Hamas Declares Victory As Israeli Troops Pull Out of Gaza

That's what Reuters is reporting in "Hamas claims "victory", says Israelis pull back ".

I'm sure the Israelis have a different point of view.

Maybe they are just reticent to continue as their operations were tending to take many civilian lives along with those sending rockets Israel's way.

Earlier a NY Times report "Israel Takes Gaza Fight to Next Level in a Day of Strikes " noted that Hamas leaders who have allowed more Qassam rocket attacks and ones with the larger and longer distance Katayushas may have wanted an attack on Gaza.  I don't know if the writer meant it would help their political standing or if they are trying to get Israel to take over the strip so they would have to feed the people there. The enclave has been denied tax moneys that Israel collects for it since Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006 and has been under seige since it drove out Fatah in June 200

Here's the passage from article linked immediately above:

Hamas, under some political pressure from the effective isolation of Gaza and deteriorating conditions there, seems to be trying to lure Israel into a major ground operation.

The Israelis have been cautious, with little desire to reoccupy Gaza and take full responsibility for its 1.5 million inhabitants, nearly 70 percent of them refugees or their descendants. 

If the Hamas government is hoping for political help from the attack, it doesn't seem to be working.  I can't be there to run a poll, but quotes in the Times report I linked to hear seem to be running in the direction of ordinary citizens becoming fed up with rocket attacks and the resultant trouble from them.

Read source for details. 

Of course, it's not that unusual for news sources to pick and chose personal stories and quotes to support one side or the other.  And most news sources use words that portray Hamas as some kind of illegal government (though they won the last Palestinian parliamentary elections mostly due to incompetence and corruption of the government run by Fatah. ( Abbas maintained the presidency in the last election for that office he cannot rule alone anymore than George W. Bush is supposed to rule without consideration for the wishes of Congress)* .  

Read a report in The Age published last June right after the Gazans threw out Fatah  "Exposing the bitter truth of Gaza carnage " (read at least through the second page to get a decent picture of what really happened and why).

Okay, here's an excerpt:

Each side has committed atrocities, but only one side stands accused of them. Both Hamas and Fatah have sponsored vicious terror attacks inside Israel, but in Fatah's case it seems this can be overlooked.

Hamas' account of the political roots of the feud finds support in the end-of-mission report of the former UN envoy to the Middle East, Alvaro de Soto, leaked to The Guardian in London last week.

The Peruvian diplomat says the US worked hard behind the scenes last year to prevent Fatah joining Hamas in a unity government and agreeing to control of the security forces.

Such an arrangement would have weakened US and Israeli attempts to isolate Hamas after its election victory — notably, the crippling boycott imposed on the Palestinians.

I read in Helene Cooper''s "analysis"  at the Times "Gaza Pitfalls in Every Path " about Condi's trip to Israel to attempt to restart peace talks :

“She’s walking into a buzz saw,” said Aaron David Miller, author of “The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace.” “You cannot make peace with half of the Palestinian polity and go to war with the other half.”

 and later:

In many ways, the latest crisis, in which Israeli aircraft and troops have attacked Palestinian positions in northern Gaza after long-range rockets from Gaza hit the large Israeli city of Ashkelon, looks like the Lebanon war of July 2006, when Israel bombed Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.

Lack of contact between the US and Hamas is seen as a major stumbling block in attempts to have effective peace talks and a joke to some:

Ali Abunimah, a research fellow at the Palestine Center, a Washington-based advocacy group, derided the American strategy of ignoring Hamas: “You can’t talk to them. You can’t deal with them. You just cover your ears, close your eyes and pretend they don’t exist. 

tags: gaza  palestine  hamas  fatah  israel  peace talks  

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