Palestinian apologist ignores rockets

'Dispute' or 'occupation?' - Opinion - theage.com.au

The Age has a staff writer today come to Hamas' defence. Interesting that while the capture of CPL Shalit is mentioned (in a way to suggest that it is wrong to blame the Palestinian Authority for that), the continual rain of missiles from Gaza into Israel since the withdrawal from Gaza is not.

Question: why should Israel recognize the Hamas "government " when it acts as if it has no intention of policing itself to prevent terrorist attacks from Gaza into Israel?

That the "man in the street" in Gaza suffers to varying degrees from Israel's response is not really in doubt. But why don't they take the line that they have to show real self governance to prevent the counterproductive provocation? How hard would it be for a "real" government anywhere else in the world to have patrols to see where the missiles are being launched from, or built?

The column also says:

Hamas, meanwhile, has limited itself to de facto and not de jure recognition of Israel because it understands that the sovereignty which stands in need of recognition is not Israeli but Palestinian. Or, to put it another way, the question is not "is Israel?" but " where is Israel?"

To be honest, I don't quite follow what Hamas (or elements of it) have said recently about "de facto" recognition of Israel. But, as far as I know, no one is questioning that those towns now receiving missiles from Gaza are definitely Israeli towns.

UPDATE: for an opinion piece that does seem to talk realistically about the whole Palestinian problem, see this one in the Jerusalem Post. An extract:

I still believe what I've always believed - that Israel has no right to rule the Palestinians, that ruling them is bad, not good, for Israeli security, so it's both immoral and impractical for Israel to gobble up the only territory the Palestinians have for their own.

However, the belief I've lost is that the Palestinians are a basically rational, reasonable nation, that they can be talked into putting down their weapons and making peace with Israel - if not out of goodwill, than out of their own self-interest.

What I believe now is that only Israeli military deterrence, which will no doubt require the periodic use of force, can get the Palestinians to stop fighting.

I strongly recommend it. Pity it ends on such a pessimistic note, though.