Thank you, Tomas, for your thoughtful analysis. With all the near-term reporting on this war in the media you add tremendous value by presenting a nuanced case. I think this is the first time I’ve seen such a thoughtful analysis of the challenges in Gaza. You don’t condone in any way what Hamas is doing, yet you manage to help us see what is driving their evil actions. Understanding your enemy is essential in good strategy, and I appreciate your work in helping us do just that.
Am an avid yet silent reader on this series, because I dont know much about either side. Since you will cover Israel in this next article, could you touch upon why Jews have faced so much persecution historically ? Its hard for me to understand why one group of people should consistently face so much hatred and persecution for thousands of years.
I learnt about this embarrassingly recently: most of it has to do with the Blood Curse in Christianity. The book of Matthew basically says that when Pontius Pilate had second thoughts about ordering the execution of Christ and calls it off, saying "I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves." And then a Jewish mob gathered to witness his execution answers, "His blood be on us and on our children!"
An excellent article. My own impression from travels and talks in both Israel and Palestine is that there’s no solution to this conflict. When 80% of both Israelis and Palestinians believe that exterminating the enemy is the only solution, and that their God will assist them in that, they’ll keep on killing each other. This Holy Land is so tiny and can’t be divided into two independent states.. In the long run this will be a desert and the few inhabitants that remain will be ruled by a secular state which treats everybody alike.
If Israelis are able to accommodate atleast West Bank peacefully i.e. no more settlements, basic public services and not encroaching on their territories and perhaps more job opportunities for them, it might show Gazans that Israel is serious on long term peace and we might go into the direction of vassal that Tomas mentioned here which is the only real solution as no other Arab state would support Palestinians as mentioned in previous article
As an Israeli I find this summary very close to the truth. I sympathize with Palestinians and I wish they find a way out of this trap (In Israel some people including me call it "self victimization"). I wish I knew what can I as an Israeli individual can do to help them.
There have been a few articles over the years about Israeli theft of water, particularly in the West Bank, for illegal settlements and Israeli farms. Water is a critical resource in short supply (supplemented by desalination). Israelis use much more per day than Palestinians. Eliminating competition may play a part in the disproportionate response to Hamas's attacks.
Let me find it. It had a red background with a man if the right forefront, black balding hair and glasses. It had the MEMRI logo in the upper right hand corner. I clicked over to see the video sources. I'll post a response as soon as I do locate it.
I covered Gaza from 2004 - 2014, so I know the perils of reporting this. The propaganda is thick on both sides, but this is the worst I've ever seen. It is really, really bad.
Oh yeah. Further down in the comments you said the Israelis (The Jerusalem Fund if my memory serves was the name of the group) bought land from Palestinians leading up to 1948. That is true— 7% was all they could buy. They couldn't make that work and the Nakba followed.
Thomas, I understand the passion here. My question is why did you include a video from MEMRI? They are 100% hasbara, with strong ties to the Israeli government and a known disinformation distributor amongst academics, researchers and veteran reporters. Nobody who has covered this issue for any length of time will use them as a resource. What including them does is raise a red flag on the reporting with people experienced in this issue.
Which video are you referring to? I browsed the videos quickly and can't find a watermark.
I also have videos from Hamas and TikTok, two propaganda machines. I find that the more sources I use, the more I can triangulate the truth, knowing that any given source is not fully reliable. This comes at the risk that some of the videos will be false, but usually I never rely on any single one, so the takeaways tend to stand even when a single video doesn't.
I won't comment on public forums in detail, however if you connect with me on LinkedIn or subscribe to my free newsletter, I can correspond with you privately by email. Just give me the first three letters of your email and I'll be able to spot it in the subscribers. :)
Oct 19, 2023·edited Oct 19, 2023Liked by Tomas Pueyo
Thank you, Tomás, for such an insightful piece. Looking forward to read the part on Israel in the coming weeks.
I hope you will also dedicate time to an overseen, but extremely important fact: The Palestine people are currently divided in two regions and two governments: Hamas rules Gaza, and Fatah (or the Palestinian Authority) rules (part of) the West Bank. Somehow, and in a very imperfect and unbalanced way, Fatah has been able to survive with Israeli intervention and little violence. When one reads about the structure of the Palestine Authority government, it sounds much more like a country, than what Hamas is doing in Gaza.
Just like Israelis are currently divided, so are Palestinians, and Fatah seems to be able to coexist better with Israel than Hamas. Maybe a path to a less violent coexistence runs through the Palestine Authority and Fatah? Both Western and Arab countries provide some money (not as much as needed) to the Palestine Authority/Fatah because they have agreed to create a government as close as possible to Western standards, while Hamas lost any economic support from the West due to their terrorist activity.
Countries like Iran, Russia, China will always be willing to support Hamas or other terrorist groups either overtly or covertly. Instead of spending energy and money trying to kill Hamas, why not spend more energy and money trying to strengthen the imperfect, but better model of Fatah? I hope you cover this topic in more detail.
The article about the West Bank is written! I was this close to release it with Gaza. But then it's already too long, and it's another topic really. So I will publish it next week! Fatah will be covered more in the context of Israel, because that's where I'll touch on the settlements, which is one of the core issues here
I think you miss one important point. The government of Netanyahu relies heavely on Hamas. They support them and need them on Gaza so their policies against Palestine can reamin the same. If Hamas disappeard, they would hope for another violent gropu to appear. They want aggression so they can get more land, so when inevitable event comes of sitting down to negotiate the indpendence of Palestine, they will have advantage, they would have the upper hand in the negotiation.
For instance, they could invade northenr Gaza. Then, if they sit and negotiate they would say "okay, we will make concessions: we will give you northern Gaza back".
Netanyahu depends on the conflict to be in power, he knows that. Israelis, which are generally pretty well off economically, don't support extremists like him. He knows it, he is desperate, the context of a war is the only thing that would make him remain in power. Same with Hamas, even now it doesn't have full support form Palestinians, but in a context of peace, it would be inimaginable that Palestinains would support them. Hamas, is a complete normal homo sapiens response to Gaza's situation. But that's why there's so many efforts to portray a picture of them being "psychos" the "unprovoked attack", for people to see them as simply savages by nature, don't consider their context.
Nice. But boy, oh boy... At least try to hide a little bit your bias in favor of Israel man... But I respect that you literally admit it in the "Palestinain narrative"... Okay, let me do my version, but from the Israeli point of view:
"I believe I'm descendant from the Canaanite peoples that belived in only one God, called Yahwe.
They createtd several Kindoms like Judea or Israel.
Then they were expelled by several civilizations.
So, jews were spread around the world like rats. I don't believe any jew stayed in their land and just adopted the new empire's culture (be it Romans, be it Arabs). So I don't belive palestinains are descendants from jews. I cannot fathom it.
Well, let's come back to modern times.
In the 1800s europeans were crazy about science, categorization, classification, etc. They invented nationalism. Every Nation has a State.
My Ashkenazi jews were jealous about this new countries witn strong nationalities being built around Nation, culture.
Plus, europeans belived in races. Jews were an inferior race. Europeans hated jews. So some jews saw it as a good idea to create an independent country for the Jews.
In the early 1900s an important english guy sent a letter to an even more powerful jewish guy which proclaimed that Jews had the right the f* off from Europe and go procalim a new Nation-STate on top of the land they recently acquired. It says that they should always respect the integrity of the "NON-JEWSIH MINORITIES" (hahahah) that existed in the land.
Zionism was going well. My grandparents were very astute, they masterfully exploited this situation.
Nowadays, everyone has accpeted the occupation of Israel. Even though we try and try to be seen by the world as the victims, we can't do it properly...
So maybe now we should just own it, we should say "yeah, we won. We are stronger than you arabs. It sucks, but we won't go anywhere and if we can get more land we will do so. We see that even commiting war crimes gets very easily under the rug, so, if we can, we will...
I dOn'T kNoW wHy ArAbS hAtE uS... ThEy ArE aNtIsEmItIc...
I think even the most pro-peace palestinain would not say that "Israel exists because we sold them the land". And you don't mentioning even once the "Jewsih experiment" or "Zionism" in that "Palestinian narrative" is disingenous since Zionism, Europeans invading our land, is main root of Palestinian's narrative. Don't you think?
Did I say that Israel exists because Arabs sold them land? I don't think so.
I said they started by coming here and buying land. But from there many more came and at some point there were so many that they were starting to claim political authority. Please LMK what part of that is wrong!
Yes I agree that I should have mentioned Zionism. Thanks! But I think the sentiment is captured, no? When I say that the state of Israel should not exist, etc.
Before Thomas answers, you may want to clarify why you think that Zionism means "europeans", instead of jews, settling in Israel. And also why Zionism is based on invasion more than any of the Israel's neighbours.
Because Zionism was born in Europe, by Europeans. Am I wrong? This is nationalism, a pretty european thing, don't you think? Zionists don't use the word "invasion". They believe that the right to that land is God given. That they are direct descendants of people that were expelled from their homeland.
And what about the neighbouring countries?? Those countries are just artificial countries made up by France and England. They knew that they couldn't let Blad al-Sham (the organic Nation that is Palestine + Jordan + Lebanon + Syria + part of South Trkey and parts of west Iraq + Sinai) come to existence. The arab world should be 3 or 4 countries at most, not 22. Europe divided the arabs, put puppets in power to maintain the status quo. They forced the concept of Nation-State on us. We didn't need that and we ate it completely. But that's another subject.
Now back to Zionism. Yes, it's an Ashkenazi project. 100%. Of course, they needed the brown jews, even though they saw them as inferior. But they needed the numbers. Jews in Iraq, jews in Morocco. Before the 1900s were living pretty peacefully amongst muslims and christians. Same in Palestine. Why should a group claim the land for only their own "race" on top of an area in which they could live peacefully if they wanted. The answer is: Europeans in those time couldn't fathom the idea of co-existing with arabs. Now we call that racism, or ignorance. But back in the day it was the right decision, since science demonstrated race hierarchies.
Have you talked to any Hamas representative? Have you sit and chatted with a young Hamas fighter? How are you so confident about their intentions? You keep saying they don't want peace with Israel. After all, they are people you know? Not just savages. Also, since you started by sharing videos of attrocities made by Hamas mercenaries, you could also have added testimonies of how some israelis were treated humanly by Hamas fighters. Not all of them ignore the teachings of Islam, some have applied the teachings of their book by only targeting soldiers (the few that were present in those areas, for some reason).
Another question. Do you know if those Hamas soldiers that entered Israel returned to Gaza? I presume they were shot and killed by the IDF? Or did they wait for them to return to Gaza so that way they can bomb them behind the human shields they use?
I am not portraying the Hamas position, but the Palestinian position. I have listened to some and talked with others, recently, as well as read plenty. I went to Ramallah and Bethlehem a few years ago, and talked with many Palestinians back then. But of course I don't have a perfect picture! I would love to talk with more Palestinians, and would love to talk with Hamas representatives too. If you know how I can reach some, please reply to my email and tell me!
This article is about Hamas and Gaza, not about Israel. Israel's turn will come.
That said, after studying this for very long, I would argue that one of the worst issues in this conflict is whataboutism. So the reaction to one side doing something wrong should not be "What about the others?"
I think targeting soldiers is fair game in an armed conflict. I do not condemn that.
Some Hamas members were shot in Israel, some by IDF, some by locals. One of them can be seen in one of the videos I used for this, but I cut that part. Others went back, as can be clearly seen by taking the hostages back. I'm not sure what insight this question is driving.
Concerning being a "client state" of Israel. Yes, for a few years Gaza will be very economically dependent of Israel, but very quickly they can compete with Israeli ports with their cheaper labor, and they can industrialize Gaza itself, taking orders for manufacturing directly from Europe. This could start a virtuous cycle like the one that happened in east Asia.
But the more successful it is, the more connected it will be to Israel. Doing it differently would be mightily hard, as Gaza can’t really be a port like Singapore (that’s Suez). It could be like Dubai, less connected to the hinterland, but that’s 2x as hard
"13. Hamas rejects all attempts to erase the rights of the refugees, including the attempts to settle them outside Palestine and through the projects of the alternative homeland."
I find this article interesting. Are there projects to find alternative homeland for some Palestinians? Are there some Palestinians who would be happy with this? What do the existing residents of these lands think about the proposals?
Thanks for writing this series. I am finding it very informative.
Thank you, Tomas, for your thoughtful analysis. With all the near-term reporting on this war in the media you add tremendous value by presenting a nuanced case. I think this is the first time I’ve seen such a thoughtful analysis of the challenges in Gaza. You don’t condone in any way what Hamas is doing, yet you manage to help us see what is driving their evil actions. Understanding your enemy is essential in good strategy, and I appreciate your work in helping us do just that.
It’s a pleasure to see my intent well identified and appreciated. Thank you!
Exactly what he said. Very thoughtfully set out and achieves your goal of informing your readers. Looking forward to the next articles.
Tomas,
Am an avid yet silent reader on this series, because I dont know much about either side. Since you will cover Israel in this next article, could you touch upon why Jews have faced so much persecution historically ? Its hard for me to understand why one group of people should consistently face so much hatred and persecution for thousands of years.
Welcome to the comments section!
I won’t. Not because I don’t want to, but because it’s super complex. I am considering writing a post about it.
You have +1 support for that tentative post. Thankyou for daring to tread over landmines.
I second this 👍🏻
I learnt about this embarrassingly recently: most of it has to do with the Blood Curse in Christianity. The book of Matthew basically says that when Pontius Pilate had second thoughts about ordering the execution of Christ and calls it off, saying "I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves." And then a Jewish mob gathered to witness his execution answers, "His blood be on us and on our children!"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_curse?wprov=sfti1
A small part of it
An excellent article. My own impression from travels and talks in both Israel and Palestine is that there’s no solution to this conflict. When 80% of both Israelis and Palestinians believe that exterminating the enemy is the only solution, and that their God will assist them in that, they’ll keep on killing each other. This Holy Land is so tiny and can’t be divided into two independent states.. In the long run this will be a desert and the few inhabitants that remain will be ruled by a secular state which treats everybody alike.
I fear you're right
If Israelis are able to accommodate atleast West Bank peacefully i.e. no more settlements, basic public services and not encroaching on their territories and perhaps more job opportunities for them, it might show Gazans that Israel is serious on long term peace and we might go into the direction of vassal that Tomas mentioned here which is the only real solution as no other Arab state would support Palestinians as mentioned in previous article
Alas, israel doesn’t want that today
Hopefully once this conflict settles, cooler heads will prevail in both sides who relook at this.
As an Israeli I find this summary very close to the truth. I sympathize with Palestinians and I wish they find a way out of this trap (In Israel some people including me call it "self victimization"). I wish I knew what can I as an Israeli individual can do to help them.
There is something very specific. I will share it next week!
There have been a few articles over the years about Israeli theft of water, particularly in the West Bank, for illegal settlements and Israeli farms. Water is a critical resource in short supply (supplemented by desalination). Israelis use much more per day than Palestinians. Eliminating competition may play a part in the disproportionate response to Hamas's attacks.
Yes, water needs attention!
Let me find it. It had a red background with a man if the right forefront, black balding hair and glasses. It had the MEMRI logo in the upper right hand corner. I clicked over to see the video sources. I'll post a response as soon as I do locate it.
I covered Gaza from 2004 - 2014, so I know the perils of reporting this. The propaganda is thick on both sides, but this is the worst I've ever seen. It is really, really bad.
Oh yeah. Further down in the comments you said the Israelis (The Jerusalem Fund if my memory serves was the name of the group) bought land from Palestinians leading up to 1948. That is true— 7% was all they could buy. They couldn't make that work and the Nakba followed.
Thank you for your advice! Looking into MEMRI now.
Yes of course I didn't intend to suggest they bought everything.
Also there's a big jump from "they couldn't make it" to "Nakba followed", but of course you know about that.
Given your experience, I would love to know if you think the article would benefit from changes / additions
Thx!
Thomas, I understand the passion here. My question is why did you include a video from MEMRI? They are 100% hasbara, with strong ties to the Israeli government and a known disinformation distributor amongst academics, researchers and veteran reporters. Nobody who has covered this issue for any length of time will use them as a resource. What including them does is raise a red flag on the reporting with people experienced in this issue.
Hi! Thank you for your question.
Which video are you referring to? I browsed the videos quickly and can't find a watermark.
I also have videos from Hamas and TikTok, two propaganda machines. I find that the more sources I use, the more I can triangulate the truth, knowing that any given source is not fully reliable. This comes at the risk that some of the videos will be false, but usually I never rely on any single one, so the takeaways tend to stand even when a single video doesn't.
But please share more! I want to know.
I won't comment on public forums in detail, however if you connect with me on LinkedIn or subscribe to my free newsletter, I can correspond with you privately by email. Just give me the first three letters of your email and I'll be able to spot it in the subscribers. :)
Thank you, Tomás, for such an insightful piece. Looking forward to read the part on Israel in the coming weeks.
I hope you will also dedicate time to an overseen, but extremely important fact: The Palestine people are currently divided in two regions and two governments: Hamas rules Gaza, and Fatah (or the Palestinian Authority) rules (part of) the West Bank. Somehow, and in a very imperfect and unbalanced way, Fatah has been able to survive with Israeli intervention and little violence. When one reads about the structure of the Palestine Authority government, it sounds much more like a country, than what Hamas is doing in Gaza.
Just like Israelis are currently divided, so are Palestinians, and Fatah seems to be able to coexist better with Israel than Hamas. Maybe a path to a less violent coexistence runs through the Palestine Authority and Fatah? Both Western and Arab countries provide some money (not as much as needed) to the Palestine Authority/Fatah because they have agreed to create a government as close as possible to Western standards, while Hamas lost any economic support from the West due to their terrorist activity.
Countries like Iran, Russia, China will always be willing to support Hamas or other terrorist groups either overtly or covertly. Instead of spending energy and money trying to kill Hamas, why not spend more energy and money trying to strengthen the imperfect, but better model of Fatah? I hope you cover this topic in more detail.
The article about the West Bank is written! I was this close to release it with Gaza. But then it's already too long, and it's another topic really. So I will publish it next week! Fatah will be covered more in the context of Israel, because that's where I'll touch on the settlements, which is one of the core issues here
Very thoughtful question!
Thank you. As usual, you are ahead of the game, we just have to be patient! :)
I think you miss one important point. The government of Netanyahu relies heavely on Hamas. They support them and need them on Gaza so their policies against Palestine can reamin the same. If Hamas disappeard, they would hope for another violent gropu to appear. They want aggression so they can get more land, so when inevitable event comes of sitting down to negotiate the indpendence of Palestine, they will have advantage, they would have the upper hand in the negotiation.
For instance, they could invade northenr Gaza. Then, if they sit and negotiate they would say "okay, we will make concessions: we will give you northern Gaza back".
Netanyahu depends on the conflict to be in power, he knows that. Israelis, which are generally pretty well off economically, don't support extremists like him. He knows it, he is desperate, the context of a war is the only thing that would make him remain in power. Same with Hamas, even now it doesn't have full support form Palestinians, but in a context of peace, it would be inimaginable that Palestinains would support them. Hamas, is a complete normal homo sapiens response to Gaza's situation. But that's why there's so many efforts to portray a picture of them being "psychos" the "unprovoked attack", for people to see them as simply savages by nature, don't consider their context.
Nice. But boy, oh boy... At least try to hide a little bit your bias in favor of Israel man... But I respect that you literally admit it in the "Palestinain narrative"... Okay, let me do my version, but from the Israeli point of view:
"I believe I'm descendant from the Canaanite peoples that belived in only one God, called Yahwe.
They createtd several Kindoms like Judea or Israel.
Then they were expelled by several civilizations.
So, jews were spread around the world like rats. I don't believe any jew stayed in their land and just adopted the new empire's culture (be it Romans, be it Arabs). So I don't belive palestinains are descendants from jews. I cannot fathom it.
Well, let's come back to modern times.
In the 1800s europeans were crazy about science, categorization, classification, etc. They invented nationalism. Every Nation has a State.
My Ashkenazi jews were jealous about this new countries witn strong nationalities being built around Nation, culture.
Plus, europeans belived in races. Jews were an inferior race. Europeans hated jews. So some jews saw it as a good idea to create an independent country for the Jews.
In the early 1900s an important english guy sent a letter to an even more powerful jewish guy which proclaimed that Jews had the right the f* off from Europe and go procalim a new Nation-STate on top of the land they recently acquired. It says that they should always respect the integrity of the "NON-JEWSIH MINORITIES" (hahahah) that existed in the land.
Zionism was going well. My grandparents were very astute, they masterfully exploited this situation.
Nowadays, everyone has accpeted the occupation of Israel. Even though we try and try to be seen by the world as the victims, we can't do it properly...
So maybe now we should just own it, we should say "yeah, we won. We are stronger than you arabs. It sucks, but we won't go anywhere and if we can get more land we will do so. We see that even commiting war crimes gets very easily under the rug, so, if we can, we will...
I dOn'T kNoW wHy ArAbS hAtE uS... ThEy ArE aNtIsEmItIc...
Thank you for your comment Mouaad. I should have mentioned that this narrative is a mix of every position, from extreme pro-peace to extreme radical.
I will tackle the Israeli one next week as I mention.
In the meantime, I’m more interested in your narrative for the Palestinians. What would you write?
Thanks for contributing to the conversation. We all bring biases to the table, and only by talking we can neutralize them.
I think even the most pro-peace palestinain would not say that "Israel exists because we sold them the land". And you don't mentioning even once the "Jewsih experiment" or "Zionism" in that "Palestinian narrative" is disingenous since Zionism, Europeans invading our land, is main root of Palestinian's narrative. Don't you think?
Did I say that Israel exists because Arabs sold them land? I don't think so.
I said they started by coming here and buying land. But from there many more came and at some point there were so many that they were starting to claim political authority. Please LMK what part of that is wrong!
Yes I agree that I should have mentioned Zionism. Thanks! But I think the sentiment is captured, no? When I say that the state of Israel should not exist, etc.
Before Thomas answers, you may want to clarify why you think that Zionism means "europeans", instead of jews, settling in Israel. And also why Zionism is based on invasion more than any of the Israel's neighbours.
Because Zionism was born in Europe, by Europeans. Am I wrong? This is nationalism, a pretty european thing, don't you think? Zionists don't use the word "invasion". They believe that the right to that land is God given. That they are direct descendants of people that were expelled from their homeland.
And what about the neighbouring countries?? Those countries are just artificial countries made up by France and England. They knew that they couldn't let Blad al-Sham (the organic Nation that is Palestine + Jordan + Lebanon + Syria + part of South Trkey and parts of west Iraq + Sinai) come to existence. The arab world should be 3 or 4 countries at most, not 22. Europe divided the arabs, put puppets in power to maintain the status quo. They forced the concept of Nation-State on us. We didn't need that and we ate it completely. But that's another subject.
Now back to Zionism. Yes, it's an Ashkenazi project. 100%. Of course, they needed the brown jews, even though they saw them as inferior. But they needed the numbers. Jews in Iraq, jews in Morocco. Before the 1900s were living pretty peacefully amongst muslims and christians. Same in Palestine. Why should a group claim the land for only their own "race" on top of an area in which they could live peacefully if they wanted. The answer is: Europeans in those time couldn't fathom the idea of co-existing with arabs. Now we call that racism, or ignorance. But back in the day it was the right decision, since science demonstrated race hierarchies.
Really not ok to refer to other people as rats!
I stopped reading at "like rats"
Yeah, jews were treated like rats. Am I wrong? Jews have suffered a lot throughout the centuries. Are you denying it?
Have you talked to any Hamas representative? Have you sit and chatted with a young Hamas fighter? How are you so confident about their intentions? You keep saying they don't want peace with Israel. After all, they are people you know? Not just savages. Also, since you started by sharing videos of attrocities made by Hamas mercenaries, you could also have added testimonies of how some israelis were treated humanly by Hamas fighters. Not all of them ignore the teachings of Islam, some have applied the teachings of their book by only targeting soldiers (the few that were present in those areas, for some reason).
Another question. Do you know if those Hamas soldiers that entered Israel returned to Gaza? I presume they were shot and killed by the IDF? Or did they wait for them to return to Gaza so that way they can bomb them behind the human shields they use?
I am not portraying the Hamas position, but the Palestinian position. I have listened to some and talked with others, recently, as well as read plenty. I went to Ramallah and Bethlehem a few years ago, and talked with many Palestinians back then. But of course I don't have a perfect picture! I would love to talk with more Palestinians, and would love to talk with Hamas representatives too. If you know how I can reach some, please reply to my email and tell me!
This article is about Hamas and Gaza, not about Israel. Israel's turn will come.
That said, after studying this for very long, I would argue that one of the worst issues in this conflict is whataboutism. So the reaction to one side doing something wrong should not be "What about the others?"
I think targeting soldiers is fair game in an armed conflict. I do not condemn that.
Some Hamas members were shot in Israel, some by IDF, some by locals. One of them can be seen in one of the videos I used for this, but I cut that part. Others went back, as can be clearly seen by taking the hostages back. I'm not sure what insight this question is driving.
Excellent writings Tomas!
Perhaps the only thing you didn't indicate was "why" it was so easy for Hamas to enter this normally impenetrable fort called Israel?
It looks strange that it seemed so simple to cross the so protected border.
Thanks again for your writings!!
Dennis
Fair. It will be clear next week! The short is israel is divided.
Remarkable analysis, I think it's just spot on!
Thanks!
Concerning being a "client state" of Israel. Yes, for a few years Gaza will be very economically dependent of Israel, but very quickly they can compete with Israeli ports with their cheaper labor, and they can industrialize Gaza itself, taking orders for manufacturing directly from Europe. This could start a virtuous cycle like the one that happened in east Asia.
Agreed!
But the more successful it is, the more connected it will be to Israel. Doing it differently would be mightily hard, as Gaza can’t really be a port like Singapore (that’s Suez). It could be like Dubai, less connected to the hinterland, but that’s 2x as hard
"13. Hamas rejects all attempts to erase the rights of the refugees, including the attempts to settle them outside Palestine and through the projects of the alternative homeland."
I find this article interesting. Are there projects to find alternative homeland for some Palestinians? Are there some Palestinians who would be happy with this? What do the existing residents of these lands think about the proposals?
Thanks for writing this series. I am finding it very informative.
Gaza it is. And the West Bank.
Both are open to the idea. They just haven’t finalized an agreement.
Thank you for that analysis. Very interesting.
Great reporting Tomas, thank you 🙏