{"id":1041,"date":"2009-02-13T15:34:14","date_gmt":"2009-02-13T23:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/2009\/02\/13\/what-about-hamas\/"},"modified":"2009-02-13T18:04:56","modified_gmt":"2009-02-14T02:04:56","slug":"what-about-hamas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/1041\/what-about-hamas\/","title":{"rendered":"What About Hamas?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/author\/rstone\/\">Ralph E. Stone<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>February 13, 2009<\/p>\n<p>Critics of Israel&#8217;s most recent military raid into Gaza often hear the justification that Israel had to do something about Hamas&#8217; rocket and mortar attacks and the despicable language in <em>The Hamas Charter<\/em>.  True enough.  However, fourteen Israelis were killed by those rockets in the Israeli city of Sderot.  In response, more than 1,000 Gazans were killed, nearly 5,000 wounded, and hundreds of homes and other buildings were destroyed.  Further, Israel had previously cut delivery of critical supplies of food, medicine, fuel, fertilizer, cash, and spare parts to a trickle. Gaza bakeries and banks were closed and unemployment was almost 50 percent.  At the time of the military raid, Gaza was in a state of meltdown.<\/p>\n<p>As Avi Shlaim, a professor of international relations and former Israeli soldier observed, the Gaza offensive &#8220;seems to follow the logic of an eye for an eyelash.&#8221;  Israel won a short-term tactical victory.  Hamas may have lost many of its leaders, but it has been strengthened as a political and social movement.  Hamas is not going away.  Each of those dead and wounded Gazans have relatives who may strap on suicide belts.  What else are the 1.5 million Palestinians crammed into a narrow strip of land that is Gaza likely to do?<\/p>\n<p>Remember, Hamas won a victory in the free and fair January 2006 elections for the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority.  Israel and the United States refused to recognize this Hamas victory.  (The U.S. promotes democracy as long as our favored candidate wins.)  If Israel (and the U.S.) want something more than a stalemate in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, it will have to face political reality and negotiate with Hamas for a permanent two-state solution.  Given the recent Israeli elections, this is unlikely to occur.  Instead, Israel will continue ghettoizing itself from Gaza, the West Bank, and the rest of its Arab neighbors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ralph E. Stone February 13, 2009 Critics of Israel&#8217;s most recent military raid into Gaza often hear the justification that Israel had to do something about Hamas&#8217; rocket and mortar attacks and the despicable&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1230,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What About Hamas? - Fog City Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/1041\/what-about-hamas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What About Hamas? - Fog City Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Ralph E. Stone February 13, 2009 Critics of Israel&#8217;s most recent military raid into Gaza often hear the justification that Israel had to do something about Hamas&#8217; rocket and mortar attacks and the despicable&#8230;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/1041\/what-about-hamas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fog City Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/fogcityjournal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-13T23:34:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2009-02-14T02:04:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ralph E. 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