But now Arafat is dead and gone, the PA is a lot milder than with Arafat and Hamas has now taken control of Gaza. It's a different age ... :-) ...
Posted on 07/01/2014 2:40:47 AM PDT by Star Traveler
The key Hamas leadership is in the Strip but an escalation there, in response to the killing of the three teens, would bring dozens of missiles down on Tel Aviv
The options facing Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas on the day after the discovery of the bodies of the three kidnapped Israeli teenagers range from bad to worse.
In the course of the late night cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on Monday, all kinds of ideas for the appropriate Israeli response were aired. The demolition of houses, the deportation of prisoners, an assault on Gaza, and more besides. But the security establishment knows demolishing homes or exiling prisoners will not reduce the motivation of the terrorists, certainly not those from Islamist organizations.
Hamas has learned how to compensate the families of terrorists whose homes are demolished; they’ve been given more than enough money to rebuild those homes. As for the deportation of prisoners, that has become a double-edged sword: Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails and exiled have, from their new homes and offices in Gaza, Arab states and Turkey, overseen intensive efforts to establish terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank.
However, despite the pressure of public opinion in Israel for a response to the killings, Jerusalem is concerned about targeting the Hamas leadership in Gaza because of the fear of escalation. The price of a dramatic upsurge in action against Hamas, or of efforts to bring down the Hamas leadership, will be dozens of missiles on Israel’s central Dan region and even further north. At this stage, it does not look as though Israel is interested in waging all-out war with Gaza.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesofisrael.com ...
But the PA is the REAL power behind Hamas.
“The PA is quite a bit different from Hamas.”
If they are so different, why did they merge? Usually organizations merge that have similar goals and approaches to achieving those goals.
No, Hamas was initially supported by Israel in order to offset the power of the P.A. (back then it was Fatah). Hamas and the PA have been enemies. Hamas has murdered PA officials in Gaza. Also Iran has been a long-time sponsor of Hamas, but NOT the PA.
The problem that the PA has in trying to “declare” a Palestinian State is that they don’t even control all of the Palestinian areas. So, the PA has attempted to “paper over” their differences, and give the appearance of - at last - being “in control” of all the Palestinian Territories by way of this unity pact.
However, they tried this unity pact before and it “blew up” ... :-) ...
Sure about that?
Here’s some background on how Israel,was involved in the creation of Hamas, starting with an approved “precursor organization” to Hamas. Hamas would not be there now of Israel had acted differently. ALSO, the election of Hamas for the government of Gaza caught both Israel and the USA by complete surprise. It was “all over” before they could do a thing about it!
Here’s that article, from the Wall Street Journal ...
How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas
Surveying the wreckage of a neighbor’s bungalow hit by a Palestinian rocket, retired Israeli official Avner Cohen traces the missile’s trajectory back to an “enormous, stupid mistake” made 30 years ago.
“Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation,” says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel’s destruction.
Instead of trying to curb Gaza’s Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with “Yassins,” primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric.
Israel’s experience echoes that of the U.S., which, during the Cold War, looked to Islamists as a useful ally against communism. Anti-Soviet forces backed by America after Moscow’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan later mutated into al Qaeda.
At stake is the future of what used to be the British Mandate of Palestine, the biblical lands now comprising Israel and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Since 1948, when the state of Israel was established, Israelis and Palestinians have each asserted claims over the same territory.
The Palestinian cause was for decades led by the PLO, which Israel regarded as a terrorist outfit and sought to crush until the 1990s, when the PLO dropped its vow to destroy the Jewish state. The PLO’s Palestinian rival, Hamas, led by Islamist militants, refused to recognize Israel and vowed to continue “resistance.” Hamas now controls Gaza, a crowded, impoverished sliver of land on the Mediterranean from which Israel pulled out troops and settlers in 2005.
When Israel first encountered Islamists in Gaza in the 1970s and ‘80s, they seemed focused on studying the Quran, not on confrontation with Israel. The Israeli government officially recognized a precursor to Hamas called Mujama Al-Islamiya, registering the group as a charity. It allowed Mujama members to set up an Islamic university and build mosques, clubs and schools. Crucially, Israel often stood aside when the Islamists and their secular left-wing Palestinian rivals battled, sometimes violently, for influence in both Gaza and the West Bank.
See more at ...
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB123275572295011847
Another one ...
How Israel Helped Create Hamas
In the 1970s, Israel Saw Hamas’ Founders as Allies
http://middleeast.about.com/od/israelandpalestine/a/me090126.htm
It isn’t the kind of history Israelis like to talk about, or admit, but it’s also undeniable: Hamas is at least partly an intentional creation of Israel that dates back to the 1970s.
Back then the secular Palestine Liberation Organization was waging a terror campaign against Israel, which it vowed to destroy. There was no contact between Israel and the PLO, at least not officially. But Israel looked for Palestinians who didn’t align themselves with the PLO. It found them, in Gaza, in an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood—deeply pious Palestinians who were opposed to the PLO’s secular outlook, and who had adopted the Brotherhood’s motto: “Islam is the solution. The Koran is our constitution.”
Waltzing with Hamas
The Palestinian group that would begin calling itself Hamas in 1987 was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a half-blind cleric partially paralyzed by a childhood sports accident. In the 1970s, Yassin’s interest was to turn Palestinians toward the Koran and to find their way through it, rather than through the PLO. Israel saw an opportunity to battle the PLO from within its own Palestinian ranks by openly supporting Yassin and his followers.
Israel’s assumption that Yassin could be a viable alternative to Yasser Arafat was the same sort of miscalculation the United States committed in Iran in the 1970s, when the CIA cultivated radical Islamist groups there should the regime of the Shah of Iran falter or fall. In 1979, the regime did fall. The CIA had misread the forces of political Islam in Iran. It had also misread its reach: Political Islam wasn’t a fad. It was the future.
Read the rest at the link ...
Thank-you for your response.
ABSOLUTELY SURE, as I’ve followed it all along ... :-) ...
PA cheers them on. Same difference.
Absolutely not the same, as Israel doesn’t launch attacks against the P.A. ... as it does all the time against Hamas. Rockets don’t come in on Israeli cities, as they do from Hamas. Soldiers are not kidnapped by the P.A. as they are by Hamas! And Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu doesn’t lobby Congress to give money to Hamas, as he does for Congress to give money to the P.A.
You’re mixing up two separate items ... as I already pointed out on that thread ...
— — —
This is NOT related to the three teens found dead. This is related to the rocket attacks by Hamas. Israel and Hamas repeatedly go through this “merry-go-round” ... Hamas launches rockets, Israel retaliates and strikes Hamas positions. This is an “on-going” thing.
Look for something else related to the teens!
Quote from the article ...
“The military said aircraft attacked 34 sites, mostly belonging to Hamas, though its statement did not link the strikes to the abductions.
Instead, it cited 18 Palestinian rocket launched against Israel from Gaza in the past two days which Israeli officials have said Hamas carried out.”
The Palestinian terrorists never get blamed for kidnapping, murder, bombings, rocket and mortar attacks, or the rest of the violence. If Israel responds, they are escalating. It’s time for Israel to ignore the antisemitic media.
Israel does respond and it doesn’t take care of its security measures according to what comes out on the news ... :-) ...
Were you around 1993-2003?
The PLO and Israel traded blows on a daily basis...
If Gaza is destroyed, there can be no retaliation.
Half measures don’t do the job.
But now Arafat is dead and gone, the PA is a lot milder than with Arafat and Hamas has now taken control of Gaza. It's a different age ... :-) ...
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