Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, this week announced that Israel would retain an open-ended security presence in Gaza. Israeli officials talk of imposing a buffer zone to keep Palestinians away from the Israeli border. They rule out any role for the Palestinian Authority, which was ousted from Gaza by Hamas in 2007 but governs semi-autonomous areas of the occupied West Bank.
The United States has laid out a much different vision. Top officials have said they will not allow Israel to reoccupy Gaza or further shrink its already small territory. They have repeatedly called for a return of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority and the resumption of peace talks aimed at establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
These conflicting visions have set the stage for difficult discussions between Israel and the U.S.
I think this is a mistake. Hamas’s popularity doesn’t come from the fact that their ideas are wildly popular, but because Fatah was exposed as horrendously corrupt in the late 90s and early 2000s. Hamas’s radical ideology is not a core part of Palestinian identity - it is simply a result of circumstances that were in no small part urged on by Israeli manipulation.
Their popularity also comes from how peace is just not working. Which is why even if it’s destroyed, another armed resistance organization will spring up. Hamas is the only logical answer to a situation where peace 100% won’t work, while violence only 90% won’t work.