In an article entited 'The racist Israeli fascist in me' Bradley Burston expresses well the fact that, from a strategic point of view, Israel is cornered... and Hamas knows it. The weakening of support among American Jews for the Israeli state is of deep concern to Israelis, hence the peculiarly honest article that asserts the right to be racist and fascistic on the basis of rockets harmlessly landing in the Negev desert. The Palestinians of course have no right to defend themselves against the might of the Israeli army, air force and navy:
The best way to destroy Israel
But now, Hamas is beginning to see something else. At this point, the best way to destroy Israel, is to leave it exactly as it is.
Titrate, adjust the flow of rockets fired at Israeli civilians to a level which is thoroughly acceptable to the rest of the world, but which is also entirely unbearable to Israelis.
Then, sit back and watch demographics and despair work their magic. No wonder Hamas officials who are seen as moderates urge a 50-year truce. By that time, Israeli Arabs will be able to simply vote the Jewish state off the map.
The article by Bradley Burston is a convoluted rebuttal of an article written by Anne Roiphe, a novelist and journalist living in New York, following the recent Israeli elections that saw Avigdor Lieberman's far right party turned into the kingmakers of Israeli politics and the 'left' virtually wiped out.
We here in America are waiting as of this writing for a government to emerge in Jerusalem and most of us keep on hoping that its shape will not preclude the peace process, will not doom a two-state solution, will not destroy the hope that our new President brings to the table. As American Jews without a vote in Israel, we can't do more than point out what many Israelis understand: Solve this problem or the Jewish state will disappear in a tsunami of Palestinian births; or it will become a theocracy, a thugocracy, an apartheid, anti-democratic state that will then disappear in a wave of world anger.
But Israel has naturally spotted the birth rate conundrum and is taking preemptive action. Today it made known its intention of withdrawing the passports of four Palestinians living in Israel ('Arab Israelis'). If Palestinians can't be ethnically cleansed from the state then turn them into non-citizens.
Hamas leader in Syria, Khaled Meshal, quoted today in the New York Times, says Hamas rocket fire has been halted for now and that he supports a Palestinian state within 1967 borders - not sure what people in Gaza and the West Bank think about that but suffice to say two states is totally impractical because of Israel's 'facts in the ground':
DAMASCUS, Syria — The leader of the militant Palestinian group Hamas said Monday that its fighters had stopped firing rockets at Israel for now. He also reached out in a limited way to the Obama administration and others in the West, saying the movement was seeking a state only in the areas Israel won in 1967.
“I promise the American administration and the international community that we will be part of the solution, period,” the leader, Khaled Meshal, said during a five-hour interview with The New York Times spread over two days in his home office here in the Syrian capital. more
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