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NaibofTabr ,

Er… waitaminute I thought the claim all this time was that Hamas != Palestine, that Hamas was not in control of the territory but merely using the people of Palestine as a shield. Isn’t the government of Palestine supposed to be distinct and separate from Hamas?

ArbitraryValue ,

Who has been making that claim? There was no authority except Hamas in Gaza prior to the ongoing fighting.

NaibofTabr ,

Hmm… are you implying that the PLO doesn’t exist/isn’t functional, or just that the PLO has no authority within Gaza specifically?

kaffiene ,

The Palestine Authority governs the west bank. Hamas governs Gaza. A divide and conquer strategy pushed by Netanyahu for years to prevent Palestinian unification

NaibofTabr , (edited )

And Hamas is therefore… representative of Gaza.

Either they are the government of Gaza, or they aren’t. Not both.

steventhedev ,

Hamas fought and killed the PLO in Gaza back in 2007.

Are you trying to say that Netanyahu was involved in that, or merely that he benefitted from it?

ArbitraryValue ,

I’m not sure I would call the PLO functional but it exists in the West Bank. It has no presence at all in Gaza.

NaibofTabr ,

When the conflict started in October there were a lot of critics of Israel saying that attacks against the people of Gaza were unethical because Hamas does not represent them, and they were not responsible for Hamas’ actions.

Attacks against civilians are unethical in any case, but my point here is that the claim that Hamas does not represent Gaza is spurious.

natecox ,
@natecox@programming.dev avatar

“Does not represent” as in “My government does not represent me when they abolish the right to abortion and ban library books”.

They’re in charge but not actually acting with the will of the people they’re in charge of in mind.

ArbitraryValue ,

I think there’s a difference between ruling and representing. I would argue that a government is not representative if there is no free speech and no democracy even if that government has widespread popular support. However, I’m not sure why this question is relevant in the context of the ongoing conflict. There’s no principle dictating that a war may only be fought against a representative government.

ski11erboi ,

I don’t understand why you’re getting down voted because I remember seeing that too.

catloaf ,

It’s complicated. Hamas won a majority of seats in Palestine’s parliament in 2006, but Fatah didn’t like that. There was a bit of a civil war, and it ended up with Hamas controlling Gaza and Fatah controlling the West Bank. There haven’t been any elections since. So no, Hamas doesn’t represent all of Palestine, but they were democratically elected in 2006. They are in control of Gaza, but neither the West Bank, nor both territories as one Palestine. Really, there is no united Palestine right now. And I’m sure Israel is very happy to keep it that way.

en.wikipedia.org/…/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e…

SeaJ ,

They were pretty fast from a majority in 2006. So they may have been democratically elected but it was not by most Palestinians.

NaibofTabr ,

And I’m sure Israel is very happy to keep it that way.

It also seems like the people in charge of the split groups are happy to keep it that way. I’m sure there’s a substantial amount of foreign influence, but it looks like neither PNA or PLO have had elections since 2006. PNA under Hamas clearly has some religious/military motivations that they play out with authoritarian style, but it seems that the current leadership of the PLO has inherited Arafat’s financial empire:

According to a 1993 report by the British National Criminal Intelligence Service, the PLO was “the richest of all terrorist organizations”, with $8–$10 billion in assets and an annual income of $1.5–$2 billion from “donations, extortion, payoffs, illegal arms dealing, drug trafficking, money laundering, fraud, etc.” Estimates of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s alleged hidden assets vary wildly and only Arafat had the whole picture. A former PLO finance minister said it was $3 billion to $5 billion.

So why would they be interested in sharing/dividing control of that? Israel is probably fanning the flames of the internal divisions, but I bet the self-interest of the leaders of the various groups carries more weight.

SeaJ ,

They are not completely distinct at the moment but to say that Hamas represents Gazans would be incorrect. Hamas win about a third of the vote in 2006 but that was the most so they got control of the government but have not had an election since. Many in the Israeli government were happy with the result because it weakened the PLO and therefore calls for a two state solution. Hell, Israel funded Hamas’ startup back in the 80s for exactly that purpose.

NaibofTabr ,

If Hamas does not represent Gaza, then who do they represent?

SeaJ ,

Themselves.

KevonLooney ,

This shows that Hamas was more interested in being warlords than the actual business of governing. Just like the Israeli government is more interested in conquering a tiny bit of bombed out desert than actually living in peace.

Both sides are clearly led by pieces of shit. Israel has a democracy though, so they are choosing to be led by pieces of shit. Palestinians might have some shitty beliefs about Jewish people, but they don’t have a voice in their government.

Literally no country actually cares about Palestinians. Iran and their proxies (Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, Syria) just want to be warlords. Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia just want to distract their domestic audience. Europe is just going to wring their hands and hope the killing stops.

America is actually the biggest force for peace in the region. All of these were signed in Washington DC (or nearby at Camp David):

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_Accords

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_17_Agreement

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel–Jordan_peace_treaty

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