Now that the fighting between Israel and Hamas finally seems to be over, it is appropriate to ask what either side got out of it.
Hamas, as an authoritarian organization that does not permit free, political life in the territory it controls, remains largely unaccountable to the people it purports to represent.
Of course, we and the international community and their own people should still try to hold them to account. We should not, however, expect real answers:
- How can they justify the tremendous damage and losses their political strategy has inflicted on the people of Gaza?
- How in the name of human decency can they justify hiding among civilians and placing their rockets and ammunition in schools, hospitals and mosques?
- How can they justify a strategy built entirely around trying to cause maximum civilian casualties by firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli towns and villages?
- How can they justify their policy of mowing down suspected “collaborators” in public with no trace of due process?
- Why do they persist in the fantasy that they can make Israel disappear and why can’t they bring themselves to acknowledge the need to share the land with Israelis?
We won’t hold our breath waiting.
###
