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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29883 thread views

Israel-Gaza Megathread #1

This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.

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Has Israel ever tried to create a puppet Palestinian authority? Find some moderate Fatah leaders, have them coup the rest of the movement and announce a policy of rapprochement: abandon their demands for the right of return in exchange for development aid. Have Fatah's own police arrest and beat up Palestinian stone-throwers. Then gradually have the new Fatah agree to a Bhutan-style relationship with Israel.

I don't think this is as easy mostly because of other regional actors like Iran or other Arab states who have exactly opposite aims and they also provide funding of their own for their own purposes. It is as if Ireland vs UK issues during the Troubles existed in the context of Irish were also being let's say French speaking with significance to the country of France.

And, as in the Troubles, the side that isn't taking enemy money has a huge advantage in elections. If the UK had funded a "Six Counties Peace Party" aimed at the Catholic/Nationalist community, then it would have struggled to do well in elections.

This requires a competent, long-term thinking government, which we currently do not have. We haven't had the luxury of non-idiots in government for about 15 years now, with a few minor breaks in-between.

The PA was supposed to be just that, but they didn't play along at first and then our internal demographics beat us.

Many would argue that the current PA already is the puppet Palestinian Authority.

Many would, yes, but so far they haven't done anything I've suggested. Are they taking things slower or just generally incompetent?

They're operating in a situation where any legitimacy they have operates on an extremely thin edge due to a perception of being basically a Bantustan government (and remember, even actual Bantustan govts during apartheid tried to hold to a perception of nominal independence, had tiffs with the SA government etc.) Any separate entity established specifically by Israel would have zero legitimacy.

Based on what?

This was the sentiment among basically every Arab I have talked with in the West Bank. PA is pretty unpopular among people and it is propped up by mostly financial streams that Israel either directly (border levies between West Bank/Jordan) or indirectly (foreign aid that Israel can cut easily if it wants) controls. If there were elections tomorrow they would almost certainly lose against a much more radical faction.

hamas is probably about as corrupt as the PA, but at least they occasionally accomplish things. the PA twiddling its thumbs while israel acts with impunity in the west bank is destroying their legitimacy to the point where israel is trying to keep it from collapsing.

hamas is probably about as corrupt as the PA, but at least they occasionally accomplish things.

Yes, but the sign of those "accomplishments" is the problem.

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