Your quarrel is with Birdstrike, not me; it was not I who claimed that the moderates were "run out of town".
This is true, but what other options are there?
I wasn't aware the ghost of Arafat was keeping the Palestinians from forming moderate political parties.
Yes, it seems to be a form of armed political conflict at the moment, which does not seem to have been blessed as "an official war" by the international community. Can you suggest why that might be?
Because they got the most votes and the election was as open and fair as need be to reflect the will of the Pals who supported various parties. I think that's great. It's the whole spread of representational government at work.
A vote is supposed to be open and fair. As I read it, the EU observers found it fair enough, so whoever got the most votes won. That is good.
No. Please stop with the strawman silliness. It's like Americans: you get the government you deserve, by how you vote or don't vote. I actually laughed with glee when the vote came in, not over the vote, but over the immediate reaction of horror in Washington and Israel over the result. Part of Bush's whole political message included this spread of democracy deal. Well, democracy spread. Quit whinging.
Don't know.
I don't think you understand why a terrorist act is chosen as a tool.
Really? Well, if it not hindering Hamas, what's the problem? Surely they aren't incomptent to govern in Gaza. Your bait and switch isn't working. The government has a responsibility to its citizens to look after their interestes. Is Hamas doing that in its relations with other governments, or not?
I think you are on to something there.
So was the Taliban, good against corruption.
Next election, I suppose the people can vote for someone else, then.
About 11 others. See my reply to Dr A. But if you want to establish the problem as between Fatah and Hamas, well, you are right back to the same problems America has with its parties.It's part of the fun of democracy.
DR
I am not all that sure either. If I had a brilliant idea, I'd mail it to Gaza and Hamas tomorrow, by overnight courier. Gaza isn't that big a place. It is my opinion that if a few people shooting rockets were caught and very publicly arrested and jailed, it would do some good. Maybe not. The Hamas party wanted to be in charge. Roughly, they are. Now they have to act like a government. Part of that is cutting deals with other governments. This includes the Egyptian government, with whom they share a border. Why do they seem to have trouble with this?
Ding ding ding. When your country is at war, you get to enjoy all that goes with it. Hamas is leading the country. Hamas is either fighting, or allowing to be fought, a sort of war with Israel. There are Americans who didn't like the Iraq War. America still fought it.
Nope. It is about as moral as this whole idea of international rules and laws allows. The Embargo is consistent with the methods of suasion endorsed by the UN that are short of war. If they are at war, then it is even more moral, as blockade is an internationally recognized method of undertaking a war. DC, this is why I asked. Since you think they are at war, you may not realize that you argue for the morality of the blockade, not against it.
Nations go to war, under the current rules and agreed conventions we have. That is part of the problem, in the cases of extra national organizations, but it is NOT the problem with Hamas. Hamas is the government in Gaza, a discrete political entity which is in conflict with a neighbor. Whether we call it a war or not, see the problems above, doesn't change the fact that war is rough on people involved.
See how "easy" it was for you to answer your own question? --- until you realized the implications of this claim, when you started babbling about Martians and Planet X ...
... thus giving us all the pleasure of watching someone make a strawman attack on his own claim.
Yes, I think Birdstrike is wrong too. Unlike you, however, I do not keep pretending that the claim that he made was made by me.
Well, ending the blockade comes to mind: that way, although you're not making terrorists eat garbage, at least you're not making non-terrorists eat garbage.
Unfortunately, this is not necessarily true. It occurs to me that as Hamas are not terribly nice people, they may not be running their food-smuggling operation as a non-profit humanitarian venture.
Granted, they didn't get a lot of votes, but at least the various Ron Pauls and Ralph Naders of Palestinian Gaza got a few seats in Parliament. It may not be much, but it's a start. Force of habit.
I wonder: when's the next election, where the voters get to choose to throw the bums out? When is the vote of "no confidence?"
Never said it was, in fact we may well agree.
Oh, but they do! It's a big part of the reason they got popular in the first place.
