https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...93e_story.html
"The smiling visage of a keffiyeh-clad Yasser Arafat. The yellow, rifle-bedecked flags of his movement. The names, etched in black, of those who died in its service.
For decades, al-Amari has been a stronghold of Fatah, the secular and nationalist party that emphasizes diplomacy as its answer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But in recent days, the tableau in the camp has shifted: Green flags mark the entrance and graffiti to match emblazons the walls with a single word: Hamas.
“They’ve given strength to the whole Palestinian cause,” said Mohammed Khadier, 16, as friends nodded in enthusiastic agreement. “We consider Hamas our leader now.”
"The surge in Hamas’s popularity has been matched by the plummeting fortunes of the Palestinian Authority, whose president, Mahmoud Abbas, was widely panned — even among fellow Fatah members — for his limp response to Israeli attacks. The fighting, which erupted when Hamas began firing rockets into Israel and then escalated as the Israeli military took the opportunity to strike a vast inventory of targets across the Gaza Strip, left 232 Palestinians dead, including at least 65 children, officials said. A dozen people died in Israel, two of them children."
"Although Israel denies it, analysts say the country’s right-wing government has liked it that way and recognizes that conflict with Hamas can hobble the Palestinian Authority’s attempts at negotiation. That suits Israeli leaders who have long been hostile toward diplomatic efforts that would confront their country with hard choices and could yield a Palestinian state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes “that if Hamas represented the Palestinians, it would be much easier for Israel to say, ‘We are not dealing with terror,’ ” said Amos Yadlin, director of Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies"
So Netanyahu wants Hamas in power. Anyways the people, even in the west bank, support Hamas. Americans in their suburbs and single family homes are probably terrified.
"""OOH, Fiddle dee, what awful people."
But then I wonder what the good, kind, civilized American would say if their homes were bombed and their children maimed. I think they would be quite savage.
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