The BBC reports that Israel and Hamas have agreed to a truce, whereby Israel will open Gaza to the outside world a little bit while Hamas will quit with the rockets. This will hopefully snowball into Hamas letting go of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier whose capture set off the latest round of violence, in exchange for the opening of the Gaza-Egypt border.
This is good news, but needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Hamas hasn't exactly been 100% faithful to its truces of late. Israel should - and surely will - take steps to make sure that food and supplies are the only things getting through the open borders, not guns and rocket fuel. But this time it may be different - Gaza's economy has gone even further into the shitter since Hamas began hostilities with Shalit's capture (and maintained them with repeated rocket fire). Hopefully Gazans recognize this and are turning on Hamas' hard-line tactics.
It is perhaps too much to hope for that the Palestinian leaders are beginning to realize that the only thing Palestinian violence is truly hurting (on a geopolitical level) is the Palestinian cause. But maybe the economic consequences of a policy of violence have finally been made clear...
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A NY Times piece I read recently made me think that Hamas's grip on power was only growing stronger within Gaza. Sure, the area was much more poor....but what little resources were present in Gaza were controlled by Hamas.
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