More than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in the month since Hamas’ terrorist attacks inside southern Israel, the group’s health ministry in Gaza says.
But Hamas officials say the mounting death toll, believed to include thousands of children, has not caused the group to regret its actions in southern Israel, which Israeli officials said killed 1,400 people.
In fact, Hamas leaders say that their goal was to trigger this very response and that they’re still hoping for a bigger war. It’s all part of a strategy, they say, to derail talks over Israel normalizing relations with regional powers — namely, Saudi Arabia — and draw the world’s attention to the Palestinian cause.
Hamas, these officials say, is more interested in the destruction of Israel than what it sees as the temporary hardships faced by Palestinians under Israeli bombardment.
“What could change the equation was a great act, and without a doubt, it was known that the reaction to this great act would be big,” Khalil al-Hayya, a member of the group’s governing politburo, told The New York Times in an interview.
So your solution is for the palestinians to just give up?
My solution is for Palestinians to surrender and try to achieve their goals diplomatically rather than through violence, that is not the same as giving up on achieving their goals. It’s possible for them to negotiate for right of return, freedom of travel, national recognition, removal of the blockade, autonomy, peace, safety, freedom, economic prosperity, etc., Although it will be a bitter pill for the uncompromising to swallow, the only thing I think they will have to give up on is the annexed lands. Those were lost to them after they declared war multiple times and were defeated, they are unlikely to get them back. Further violence will not change this and would likely leave them with even less.
Constant guerrilla attacks are what drove the US out of afghanistan and iraq and vietnam.
The US sent military into these places for political ends. When these engagements became expensive and unpopular, the politics shifted and the US withdrew. Israel has no where to withdraw to and their goals are not political, they are existential. Giving up for Israel means being genocided and driven into the sea. Israeli political distaste for this ongoing conflict will not end it.
Hamas has a network of tunnels below Gaza so that entire region will become a kill zone and Israel won’t be able to hold it.
That’s quite an imagination. At best they will take out some IDF soldiers but still lose this vastly asymmetrical conflict. It seems to me that Israel is just bombing the tunnels and causing them to collapse, because building them under civilians using them as human shields wasn’t the deterrent Hamas thought it was. Furthermore, I expect Israel to annex more lands if that’s what it takes to keep themselves safe.
The sticking point for diplomacy is not the annexed lands but the right to return. Arafat would’ve accepted most of the border changes, except the ones in east Jerusalem, and maybe even Hamas would. But Israel will not accept a deal with the right to return, as it would change the demographics so much as to make Jewish democracy nearly impossible. Palestinians won’t accept a deal without it as so many are still cramped in refugee camps looking to return. Combine that with the fact that Israel has almost all the power and therefore no reason to negotiate and the idea of a diplomatic solution without heavy outside pressure is impossible
Israel will not accept a deal with the right to return, as it would change the demographics so much as to make Jewish democracy nearly impossible.
A one-state solution is not viable at this point. I meant right of return to Palestinian lands, not Israeli lands. My understanding is that if Gazans leave through Egypt, for example, they cannot return unless they get both Egyptian and Israeli permission at present.
Palestinians won’t accept a deal without it
It is this obstinance that brought them to here, fighting an unwinnable guerilla war as ever more freedoms and lands ebb away. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but if they don’t they risk losing more lives and potentially all their lands.
Israel has almost all the power and therefore no reason to negotiate
Safety is a reason, it is Israel’s stated purpose for this war and historical actions against Palestinians. But you’re right, Israel has most of the leverage and any viable treaty would need to be written accordingly.
