Originally Posted by roachboy

to clarify one other point--i am neither pro nor anti-israel. israel is simply a fact. there seems to me no reason in principle why a flourishing israel and a viable, functioning palestine cannot coexist. i see some reason to be hopeful about this in medium term when i think about the direction the quartet seems to be moving in--and there has been some important progress in that context despite gaza. there was some movement on the question of settlements in the west bank for example. there was at least some reason to imagine that a rethink of the self-defeating dynamics of recents years is possible...a prospect that might bring better lives for palestinians and a more secure situation for israelis. this action dashes that.


dc: on the question of hamas' "maintaining instability" rather than governing--the direct motivation for the siege is to prevent hamas from governing. so the argument is circular.
my main argument so far in this thread is that this action is self-defeating, that it props hamas up, legitimates it---so much so that you have to wonder if there's a way in which hamas is functional for the israeli right...i would have preferred exactly the opposite response 18 months ago, and exactly the opposite set of events that we've seen unfold over the past 24 hours.