Talk Elections

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/world/middleeast/palestinian-factions-announce-deal-on-unity-government.html?hp&_r=0

So it seems the West Bank (well the small bits of it) and the Gaza Strip are to be reunited under one regime. 6 months of interim government followed by free elections throughout the WB and Gaza.

Interesting conundrum for the Israeli right wing, they kept saying Abbas is not a legitimate partner because he does not control Gaza and has no legitimacy to his rule. Now he will have both legitimacy and sovereignty (so called) over Gaza, I expect a new line for refusing negotiation to be drawn soon.

If there are elections, I doubt Abbas will remain in power. Even if he's still president, a new parliament would likely give his powers to a new PM.

And it remains to be seen if this deal will fall apart as others have before.

My suspicion is that Hamas will be the winners in the election

I'm pretty sure the Israeli Right would prefer to negotiate with Abbas than Hamas...


It remains to be seen if Israel allows the "elections" to occur... Don't be surprised to see a full-scale invaision of the West Bank and Gaza before then.

Oh I don't doubt that Israel will try to intervene, but I expect them to attempt something subtler and less expensive than a full scale invasion unless Israel decides to align itself with Putin instead of Obama.

You say that as a joke, but Israel has been pretty much neutral in most of the international crises regarding Russia and the Israeli right (which has a lot of Russian Jews) has often been friendly towards Moscow in recent years.

Yeah, it was intended as a serious joke all along.  Still, I think even the most put upon Zionist would recognize that Putinstan would stab Israel in the back without a moment's hesitation if Putin thought it served his interests whereas Artsot Habrit, while it at times can be exasperating to them, is not likely to leave its 51st State in the lurch when needed.

Hamas will control the West Bank in six months. The peace process is entirely over now. Batten down the hatches.

Indeed and Israel bears the entire blame for that.

The peace process has been dead for years.

If the genocidal terror cult of Hamas wasn't bound and determined to kill every last Jew in Israel, things might be different.

For ten years, Abbas has been president. For ten years, Israel has had the option of negotiating with a Palestinian leader who has been more accommodating to them than any who came before him and any who will come after him.

And they stalled and hemmed and hawed and moved goalposts and their window of opportunity is closing.

If the suicide bombs start happening again, I will not have an ounce of sympathy for Israel. At that point, they will have brought it on themselves.

And if the Zionists weren't bound and determined to push the Arabs off their land, things might be different.  However, playing the blame game won't get the situation any closer to a solution.  It may well get worse for the next little bit, but the apparent desire of the Zionists for the Palestinians to roll over and be good obedient poodles in the kennels set aside for them was never going to work.  Not enough poodles.  I don't know what the solution is, but the existing approach certainly was not a stable solution and it never could have been.

Stay classy anti-Zionist.

As usual, Israel lovers calls any people blaming Israel for the failure of negiociations.
The great country of Israel, offering shelter to violent anti-gay Hasidic offenders?

Well, to be fair, I am an anti-Zionist because Zionism is an inherently racist ideology. I'm not, however, an anti-Semite and abhor people who are (which would include a sizable chunk of Hamas, I'm sure).

Abbas wasn't that moderate. His one constant demand for the past decade has been to release more and more unrepentant (intentional) child murderers.

Not that Israel couldn't have played the bigger man more often. They could have. It's not like the Palestinians have ever behaved rationally though.

It's normal.
Peace in Northern Ireland included freedom for terrorists, too. Peace has a price, and both sides must pay it.

Can you name one instance of a Loyalist or Republican who intentionally targeted civilian children who was released as part of the peace process?

The attack on Lord Mountbatten boat. A crew member of 15 and his grandson of 14 were killed (around Lord Mountbatten and his mother-in-law). Bomb was placed by Thomas McMahon, sentenced to life in 1979, freed in 1998 after Good Friday Agreement.

On Bloody Sunday, 7 teenagers were killed, but obviously the shooters weren't freed, as they were never prosecuted.

I'm sure there is better examples.

I doubt it, I even think they will lose the election in Gaza to the IJ and Fatah

The suicide bombs won't happen... the wall has stopped them from coming in and the rocket attacks are being blunted by Iron Dome. The Palestinian terrorists are running out of weapons.

So what is Israel's rationale for refusing to negotiate? The suicide bombings have stopped. The rocket attacks don't actually work.

And the PLO recognized the State of Israel back in 1988. So what exactly does Israel want them to do that they haven't already done?

Meanwhile, Israel has refused to halt illegal settlement construction and continues to deny that they possess nuclear weapons even as they engage in antagonism with Iran.

Is that the behavior of a country that wants peace?

I'm surprised Israel hasn't nuked the West Bank/Gaza to this day... They're pariahs internationally already, what more is there to lose?

Way too close of them.

I think there's some silliness about recognizing Israel as an explicitly Jewish State, and fighting over settlements and security and Jersualem.

The whole area is only about 200 miles long and 50 miles wide.

Nukes aren't that big.  It would take a half dozen (at least) of the biggest nukes in the US arsenal* to cover the Gaza Strip and if the wind is blowing out of the west 99% of the citizens of Israel wouldn't even know it happened until they saw it on the news.


You guys will need to come up with another reason they haven't nuked them yet.  Perhaps the Illuminati told them not to?


*we're not sure what kind of boomers the Israelis have, likely smaller than the biggest the US has

So Israel can make it so the wind will never blow east in the region again?

It would be fundamentally bigoted to recognize it as a Jewish state when there is a sizable portion of the population that isn't Jewish and that lived there longer than most of the Jewish residents did.

Israel was founded for the purpose of being a country where Jews would be able to practice their religion openly and not have to worry about discrimination or persecution. At the time, there were few countries meeting that criteria. As far as I can tell, all of those needs can be met without classifying them as an explicitly Jewish state.

Furthermore, what difference does it make? If Israel considers themselves a Jewish state, that's their business. Why in the world would they need the "permission" of Palestine or any other foreign country to call themselves that?

You're preaching to the choir here.

Also, forgot one more thing: Right of return for Palestinian refugees. Israel has refused to accept that.

A majority of Jews who live in Israel where born in Israel.

A majority of Palestinian refugees whose parents left Israel proper have never even visited Israel proper.

The former, by choice.

The latter, by force.

Bit of a difference.

And before you go off on some piece about how Israel was "attacked" I'd direct your attention to Deir Yassin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin), which declared itself neutral in the 1948 civil war and was still destroyed by Israel. If Israel was attacked by Jordan, Egypt and Syria, it sounds like a matter they should take up with Jordan, Egypt and Syria. I fail to see how you can blame the Palestinian people for that.

Yes, of course.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/27/us-palestinian-israel-holocaust-idUSBREA3Q08E20140427