who believes deeply that the current occupation of the West Bank is morally problematic and would love to come to a negotiated solution, nothing has done more to convince me this is impossible. The fact that every time we remove our security forces we are forced to return to stop the attacks on Israel deeply harm the prospects for a peaceful resolution. The first reason is obvious: if we leave they shoot at us. The second is perhaps less clear. Any peaceful resolution will be based, on the Israeli side, on a belief that the Palestinians are willing to share the land with us. But how are we to believe that when every time we concede a piece of land the result is more attacks?
Perhaps it's a little bit late, but a number of people have asked my thoughts on the Gaza situation, and I'm finally ready to share. In case you don't know me, I've lived in Israel for six years and am a reserve soldier in the Israeli army (though I wasn't called up this time). I'm not unbiased (who is?). I also definitely do not have any inside information. Like many Israelis I've followed the news closely, but that's it. Before I share my own thoughts here's a bit of background on the conflict.
In 2005 Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza strip, which we had controlled since 1967, uprooting thousands of Jews who had moved there. In 2007 there was an election in the Gaza Strip. The ruling Fatah party (currently led by Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinians living in the West bank) was defeated by Hamas in what, as far as I know, was a fair and free election. At the time, Israel was against allowing Hamas, who is still designated a terrorist organization by most of the international community, to participate in the elections. The rest of the world, the US included, disagreed and allowed them to participate. I, as an American, couldn't imagine not allowing free elections. I remember thinking to myself that if Hamas won either they would moderate their position, or, if they didn't, it would mean that Gaza's elected government was attacking us, giving us all the legitimacy in the world to shoot back. No need to say that I now feel like an idiot.
My impression is that Hamas was voted in primarily due to the corruption and inept governance of Fatah, but, regardless, their charter clearly states their desire to kill all Jews (let alone their complete denial of Israel's right to exist under any circumstances). Shortly after winning the election they violently expelled or killed all remaining Fatah officials. As a result, Israel and Egypt, citing the fact that Fatah was no longer there to provide security, enacted a blockade. Regardless, Hamas was still able to acquire weapons to attack Israel, both through local production and shipments from Iran. They have used these weapons to more or less continuously attack the residents of southern Israel, resulting in Israeli military operations in 2008-2009 and 2012.
When, a few years ago, the Muslim Brotherhood (of whom Hamas is an offshoot) won the Egyptian elections and Morsi became the leader of Egypt Hamas was in great shape. There were hundreds of tunnels running between Gaza and Egypt through which a wide assortment of goods were passed. These tunneling operations were also taxed by Hamas, which generated significant revenue for them. The strong relationship with their important, populous neighbor to the south emboldened them to take a stand against the Assad regime in Syria, which has so far killed nearly 200,000 Sunni Muslims (Hamas is also Sunni), which, by the way, is more than twice the number of people killed in the hundred years of Arab-Israeli conflict. This stance, however, cost them the support of Assad's staunch ally, Iran, one of Hamas's biggest supporters for years. Unfortunately for Hamas, Morsi (the Egyptian leader) was quickly deposed and imprisoned and replaced by Sisi, a military strongman who clearly hates the brotherhood. Since he took power he has done a great deal to weaken the brotherhood and its offshoot, Hamas. In particular he closed the tunnels between Egypt and Hamas which were bringing all sorts of goods into Gaza and whose taxes were financing much of Hamas's activities.
This series of events left Hamas with few friends and no revenue, meaning all of their employees (many of them involved in building terrorist infrastructure such as tunnels into Israel) weren't getting paid. In response, Hamas agreed to join a unity government with Fatah, a move vehemently opposed by the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. However, due to Hamas's status as a terrorist organization Fatah, as a member of the international banking community, couldn't transfer them money even if they wanted to (and why would they want to?).
This brings us to the situation this past summer when three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed. Here it gets a little tricky. It's clear that the kidnappers were affiliated with Hamas, and that Hamas helped finance them. It's unclear whether there was a specific order from the Hamas leadership.(My own editorializing: it seems logical to me, given their desperate and rapidly deteriorating situation, that they would do something to try and "reshuffle the deck"). The search for the teenagers (or, as it turned out, their bodies) went on for nearly three weeks. There have since been accusations that Netanyahu intentionally withheld a recording of the phone call one of the teenagers made that gave evidence that the teenagers had been shot in order to inflame Israeli public opinion and to re-arrest a number of Hamas (and other) operatives that had recently been released as part of a prisoner exchange (for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit). While this may or may not be true, my understanding is that it's proper protocol to withhold that sort of evidence while even the smallest shred of doubt exists that those who were abducted are still alive (and if someone out there knows better than I do, please let me know).
A day after the three Israeli teens were buried three Israeli young men kidnapped and killed a Palestinian teenager (I'd like to include a really impressive string of profanities before "three Israeli young men" but I'll refrain), sparking riots by Palestinians and Israeli-Arabs throughout Israel. In response to the kidnapping and killing of the Palestinian teenager and the wave of arrests of Hamas members (among others) in the West Bank Hamas began firing more and more rockets from Gaza (there's never NO fire from Gaza, but there are periods of significant quiet, and it's possible that prior to this conflict much of it was from smaller terrorist groups rather than Hamas). Israel responded with air strikes, and, after several attempts to offer Hamas "quiet for quiet" or actual cease fires, most of which were violated, Israel eventually launched a ground operation.
After about a week and a half of air and artillery strikes the IDF (Israeli army) launched a ground invasion. At the time there were debates about whether this was to stop the rocket fire, topple Hamas or deal with the tunnels (dozens or perhaps hundreds of which now run throughout Gaza, many of which cross the border and were explicitly designed to commit terrorist attacks against the Israeli population living near Gaza). It seems clear in retrospect that the goal was to destroy the tunnels, which the IDF did (at least most of the ones that were coming into Israel), at the cost of more than 60 soldiers' lives. After fulfilling that objective the ground troops pulled out. Another couple of weeks of shooting back and forth, several attempts at negotiations and a few more broken cease fires brought us to the current situation. Egypt brokered a deal between Israel and Hamas which basically promised a very limited lifting of the blockade and extended fishing rights in exchange for a cease fire with an agreement to continue talks on the core issues. This is more or less what Egypt offered from the very beginning. So that's more or less a summary of the 2-3 months of conflict this summer. Here are some of my thoughts.
First of all, it should come as no surprise that Israel lost the public relations war. The Hamas strategy, often called the "dead baby" strategy, works. They have lots of pictures of dead kids, therefore they win. I can tell you all about how Israel invests its resources in protecting its civilians while Hamas invests its resources in protecting its rockets while leaving civilians to die, or how Israel virtually begs civilians to leave areas that will be attacked (which, in case it was unclear, sort of ruins the whole element of surprise) while Hamas orders them to stay, or how Hamas intentionally hides in civilian infrastructure such as schools and hospitals. I can talk about context until I'm blue in the face. There are many more dead Palestinians than Israelis. They have pictures of dead children. They win the PR war.
The dead baby strategy means that even a neutral, uninformed observer may well side with Hamas (or, at the very least, the Palestinian people). On top of that I believe that much of the world, and certainly organizations like the UN, are deeply antisemitic. For at least the last thousand years antisemitism has been a major issue. Pick any period you'd like in the last thousand years and it's easy to find an instance of Jews being persecuted. The Holocaust is merely the most recent and most heinous expression of it. In my opinion the Holocaust was so extraordinarily terrible that the world felt badly enough that the years since have seen relatively less antisemitism, but it never disappeared. This was keenly felt this summer throughout the world, especially in large European cities. There were violent riots throughout Europe in which Jews and Jewish property were attacked and slogans such as "send the Jews back to the gas chambers" were chanted. My father felt compelled to remove his yarmulke (Jewish skullcap) when he was in London. There have even been antisemitic events in Manhattan (though obviously much less severe).
International organizations also tend to be at the very least absurdly anti-Israel, and, in my opinion are often anti-semitic. One prominent example is the UN Human Rights Council, which has issued nearly as many condemnations of Israel as the rest of the world combined. Even the most ferocious opponent of Israel surely must recognize this is absurd. In this particular conflict the UN's antipathy to Israel was on clear display. In numerous instances Hamas rockets were found in UN schools, but perhaps we should blame Hamas for this, rather than UN. Unfortunately,when the UN "found" these rockets they handed them over to the "authorities" i.e. Hamas. The UN found Hamas rockets stored in its schools and then gave them back to Hamas!
Does all of this mean that Israel doesn't care about international opinion? Absolutely not! We devote a lot of resources to explaining and justifying our actions to the world. This is part of the reason why, in my opinion, we agree to cease fire after cease fire, even though we know perfectly well Hamas likely won't honor it. And, perhaps it's a bit naive, but I (as a member of the IDF and Israeli society) believe that we behave as morally as possible because that's simply the right thing to do. But international opinion is not at the top of the priority list (especially given the fact that we're probably fighting a losing battle on that front anyways). At the top of the priority list is keeping our citizens safe. Thankfully, Iron Dome mostly protects us from Hamas's indiscriminate rocket fire (though it's certainly scary hearing the alarm, running to the bomb shelter, the silence after the alarm has finished and, finally, after what seems like an eternity, the boom. my sister, Evelyn Gertz, wrote an excellent facebook post explaining what that's like if you're interested), though residents near Gaza still have to deal with mortars, etc. But the new threat is tunnels.
Since Hamas took over in 2007 they have devoted tremendous amounts of time, energy and resources into building tunnels, both within Gaza and from Gaza into Israel (often using child labor in extraordinarily unsafe conditions, by the way). The Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, for example, was kidnapped through the use of one of these tunnels. These are really really scary. Imagine knowing that terrorists were digging a tunnel under your child's preschool. I heard numerous times that these tunnels were being dug to launch a huge attack on Rosh Hashannah (the Jewish new year) on many settlements simultaneously. I have no idea if that's true; but the tunnels were certainly dug with the intention of launching attacks on Israeli civilians.
In my opinion the government and/or intelligence services must have known about these tunnels, if not their extent, and were waiting for a reason to deal with them. Again, these are tunnels from Hamas-controlled Gaza into Israel, often popping up right under kibbutz dining halls or preschools. They are VERY scary. (by the way one of the big new concerns in Israel is the threat of similar tunnels on our northern border, where Hezbollah is much better trained and financed, though currently busy in Syria) Given the existence of these tunnels I believe the government was just waiting for a good reason to go and deal with them, a reason Hamas gave by kidnapping the Israeli teens and increasing the number of rockets they were firing (obviously, as I explain above, it's more complicated than that). I also think the Israeli government acted correctly.
By waiting for Hamas to provide a smoking gun (or smoking rocket launcher as the case may be) and then agreeing to cease fire after cease fire, we were playing a dangerous game. If Hamas hadn't started shooting, or had accepted one of the cease fires, we wouldn't have had the pretext to go deal with the tunnels, something we urgently needed to do. Consider how severe the international reaction was to Israel's limited invasion; then consider that this reaction came after Israel was shot at and accepted numerous cease fires. In an attempt to prove the justness of our actions we endangered Israeli civilians (by giving Hamas a chance to save their terror tunnels). Perhaps we would have dealt with the tunnels regardless. Perhaps the international reaction would have been even more severe if we hadn't made such an effort. But, as it stands, we made every effort to avoid a conflict, Hamas continued to shoot, and then Israel was excoriated internationally for taking action.
So what's going on in Gaza today? As usual, rebuilding funds are being diverted to rebuild the tunnel infrastructure. Hamas and the Palestinian Authority continue to fight with each other. Many of the people of Gaza continue to live in wretched, squalid conditions. And everyone gears up for the next round of violence. From my Israeli perspective, this is all very frustrating. We pulled every last Jew out of Gaza, and yet they continue to shoot at us (which, by the way, is what happened when we pulled out of Lebanon). As someone who believes deeply that the current occupation of the West Bank is morally problematic and would love to come to a negotiated solution, nothing has done more to convince me this is impossible. The fact that every time we remove our security forces we are forced to return to stop the attacks on Israel deeply harm the prospects for a peaceful resolution. The first reason is obvious: if we leave they shoot at us. The second is perhaps less clear. Any peaceful resolution will be based, on the Israeli side, on a belief that the Palestinians are willing to share the land with us. But how are we to believe that when every time we concede a piece of land the result is more attacks?
Aaron,
ReplyDeleteWe are sure that your family is very proud of you. Not only are you smart and handsome but you have a great love for Israel. Your blog nails it on the head. You need two parties to make peace and for a very, very long time, there has been only one. The minority of Jews who think otherwise are dreaming and give encouragement to our "enemy". Hamas receives billions in foreign aid (I don't believe that Gazans live in poverty), so what is their incentive to make peace? All Arabs feel that sooner or later they can drive Israel into the sea.
Love, Sandy and Larry
Hi Sandy and Larry,
DeleteThanks so much for taking the time to read and respond. While I certainly recognize that it's in Hamas's interests to present the living conditions in Gaza as being as bad as possible, it's hard for me to believe that the average Gazan is doing well. Much foreign aid is pledged to the Palestinians (in both the West Bank and Gaza), but a much smaller amount is actually donated. Also, like any dictatorship, I am sure that Hamas takes a big cut of the money coming in for itself, its leaders and its allies. And, irrespective of the amount of money going into Gaza, we blow up much of the strip every few years, which certainly sets it back economically.
I don't necessarily agree that all Arabs want to drive us into the sea, though I believe many do and that at some point Arab society should be held accountable for dealing with their extremists, just like we should be held accountable for dealing with our own. I do believe that there's a significant difference between a liberal Jew and a liberal Arab. A liberal Jew will tell you all about how the Palestinians are people, too, and they also have rights here that can't be ignored (my own personal position). A relatively liberal Arab (someone like Abbas) will acknowledge that we (the Jews) are strong right now and so peace (or at least non-violence) is the best option, but won't accept that we, too, have meaningful historic rights to this land.
There was a wonderful article over the summer explaining that Hamas often uses the language of anti-colonialism to describe the conflict, particularly the Algerian resistance to the French. The basic anti-colonialist argument is that colonialists come for money, so if you make their occupation cost more than it's worth, then they'll go home. And this proved to be an effective strategy in much of the world (including in pre-1948 Palestine). But from our (the Israeli) perspective we're not colonialists. We're a long-estranged indigenous people, who have never forgotten about our traditional homeland and have had at least some small presence here throughout history. And even if you want to argue that we share similarities with traditional European colonialists, an argument I don't necessarily find persuasive, the Hamas anti-colonialist logic still doesn't work. While the French could always pack up in Algeria and head back to France, we don't have anywhere else to go! A huge percentage of our population are Holocaust survivors and refugees from Arab countries with no other "homeland" to return to. One of the fundamental problems in the conflict is that Hamas sees us as colonialists/Crusaders, meaning they can make our lives miserable enough that we'll pick up and leave. And I, for one, am not leaving.