Posted By Marc Lynch
Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 12:19 PM
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The contours of the response to the Gaza flotilla fiasco are now coming into sharper public view: the Israeli government will significantly ease the blockade of Gaza in exchange for American support for a whitewash of the investigation of the flotilla incident. As I've said many times on Twitter, this is a good deal. No investigation was ever going to produce anything of any particular value, but easing the blockade of Gaza could have significant positive effects for the people of Gaza, the prospects of Palestinian reconciliation, the peace process, and American credibility in the region. None of those will happen on their own, of course. And nobody is likely to be fully satisfied with the new measures. I've been quite critical of how the Obama team has handled the Israeli-Palestinian track, and particularly the Gaza situation -- and if they had moved strongly to resolve the Gaza blockade a year ago, the issue wouldn't have been there now to exploit. But now, I think they deserve some real credit for nudging Israel towards finally making a move which could over time open up some real new possibilities for progress.
I know a lot of people won't agree with me on this, but trading off the investigation for the blockade was the right move. It is difficult to imagine what value even a real, independent international investigation of the flotilla incident would possibly have. The incident itself was only a minor one in the longer, deeper story of the Gaza blockade -- a fiasco waiting to happen, not a bolt from the blue. An investigation narrowly focused on the flotilla and what happened during the Israeli boarding would be of only marginal value, while the process itself would be hopelessly politicized. The Israeli self-study seems designed to be self-discredting. By appointing David Trimble, founder of a "Friends of Israel" group, as one of the two international observers, they have more or less guaranteed that the results will be pleasing to their sympathizers and totally discredited in the eyes of everyone else. So be it.
Gaza itself has always been the point for most people, not the flotilla itself. Israel's blockade of Gaza has long been widely recognized as a failure, harming the people of Gaza while strengthening Hamas and serving as a focal point for international anger. Hawks will complain that this is the wrong time to ease the blockade because it will allow Hamas to claim a victory, but that's a weak argument -- Israel, and the United States, have had many long months to ease the blockade on their own terms and have refused. Without a forcing incident, it was clear that nothing would change. But change was clearly needed.
Obama could have taken office and forced the issue of the Gaza blockade as a way of demonstrating real change from the Bush administration, and in the aftermath of the Israeli war against Gaza this would likely have commanded widespread international support. But for whatever reason, the Obama administration chose to continue the Bush administration's policy of focusing on the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority and excluding Hamas. Secretary of State Clinton's promises of some $900 million in U.S. aid for Gaza at Sharm el-Sheikh in March 2009 amounted to little on the ground ... an early, and still tragic, instance of the pattern of promises without delivery on these issues.
That's the past. The Obama administration now deserves credit for focusing on Gaza and helping to convince the Netanyahu government to make substantial changes to the Gaza blockade. The emerging system seems likely to shift from a system which kept out a vast and bewildering array of goods and products to one with a much more tightly defined black list of items with military applications. A much wider range of food and materials should now be able to enter, allowing for greater rebuilding and a more normal life -- ideally, while also reducing the near-complete dependence of Gazans on the Hamas-controlled tunnel smuggling trade. It's not the full lifting of the blockade which many have demanded, but it's still a significant change -- one that sort of reminds me of the attempt to create "smart sanctions" on Iraq back in 2001, as the U.S. came to recognize that the old sanctions regime had almost totally collapsed, and only served to strengthen Saddam's regime. Much will depend on how the new system is implemented, something about which past experience isn't reassuring, but this is still a significant change which shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.
To get the most out of this move, it should only be the first step. The UN, NGOs, and the international community should take advantage of the new system to begin serious reconstruction and development efforts. The distribution of the goods should be done in such a way as to break the Hamas monopoly, but not explicitly as an anti-Hamas weapon. New efforts should be made to revive Hamas-Fatah reconciliation talks to try to restore some semblance of a unified Palestinian entity (current signs are not promising, as the Egyptian foreign minister continues to take a hard line). A serious strategic communications campaign should try to convince Palestinians and Arabs that the U.S. has finally delivered something of substance on an issue they care about. And this then should be used to jump-start peace talks from a more positive position. All tall orders, I know -- but it's so unusual to actually have some positive, forward momentum on key issues, and to have the Obama administration helping to deliver on something important in this arena, that now is a time for a rare flash of optimism.
I think that the jury is still out
The problem is that Israel reserves the right to forbid "dual-use material", and they define dual-use very broadly. For example, apologists for the Israeli government have justified the ban on basic construction materials, like cement, by saying that Hamas could use it to build bunkers. But thousands of homes were destroyed in the 2008 invasion, and the people of Gaza desperately need to rebuild.
Likewise, the Gaza economy is shut down for lack of raw materials. If you're running a jail, the people only need food and survival necessities. For people to have a decent life, they need to be able to manufacture, trade, and export.
So, we'll have to see how the easing of the blockade works in practice.
Israel allows non-military type supplies into Gaza. Hamas puts a stop to attacks against the State Of Israel. The non-Hamas citizenry now begins to rebuild their business's without Hamas taking a cut of everything. Hamas does not use these new supplies to build missles to launch against Israel. Israel no longer needs to attack targets in Gaza. Sounds like a plan.
a bigot and an antisemite.
I think you have things backwards, Freeda. Stop being so angry and recognize Israel's right to exist.
Jew propaganda? Is this 1939? Are you doing a
Heil Hitler salute Sami? You are one sick son of a bitch....racist, bigot, antisemite.
Volksy really is priceless....
Back in WW II the Germans rounded up 100 Frenchmen/Whomever to be shot for every one of the occupiers that was killed. In the latest to-do in Gaza it was 1400 Palestinian women/children/men (some doubtlessly Hamas), to the 14 Israeli IDF soldiers. Do the math.
Israeli leadership has been up-front for over 50 years about pursuing "disproportional" retaliation against those who oppose it. Gotta give them marks for consistent through the years, as well as the historical precedent for failure they appear to be following, as suggested by their occupation model. When applied against a civilian population, all brute force empowers is a strengthened resistence.
I would say to Volksy, your problem is expecting to reach peace by defeating some "enemy", when you are empowering them. You (clearly an uncritical apologist/lawyer for right wing Israel) seem unable to conceive of the Palestinian's being Human and worthy of basic Human fairness. Yes, it will be horribly messy sorting things out and getting to some accommodation that is a good enough deal to invalidate the mission of Hamas, but you're either part of the solution or part of the problem. The first thing YOU need to do is look honestly in the mirror, without all your jackbooted self-righteousness, and get straight with what you're really up to.
too bad casualty ratios don't mean shit when it comes to
morality or who is right or wrong. The U.S. has the same casualty ratio in afghanistan. For every one U.S. soldier dead, we kill hundreds of taliban. So, by your logic, the U.S. must be in the wrong. I'd hate to fight a war with you as the general!
Amen realitycheck...not to mention that
none of these "militant" palestinian supporters have even ever been to Gaza or Israel nor speak Arabic. They are akin to the Islamic converts like Richard Reid or John Lindh who feel that to be taken seriously as muslims, they have to out do those born muslims with even greater fanaticism.
VILKSSWEDEN: "by your logic, the U.S. must be in the wrong."
By any logic but, apparently, yours, the US is in the wrong. The US has now been in Afghanistan allegedly fighting al Qaeda, a non-state actor, for nine years to no avail. There is no more validity to be in Afghanistan than in the US, where, after all, the 9/11 attack took place, where numbers of the hijackers (15 Saudis, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt, and one from Lebanon, none from Afghanistan) who allegedly carried out the attack trained to do it, and where they lived while they prepared.
Or, perhaps, the US should have attacked Germany. Some of the 9/11 crew were allegedly there, too.
Try discussing something where knowledge and logic don't need to be involved.
Ye shall know him by his actions
If this is the first step in a process then this is good news. If this is a short term bending to relieve pressure then this is a waste of time and of the lives of those killed trying to bring this about. I agree the inquiry will be a whitewash and in any case everything about the events of that night are already in the public domain it is just that no one can agree on how to interpret them.
When Pres. Bush got interested the Israelis signed up to the AMA but it was already being ignored before Hamas won the election after which it the already bad situation really got horrific.
I hope it is for real but if the Israelis thing they can get away with it then they will just close the crossings down again. If it does work it will be because the US keeps the pressure on. If it doesn't then the US are not serious about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The Muslim world, and I, will be watching this administration and how they act now will determine if the real Obama is the one that gave the Cairo speech or the one who has left the Bush foreign policy largely unchanged.
Can we stop talking about a 'peace process' because it's clear that there's not going to be one until Israel's established its facts on the ground. Including the peace process in the equation over the flottila deal is unrealistic and it's tiresome seeing commentators on the region continually referring to something that's not going to happen in any meaningful way.
Before we jump the gun and automatically assume that the Gaza blockade is going to be a success and a pretext for future Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, perhaps we should just sit and wait to see if the policy is going to be implemented correctly. Middle Eastern history is rife with compromises that seemed positive and reassuring in the present, but then faded away and soured in the future. The fuel-swap deal last October that was supposed to dissuade the Iranians from enriching uranium to higher levels turned out to a political maneuver by Tehran to stall for more time. Likewise, Barack Obama's election victory was supposed to usher into a brand new era of Mideast peacemaking, both in terms of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and in terms of America's relationship with the wider Muslim world. But eighteen months later, the United States is still trying to get out of Iraq despite the lack of an Iraqi Government, and Washington is still stagnant in Afghanistan despite the tens of thousands of additional American troops that are entering the country this summer.
The point is not to disparage Israel's decision to ease up on the Gaza blockade. In fact, I've been passionately argued for this kind of step for months on this forum and elsewhere. Israel will not increase its security by endorsing a policy of collective punishment on those who live in Gaza. In fact, boycotting the Gaza Strip has only threatened Israel in the long term, hurting its legitimacy in the eyes of much of the world and angering the Muslim world, which plays right into the hands of Al'Qaeda, Hezbollah, the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, and Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
With that being said, Israel's decision should be applauded and expanded. Israel's list of banned items has always been a bit overbearing. We should just hold our breath to see if it actually works. But if this weekend's shift in policy is any indication, my past concerns are now starting to look a lot less like hopeless rants.
http://www.depetris.wordpress.com
Israel and Hamas are at war. When the U.S. was at war we
blockaded Germany and Japan. Not even cow shit got past our blockade to help the "poor germans" and "poor japanese." Likewise the Israelis don't have to let anything through. Oh and by the way, the U.S. also carpet bombed and fire bombed in addition to its total blockade.
@VILKSSWEDEN , but America didn't send settlers to land of Japan of Germany, America didn't occupy Japan or German's land illegaly , It were Japanese and Germans armies which were occupying the other's land. So looks like Israel does replace Nazi Germany who used to block all foods for people in occupid lands. So Next time you compare some scenario , think before you post it, It could bite back to you.
The U.S. developed Japan and Germany after
we totally annihilated them. We also gave away "german" land to Poland, France, and Czechoslovakia. Also, we allowed the "population transfer" aka expulsion of over 12 million ethnic germans (from places like france, poland, czechoslovakia, romania, etc.). That transfer and annexation of land by "victor" countries is estimated at causing 500,000 to 1 million German dead.
So, Israel could always do that too....if you would prefer it to a blockade. They could then build up the palestinian state in Jordan. (75% palestinian, 77% territory taken from the palestine mandate, and ruled by a petty king hailing from Saudi Arabia).
And I do believe we still occupy Okinawa...depending on
which of the locals you ask.
also, depending on who you ask....our military presence there is stronger than the entire german army.
First Khan, I am of swedish origin
but your small mind can only think of "joos" supporting Israel. It's just not possible other people love Israel, like all the Finns that showed up in the thousands recently to support Israel in Helsinki.
Second, Palestinians lack any morality in warfare. Where as Tanks target military installations, suicide bombers and palestinian snipers specifically target innocent civlians. So, the playing field is not so unequal. If Israel did the same thing, i.e. go after civilians with maximum efficiency and power, then the whole of gaza would be wiped out.
Also, how many taliban have tanks and fighter planes? Should the US not engage them at all? Maybe NATO forces should get rid of their tanks, artillery, and planes so we can now fight them in a way you agree with? Just like the Hamas and Palestinians, the Taliban lack tanks and planes. So, is the US wrong for fighting them? Should we just throw stones at them?
A better idea...for each suicide bombing against Israeli civilians, why doesn't Israel retaliate in kind? Israel can bomb one of their schools or buses. Would that make you happier?
If you want to talk about the present, then Israel is at war with the palestinians. Total embargo is fair as a part of war and Israel should not allow even a piece of camel shit to enter Gaza. Maybe when there is peace, Israel can help build up "palestine" as the US did germany and Japan. Until there is peace, then there will be fighting.
By the way, where is your protest of Turkish, Syrian, and Iranian treatment of the Kurds? No issues there in your mind? No need to "free kurdistan?" Only the, so called "Jooos" are guilty right? This is what we call bigotry.
Abbas to Obama: I'm against lifting the Gaza naval blockade
The Palestinian president reportedly told Obama that lifting the naval blockade of Gaza would bolster Hamas, a move that shouldn't be done at this stage.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is opposed to lifting the naval blockade of the Gaza Strip because this would bolster Hamas, according to what he told United States President Barack Obama during their meeting at the White House Wednesday. Egypt also supports this position.
I guess you all know Palestinian politics and the situation much better than Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas?
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/abbas-to-obama-i-m-against-lifting-the-gaza-naval-blockade-1.295771
Abbas to Obama: I'm against lifting the Gaza naval blockade
The Palestinian president reportedly told Obama that lifting the naval blockade of Gaza would bolster Hamas, a move that shouldn't be done at this stage.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is opposed to lifting the naval blockade of the Gaza Strip because this would bolster Hamas, according to what he told United States President Barack Obama during their meeting at the White House Wednesday. Egypt also supports this position.
I guess you all know Palestinian politics and the situation much better than Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas?
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/abbas-to-obama-i-m-against-lifting-the-gaza-naval-blockade-1.295771
Khan, more people are starving in your homeland of Pakistan
than in Gaza. Not ONE SINGLE PERSON has died of malnutrition or starvation in Gaza. Even abbas didn't want the siege lifted. But of course, maybe you know more than the president of the palestinian authority.
Don’t believe a word of those who claim Gazans are starving. Photos taken in December last year by someone who broke the blockade revealed a market overflowing with produce. The Financial Times wrote last month of Gaza being “flooded (with) Korean refrigerators, German food mixers and Chinese airconditioning units”.
In October last year, Fairfax correspondent Jason Koutsoukis reviewed the delicious food at Gazan restaurants he’d been frequenting. Gazans live longer (73.68 years) and have a higher birthrate (36.26 births/1000 people) than neighbouring, non-blockaded Egypt (72.40 and 25.02, respectively). These are not the statistics of a starving people.
Of course Khan will dismiss this as "joo" propaganda. Anything that he disagrees with is "propaganda." Too bad Khan has never been to Gaza, Israel, the West Bank, or nearly anywhere. Too bad life expectancy is also higher in Gaza than it is in most parts of his native pakistan (non-blockaded). Maybe Jason Koutsoukis is really a "joooo" pretending to be a Greek. He can't know more than anyone else, having just BEEN THERE himself.
There might be no "benefit" to an honest international investigation, but it is DEEPLY disappointing that Obama would shield Israel as GW Bush would have done. He campaigned on being different and upholding international law and human rights and has reneged on that promise. I would far rather have a statement condemning the use of force against human rights activists than any secret backroom deal. Obama is the world's greatest disappointment in a very, very long time.
A little objectivity please, Marc
...in exchange for American support for a whitewash of the investigation of the flotilla incident...
Whitewash? Marc, is it too much to ask that you leave your biased and slanderous statements on your own blog?
I am sure you know Israel will never get a fair hearing from the UN. An investigation headed by former respected members of their judiciary with international observers is as fair as it could ever get.
(I am sure you saw Turkey killed a teenage girl over the weekend during their invasion of Iraq. Let's listen for the same howls of outrage from the UN ... {crickets chirping}. Then again, what does one expect, Turkey is the one leading the Lynch mob, pun intended ;o)
So everybody's gonna love everybody now
Here comes Lynch singing to the tune of Barney on Sesame Street:
Obama spoke and the world quivered
So the U.S. has delivered
something of substance
To make the Arab states dance
and jump-start peace talks.
No there won't be any more hawks
warring in the middle east
because It's going to be a love feast.
It's a done deal, it's a cinch
Because we've got Marc Lynch
with a profound vision of history
as he sings: I love you and you love me!
Silly Western reporters think like little kids and keep buying
Arab propoganda, there is no humanatarian crisis in gaza why do alll the western journalists seem to think this without knowing facts. This writer is fully buying the Hamas nerrative and saying that we should reward the hamas for being a good boy and not the worst scum terror group on earth. The only means of pressure on hamas is the blockade. The only thing that is going to change from this is that hamas will get stronger, if they wanted they would have signed the deal for palestinian unity a long time ago they don't want to. The floatilla unfortunately worked and all the dumbass western reporters jumped on Israel and made a big deal out of it from the comments I read I see that people still think those were peace activists haha with knives and sticks ready to kill. The view of the U.S is not going to change one bit, Odumbo is precived as a weak leader that everyone can step on look at turkey and brazil, he will whitewash thew investigation, gee thanks because we already have seen how these " truthfull " investigations take place. The only reason someone thought of an investigation is the foolish western media, why don't all you geniouses think about Egypt their arab brother, they have a boarder with gaza too, and if all these humanatarians want goods to go to gaza they should send it from there.
You are tghinking like a little kid, you think that now we ahould start all these construction projects and make gaza a modern western state, been there tried that, Israel left in 2005 and before hamas nothing good came out of gaza back than too. you guys are playing right into the hands of the terrorists the u.s should suck up to arabs and hamas and they will like us now and don't worry after Israel the western world is next .
Khan let me asj you a question?
WHy did the hamas fire rockets at Israel once Israel has left the gaza strip??? WHy why why? you have no answer unless you are willing to admit that they are radical muslims which only care about killing the fact is that there was no blockade of anything and the gaza strip had a chnace to do whatever they wanted, they could have build a future, they had a chance to show the world how palestinians can rule themselves, not one Israeli in gaza soldier or civilian, they could have done great things and they chose war don't come crying now once you ask for war. There is a blockade so what we are at war, write about hamas not Israel it is all on them, and there is no humanatarian crisis. When was the last time you have been to
Israel the west bank or gaza, that you know and write about all these things like war crimes aparathied etc... I know what we are like and I know we only act in self defense no one is perfect we make mistakes, you have never been here you onlly use slogans and words, the muslim world has an aparathied system when it comes to women, they have their own rules that is real aparatied go fight for their rightd you fake, hypocrit, how many died in sudan last year mr human rights huh? Is it your hate for Israel that drives you or is it "humanity" some arab probably pays you to smear Israel. You try to act like an american patriot but everyone can tell you are a racist hater and no one buys it so you can stop trying to act like you care about america, everyone knows what you represent.
You must forget about the partition plan, who wanted war? Who started the intifadah, who started using terror yes that is what it is, the wall only came after the suicide bombings, whatexactly do you call those can you answer that??????terror against civilians????, why do you keep lying about the siege, there was none untill they started shooting at the boarder crossings, you started a war and you lost now you want the land back, nothing I ever heard of in the history of the world. so it would be ok if Israel shot Kassams back at the palestinians? What kind of balogny excuse is that, they have bad weapons, their intentions and those weapons are real and they kill people, it is stupid to say we can't defend ourself because their weapons are not as good as ours, why do they shoot them if they are hramless???
Another Blow to Palestinian Self-determination
The upshot of this deal - if it truly is a deal, which I doubt - seems to be that the United States has reaffirmed the principle that the Israelis are the ones who have the ultimate say in determining what goods and people go in and out of Gaza. No international body, no other countries, and certainly not the Palestinian people, are to be permitted interference with effective Israeli sovereignty in Gaza.
This seems a strange position for a country like the United States that allegedly supports the creation of a Palestinian state
Here are some agaonizing photos of the brutal siege in Gaza from a Gaza newspaper.
www.paltoday.com/arabic/News-64161.html&hl=en&langpair=auto%7Cen&tbb=1&ie=windows-1256
Here is a newspaper article in last week's New York Times describing the absolute destitution in Gaza.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/weekinreview/13bronner.html
Here are the peace activists planning their aid to the people of Gaza
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3L7OV414Kk
Here are them organizing their peaceful resistance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TxchZ39e-s
Here is the IDF threatening the ship and the peace activists telling them that they just want to deliver aid to Gaza.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OFAUeZE2ww
Here is a video of IDF forces brutally attacking the activists as they board the ship.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZct0v3A7L8
Here is a story of the aid finally reaching Gaza despite Israeli protests.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100602/wl_mideast_afp/israelconflictgazahamasaid
Here is a story about Hamas' generosity to the people of Gaza.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/06/gaza-un-aid-hamas
Olympic swimming pools, filled markets, 4 star restaurants....
yeah, these people are starving to death....not like those undeserving people in Somalia or the Congo.
http://ghadry.com/pictures-from-gaza-and-the-rest-of-the-muslim-world/
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001114.html
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000973.html
http://www.rootsclub.ps/index.php
You antisemitic muslims have no shame
and believe in fairy tails of whatever you want. You saw the pictures but you deny it. You are in an advanced stage of islamic rage! you have the islamic rage virus I think. The only cure is to detonate yourself or convert to a non-violent religion. Try meditation, it might help. And, guess what, the life expectancy in Gaza is currently higher than in non-blockaded Egypt.
Let us not investigate anything...
When the question of executive overreach and torture came up, I remember Tom Friedman saying that Cheney, Bush and Co. shouldn't be investigated because it would lead to problems at a time when bipartisanship was required, that it would do no good, it would divide the country, among other scary things.
Impartial investigations can't be done away with because their outcome won't lead to perceived benefits, any more than investigations should compulsorily be conducted simply because the outcome is perceived to be beneficial.
Any state's crimes can be left to the state itself to investigate because its partiality would "totally discredit [it] in the eyes of everyone else."
Let us not investigate anything...
When the question of executive overreach and torture came up, I remember Tom Friedman saying that Cheney, Bush and Co. shouldn't be investigated for violations because it would lead to problems at a time when bipartisanship was required, that it would do no good, it would divide the country, among other scary things. in short, the investigations would benefit no one, except of course, America's enemies.
Impartial investigations can't be done away with because their outcome won't lead to perceived benefits, any more than investigations should be instituted simply because the outcome is perceived to be beneficial.
Any state's crimes can be left to the state itself to investigate because its partiality would "totally discredit [it] in the eyes of everyone else."
You can't have unity with terrorists.
Maybe what is really needed is another Israeli invasion to remove them from power.
Comment of Mr. Lynch's article
I hope that Mr. Lynch will write an article about the Turkish government's
blockade of financial resources to the Kurdish people of southern Turkey.
I also hope that he will write about the destruction of thousands of Kurdish
villages by the Turkish military. Further, I hope that he will write about
the recent Turkish military incusions into northern Iraq to destroy
Kurdish rebels who fight against the abuse of the Turkish government.
Turkey has positioned itself as the defender of human rights for the Palestinians? What about the human rights of the Kurds in Turkey?
What about the innocent non violent Kurdish political protesters
held in Turkish prisons?
I would appreciate it if Mr. Lynch would make some comments on it?
during the ceasefire before the gaza attack, hamas stopped 98% of attacks from gaza. Israel was supposed to allow in 98% more supplies in, but the tricky jews tricked them and the blockade continued.
"Hamas does not use these new supplies to build missles to launch against Israel. Israel no longer needs to attack targets in Gaza. Sounds like a plan."
sounds like a plan that keeps replica TAG failing. how about a new one: Israel does not blockade gaza, or attack from tanks, planes, artillery, snipers, and regular troops (which kills tens of thousands). Gaza no longer needs to attack targets in israel (which has killed 7 ppl). Sounds like a better plan.
Are you all, starting with Lynch, completely insane? The blockade was supposed to let people of Gaza understand that so long as they support the vile Islamofascists of Hamas, their lives will be miserable. SazkyThe alternative to that was for Israel to go in all the way and remove Hamas by force. Blockade actually worked - both in Gaza, where the majority of the population today prefers Fatah, and in the West Bank, where, seeing the alternative, the populace decided to embrace an effective and pragmatic, however illegitimate, rule of Fayyad and Abbas. Well, now Obambi has removed the stick.
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