The 2 state solution used to be a reasonable approach but Palestinians have repeatedly refused reasonable accommodations with Israel. While I have not been supportive of the hardline Israeli settlers, the recent history of Hamas and Daesh have proved them right - there is no partner for peace with Israel. And today's partner will become tomorrow's enemy. Those do-gooders in the US and Europe who support the "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions" against Israel should look at this article and decide if they would tolerate terrorists in their own backyard, before condemning Israel. Then they should wonder why they have singled Israel out - if not for antisemitic reasons.
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“Hamas is essentially a Palestinian national movement whose main effort is directed against Israel”
This is disgusting to be written in The NY Times. Isabel, stop with your bias.
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hard article to understand.ideally 2 state solution but what if crazies take over west bank,Israel in trouble.
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Who are our friends in the Islamic world today, and for how long will it last?
They are client states with the loyalty of paid mourners.
Christianity is over in that part of the world.
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Islam can always continue stating that it is a religion based on love and forgiveness. The rest of the world will continue accepting the statement and only condemn this "non-Islamic" faction of Islam.
WAKE - UP
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Israel is at fault because it won't make peace with the terrorists who don't recognize it's righ to exist...who aren't extreme enough for the other terrorists who don't recognize it's right to exist. Obviously.
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Orders come directly from Bibi and MBS conglomerate. It has been known that ISIS and Al-Qaeda has yet to attack Israeli/Saudi interest anywhere
No surprise here; I just wonder when the people of the Arab world understand who their friends are.
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No matter how much ISIS hates Jews, it doesn't want to face the Israeli military which, unlike the U.S., will send in ground troops.
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There is only one country in the Middle East where Moslems, Jews and Christians coexist in relative harmony. That country is Israel.
All the Moslem countries in the Middle East have forced out all the Jews and are currently working to terrorize, kill or expel their Christians populations. Next it will be time to get rid of the Sufi.
Based on their behavior over decades and decades, none of the Middle Eastern Moslem entities show any religious tolerance whatsoever. These are the facts that Israel must deal with on an ongoing basis.
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Hamas is essentially a Palestinian national movement in the same way that the Nazis were essentially a German national movement. Technically true, perhaps, but leaves out a few important descriptors, such as "openly genocidal."
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Reading the comments, it seems there is no hope for a two state solution in Israel. It is therefore time for a one state solution where all historic residents of Israel / Palestine are allowed to return and are offered citizenship and the right to vote. Equal rights without regard to religion should be guaranteed. To gain or retain voting rights, citizens should be required to swear loyalty to a constitutional government which protects religious liberty and democracy. Critics would say the Palestinians can not be trusted. While that might be true for some, it is also true for Right Wing Jewish organizations who have voting rights and have undermined the Two State Solution. If Palestinian extremists are denied their civil rights, denial of those rights should be applied against Jewish extremists also. If a One State solution is not desired, then both sides should return to the 1948 borders established by the United Nations.
There IS hope for a two state solution but it requires that Arab Palestinians accept the right of Israel to exist and that they stop teaching their children that Jews must be wiped from the face of the earth. Then Arab Palestinians can build a nation that could be the "Singapore of the Middle East!
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If there's a one-state solution, it should be Palestine and Jordan - same language, same culture, same religion.
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one comment of the article was the opposite of what I've been thinking, "But in declaring war against Hamas, the Sinai group has surrounded itself with enemies — Egypt, Israel and now Hamas — and given Hamas a common cause with Israel." We all know that all terrorist groups somehow try to connect with their enemies and it is more probable that ISIS has made this video to sooth Egypt and Israel, considering that they are more powerful than Hamas. Even if we put aside Egypt which is fighting the ISIS within her border, we can't easily discard the idea of Israel supporting them and knowing about this decision beforehand.
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We need to follow the money and then impose international sanctions on the countries providing them with material support (Is that you Saudi Arabia? Lebanon? Iran? Pakistan? Russia?). At first glance, it may not seem like a bad thing to have terrorist groups killing one another (ISIS, Taliban, Hamas) -but their killing sprees are never just isolated amongst themselves - and they bleed out and impact innocent people all around the globe (see ISIS in Iraq and Syria). ISIS declaring war on Hamas is not the solution, it is an expansion of the problem.
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Saudi Arabia supports Israel, and now ISIS does. Coincidence?
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No, must be a conspiracy somehow.
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And Israel is supposed to make peace with these people how?
They are at war with themselves. In 2009, when Hamas consolidated power in Gaza it launched a murderous campaign against Fatah. Now Iran-backed (Shia) Hamas and ISIS (Sunni) are killing each other.
The people of Gaza who are non-aligned will not know what it means to govern their own land until they have thrown off the tyranny of both of these groups. Only then can they hope for peace.
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The biggest tyranny is the Israeli occupation. Gazans are living in a prison, have no rights to travel, to leave the country or to develop their human dreams. Israel bombed just a few years ago another 100,000 into homelessness.
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Palestinians had fired thousands of rockets & mortars killing or wounding 2,000 Israelis. Israel has the right to defend itself.
"... a study published by the United Nations showed "that the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in Gaza was by far the lowest in any asymmetric conflict in the history of warfare."
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By creating a Palestinian state in the West Bank, you could create a state which could become like Gaza or South Lebanon, areas from which Israel withdrew only to see them become launching pads for thousands of rockets. A West Bank Palestinian state that has no national institutions, that has no real economy, that has a corrupt and unelected leadership — how long does that country exist before it falls to Hamas or later to ISIS, which would be an existential threat for Israel?
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"Hamas is essentially a Palestinian national movement whose main effort is directed against Israel."
No it is not! It's a terrorist organization and they don't care at all about the Palestinians. It's become startlingly apparent that none of the Arab countries care about the Palestinians. They only care to use them, as it suits their purposes, as a wedge against Israel.
I have a great deal of respect and admiration for journalism, journalists, and the NY Times in particular.
However, just as the term "illegal immigrant" morphed into "immigrant" and or "migrant", over the past 15 years or so, without any acknowledgment of the inherent differences (legal versus illegal), the NY Times and all other legitimate news outlets need to recognize that the power of words, accurately used, are all that we have left.
Hamas is a terrorist group. It is not a "Palestinian political movement"!
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Hamas is a terrorist organization. They kill civilians-pregnant women, children and the elderly. They build tunnels into Israel to kidnap civilians. They don’t abide by the Geneva convention. They launch deadly rockets to kill civilians. If the Palestinian people accept Hamas as their representatives it shows they are a people of terror.
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ISIS is the rod that will beat the radicalism out of Islam. They demonstrate to all, that fundamentalist views are incompatible with civilization, and that tolerance and pluralism are necessary to a functioning society. Their extremist stance makes enemies even of their allies. Without allies, no organization can long survive in the world. To have allies, you must be capable of compromise, which ISIS is not. Hear this, ISIS, you do not speak for God; your days will be brief, but long enough to teach your fellow jihadis to lay down their weapons.
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Birds of a Feather Flock Together.
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Dysfunction certainly seems to be the new norm.
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Just an anecdote as to why there is little hope a two state or one state solution that will work well for the democratic and economically developed nation of Israel. Both would lead to the decline and likely elimination of Israel. The Palestinians (former Jordanians) are only part of the issue, the other is the radicalism and tribalism that dominates almost the entirety of the Middle East and North Africa. How exactly is Israel supposed to make peace when these groups have no inclination, desire, and seemingly any ability to make peace with each other? When there is stability, true peace may be possible. Until then, likely at least 50-100yrs in the future, Israels best play is to isolate themselves as much as possible and look East.
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But that only works as long as billions from the US flow to Israel. Without that money and influence, Israel is not viable. To build ones future for the next 50-100 years on this money while knuckling down the natives with supremacy ideology might not work out.
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U.S. aid is only 1% of Israel's economy.
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Your reply explains a lot Martin - you sit in Puerto Rico and deny Israel's right to exist.
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Nice guys deserve each other. I have no sympathy whatsoever for Hamas but one must admit that compared to ISIS it is almost rational. Unlikely as it may seem today one can imagine Hamas joining the PLA for negotiations with an Israeli government willing to search for a way to break the status quo. There is no negotiation possible with a fanatical irrational movement like ISIS, the only sensible outcome in coming years is its complete annihilation.
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Prince Jared throws on his trusty flak jacket and flies to the rescue . . .
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He might be delayed by a prison term. ... But maybe he will go there as community service.
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Isis is a strange bunch. All of their enemies seem to be our enemies.
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All our friends are there enemies too. It seems they hate everybody.
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You have it backwards. The correct statement is "all our enemies are their enemies."
But that's trivially true, because *everyone* is their enemy. They believe God wants them to extinguish all other polities and rule the world by themselves.
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This is the kind of world that Israel is surrounded with while Westerners surprised and upset that Israelis don't cede more land over to Hamas who is apparently undergoing an open war with ISIS now... This isn't civil.
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This sounds fine to me. Both Hamas and the Daesh are terrorist groups, antithetical to civilization, incapable of rational negotiation, brutal and violent. If they want to start killing each other rather than random innocent civilians, then I wish them happy hunting. The ideal situation would be for them to eliminate enough of each others forces in the area that they would no longer be a threat to civilized people.
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Seriously, I wonder if it IS something in the water. They’ve been fighting over the most God forsaken (It’s just an expression.) patch of sand long before oil was even a factor. Forever almost. It looks like everybody just wants peace and that means they everyone has to die; unless you can think of something else.
2
The Tree of Hate drops its poisonous fruit on its own roots.
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This line, "Hamas is essentially a Palestinian national movement whose main effort is directed against Israel." is one of the biggest lies I have ever seen from this outlet. Hamas is a terrorist organization, plain and simple. The charter of Hamas calls for the destruction of the Jewish State. They carry out terror attacks all year long, and praise the murder of Israelis. If Hamas is a Palestinian national movement then the Taliban are an Afghanistan nation movement. Do you know how much credibility the NYT loses when it makes intellectually dishonest and false statements like this?
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So were Irgun and other radical Jewish organizations fighting for the creation of an Israeli state. Yet former Irgun members did enter into peace negotiations.
3
You are so right!
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Hamas is both a terrorist organization and a national movement. It's a terrorist organization because It has used terror against Israel and its citizens as part of its efforts to displace Israel's Jewish population. It is also a nationalist movement because it seeks to have Palestinians live in current day Israel but with a government based upon Sharia law. In contrast, ISIS is not a nationalist organization because it does not seek to place a specific population in a specific country.
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Simply a terrible development. What can go worse for that area and those living there? Who knows. Real dialogue must be started among all stake holders. No conditions. Just conversation. It must start now.
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Dear Jonathan Swenekaf,
This is really just terrorists killing each other, not that big a deal. But what will go worse for that area is total dehydration, making it uninhabitable and rendering all the people there refugees or deceased. And that will happen this century, so all of these minor events are mere rearranging of deck chairs on the Titanic.
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Unfortunately when dialog is the solution, the problem is not fixable.
Normally I would agree with dialog, but with these groups it is downright laughable.
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To write as you do that Hamas is essentially a Palestinian national movement without qualifying nor mentioning that Hamas, by most official international accounts, is a terrorist organization is misleading your readership. Hamas is first a foremost a terror organization --and as a terror organization more focused on death and destruction than cooperation and construction. Please be more deliberate and truthful when writing about such "organizations".
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Enough already. Can we please leave these folks to each other, and move on? They have been at this for 1,500 years, and will be at it for another 1,500.
When we get stuck in this interminable muck is when we get involved.
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Dear Whatever,
No worries, it won't go on for another 1,500 years. Won't even go on for another century, because the water's running out, and when it's gone, this deranged holy war will be over for good. Assuming the rest of the world has the good sense to keep an eye on the refugees and prevent them from starting it up again wherever they land.
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DS: "... the water's running out, and when it's gone, this deranged holy war will be over for good."
Israel supplies the water for the Palestinian territories, and Israel isn't going to run out of water if at all possible.
Or do you mean to imply that Israel is going to somehow disappear when the water runs out?
1
"Hamas is essentially a Palestinian national movement whose main effort is directed against Israel". LOL How about stating that the "effort" in question is the destruction of the State of Israel? Or about the fact that this "national movement" is recognized as a terrorist organization by both US and EU? After reading this sentence any appearance of journalistic integrity is lost. Shame on the author and the "newspaper of record"...
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