Gazans flee Hamastan

CNNI notes Palestinians fleeing Gaza will harm a future “Palestinian state.” Have they been drinking formaldahyde?:

CNNI fails to mention in its analysis that it’s Israel that closes the Rafah crossing.

Amira Hass notes in Ha’aretz:

Now [Hamas] will have full `military` control of the Gaza Strip. Will this bring relief to Gaza`s 1.4 million residents? Will it improve the health system and ensure employment for university graduates? Will it remove Israel`s land and sea blockade?

It may be assumed that the military takeover of Abbas` symbols of `sovereignty` will serve as an excuse for Israel to sever once and for all the remaining civilian and economic ties between the Gaza Strip and West Bank - a political process Israel started in 1991. Because Hamas, like its mirror image Fatah, has no coherent liberation or independence plan for Palestinians in this lifetime.

Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld writes in the Forward, “Let Palestine Split into Two:”

Neither Fatah nor Hamas would be able to speak - or even claim to speak - for the Palestinian people as a whole. Unable to speak for the Palestinian people as a whole, each of the two will find it easier, if not to stop insisting on the right of return, at least to put it aside for the time being.

The fighting in Gaza is not pretty; divorces rarely are. In the long run, however, it is at least conceivable that the war of Palestinian against Palestinian will lead to the removal of the single most important obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace. If so, then perhaps the blood currently flowing is not being shed altogether in vain.