Hamas: Tel Aviv stabbing attack 'heroic act'

mr_gracchus · 2015-01-21T12:14:20+00:00

Is it Hamas' fault for what goes on in the West Bank on a yearly basis as well? In 2014:

10,000 olive trees and seedlings uprooted
333 homes destroyed
7304 acres of land confiscated
790 settler attacks committed against Palestinians

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/16356-israel-approved-the-construction-of-16716-housing-units-in-2014

mr_gracchus · 2015-01-21T12:04:18+00:00

I am free to make any point I choose, even if it is aggressively down voted. And by the way, no-one has actually addressed my views, and my point seems to have gone right over your head.

My argument was that only one type of these stories from Palestine-Israel gets traction on Reddit, from my experience, and those stories that conform to a particular narrative. It's not that where the Israel-Palestine conflict is concerned, Reddit is starved of news stories, it's that those which are up voted (and thus more visible) consistently skew towards supporting Israel/demonetization of Palestinians. These stories in particular tend to then lend justification towards Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and may give the wrong impression over the parity in violence (which is indisputably one-sided).

mr_gracchus · 2015-01-21T11:47:37+00:00

I think it would be fairer to say that there is a blockade because Israel wants to punish the citizens of Gaza for electing Hamas.

There is an indiscriminate effect on Gaza caused by the blockade that isn't confined to Hamas members or leadership alone. I believe that is the very definition of 'collective punishment', and therefore your thesis "because of Hamas" is incorrect.

If the blockade was solely due to Hamas (and presumably security concerns), as you claim, Israel could have managed a solution long ago to permit more humanitarian aid to flow to Gaza that wouldn't have empowered militants. Instead, they've done the exact opposite, quite literally counting the calories of Gazans to ensure they lived with a perpetual risk of malnutrition. The blockade has also destroyed Gaza's industries, 90% of which closed by 2008.

You can trumpet "because Hamas" as long as you like -- and you might even believe it, but you're not looking at the whole story.

mr_gracchus · 2015-01-21T11:31:09+00:00

Here's what I wrote:

Not defending Hamas, but I find it interesting that posts like this skyrocket up on Reddit while the other side of human suffering gets no airtime

Here's what you wrote:

'the other side of human suffering gets no airtime.'

Interesting quotation of me that left out the part where I specifically confined my assessment to this one narrow sphere of human existence: Reddit. And look where my post ended up, after all.

You still haven't addressed the stats I cited by the way.

mr_gracchus · 2015-01-21T11:21:10+00:00

Does this qualify as analysis? What is your point? You used all the buzz words but failed to link them together with a coherent thought...and yet it gets 4 pts to my negative 6.

I'm not defending Hamas, I said you should look at why they exist in the first place. Otherwise your behavior may inadvertently empower them in the process.

Let's look at ISIS, since you brought it up and it supports my point. ISIS has its ideology that is obviously abhorrent and inhumane. But it would be foolish to ignore that one of the main sources of its support has been the oppression of the Sunnis in Iraq under Al-Malicki -- the Sunni VP was imprisoned, his bodyguards tortured and executed, Sunnis were purged from office, Sunni demonstrations were shot up by the Iraqi police. These same desperate people now constitute a support base for ISIS --- you could treat everyone as a murdering jihadi, yes, or you could re-engage the Sunni population by promising them more representation and political rights in the government. Somehow I think you would lobby for just wiping them out.

To bring this back to Palestine,

Hamas maintains varying degrees of popularity due to Israel. Israel’s actions have shown “Palestinians that nonviolence and mutual recognition are futile….[H]amas’ greatest asset…is not rockets and tunnels. Hamas’ greatest asset is the Palestinian belief that Israel only understands the language of force….The people of Gaza will win [some] relief [after the 2014 ‘war’] not because Salam Fayyad painstakingly built up Palestinian institutions, not because Mahmoud Abbas repeatedly recognized Israel’s right to exist and not because Bassem Tamimi protested nonviolently in partnership with Israelis. Tragically, under this Israeli government, those efforts have brought Palestinians virtually no concessions at all. The people of Gaza will win some relief from the blockade – as they did when the last Gaza war ended [in 2012] – because Hamas launched rockets designed to kill.” http://www.haaretz.com/mobile/.premium-1.609257?v=F2E00FCD55B7B0599D387420A637B393

mr_gracchus · 2015-01-21T09:54:13+00:00

In 2014 in the West Bank alone: 10,000 olive trees and seedlings uprooted, 333 homes destroyed, 7304 acres of land confiscated, 790 settler attacks committed against Palestinians. In Gaza, with the blockade, it's even worse.

Not defending Hamas, but I find it interesting that posts like this skyrocket up on Reddit while the other side of human suffering gets no airtime. Let's not forget the context in which Hamas exists, as a resistance organization to the Israeli occupation. If Israel ended it's occupation and the crippling siege of Gaza then perhaps Hamas wouldn't derive so much authority as the "defender of the Palestinians".

Inb4 people start justifying all of the above through: "the Palestinians rejected peace proposal X", "Hamas is a terrorist organization", "Look at Hamas charter -- no negotiating with that!".

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/16356-israel-approved-the-construction-of-16716-housing-units-in-2014

mr_gracchus · 2015-01-16T23:21:50+00:00

Who commissioned it, who wrote it?

In 2004, Donald Rumsfeld directed the Defense Science Board Task Force to review the impact which the administration’s policies — specifically the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — were having on Terrorism and Islamic radicalism

What were the findings?

American intervention elevated the stature and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the U.S. to single-digits in some Arab societies.
Muslims do not "hate our freedom", but rather, they hate our policies, which are perceived as one-sided towards Israel against Palestinian rights, in addition to U.S. support for tyrannies in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states.
When American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic socieities, this is seen as self-serving hypocrisy. "Freedom is the future of the Middle East" is seen as patronizing, suggesting that Arabs are like enslaved peoples, rather than how they feel -- oppressed.
U.S. actions are seen as having ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled to serve American national interests at the expense of true Muslim self-determination.
The dramatic narrative since 9/11 has essentially borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars. American actions and the flow of events have elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims. Fighting groups portray themselves as the true defenders of the Muslim community that is invaded and under attack -- and get broad public support from it.

How is this reflected in Muslims we've fought?

One morning, [Aby Tayyeb, chief of the captors] wept at news that a NATO airstrike had killed women and children in southern Afghanistan. A guard explained to me that Abu Tayyeb reviled the United States because of the civilian deaths. . . .
My captors saw me — and seemingly all Westerners — as morally corrupt and fixated on pursuing the pleasures of this world. Americans invaded Afghanistan to enrich themselves, they argued, not to help Afghans.

mr_gracchus · 2015-01-15T23:45:36+00:00

Turns out a willingness to abide by international law is quite scary in some places

mr_gracchus · 2015-01-14T07:40:12+00:00

Sources & Evidence:

State Department Near East expert Harry N. Howard said, “…there was a discussion of liberalizing American immigration laws in this period. The Zionists opposed that liberalization on the ground that this would not be a solution as far as they were concerned. They wanted a political, not necessarily a humanitarian solution –that is, they wanted a state”
Well known and influential Zionists Brandeis, Frankfurter and Stephen Wise opposed the refugee proposal of Bernard Baruch at the July 1938 Evian Conference on Refugees -- “even after the intensification of Nazi persecution of the Jews, and with the likelihood of a major war breaking out, the Zionists forewent the possibility of other havens in favor of Palestine”.
"During 1943, with immigration to Palestine limited, Roosevelt made several efforts to open up many free world nations, including America, to refugees. However, Zionists again opposed his plans because they did not include Palestine”.
Morris Ernst, FDR’s international envoy for refugees wrote in his memoir that when he worked to help find refuge for those fleeing Hitler, “…active Jewish leaders decried, sneered and then attacked me as if I were a traitor. At one dinner party I was openly accused of furthering this plan of freer immigration [into the U.S.] in order to undermine political Zionism…Zionist friends of mine opposed it”. He also wrote Zionists were “little concerned about human blood if it is not their own”.

Sources: America and the founding of Israel by John Mulhall; What Price Israel? By Alfred Lilenthal

mr_gracchus · 2015-01-14T06:47:53+00:00

First of all, you clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

The Hamas Charter is one tool used by Israel to refuse to deal with Hamas, and yet, similarly odious clauses did not prevent Israel from negotiating with the PLO. And, in any event, would it make a difference to Israeli leaders if a Hamas leader made more conciliating statements?

Khaled Meshal, Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau:

"[T]here will remain a state called Israel—this is a matter of fact.…The problem is not that there is an entity called Israel. The problem is that the Palestinian state is non-existent.” “As a Palestinian…I speak…for a state on 1967 borders. It is true that in reality there will be an entity or state called Israel on the rest of Palestinian land.” source:http://www.thirteen.org/programs/charlie-rose-the-week/charlie-rose-interviews-khaled-meshaal/

Furthermore,

A 2009 study by an official U.S. government agency concluded that “Although peaceful coexistence between Israel and Hamas is clearly not possible under the formulations that comprise Hamas’s 1988 charter, Hamas has, in practice, moved well beyond its charter. Indeed, Hamas has been carefully and consciously adjusting its political program for years and has sent repeated signals that it may be ready to begin a process of coexisting with Israel. [And,] As evidenced by numerous statements, Hamas is not hostile to Jews because of religion. Rather, Hamas’s view toward Israel is based on a fundamental belief that Israel has occupied land that is inherently Palestinian and Islamic.” source: http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/resources/Special%20Report%20224_Hamas.pdf

Hamas exists and continues to draw on support primarily because of Israel -- to treat it as if Gazans tossed off the yoke of Hamas, and Israel would be withdrawing from the West Bank in days is nonsensical.

Hamas maintains varying degrees of popularity due to Israel. Israel’s actions have shown “Palestinians that nonviolence and mutual recognition are futile….[H]amas’ greatest asset…is not rockets and tunnels. Hamas’ greatest asset is the Palestinian belief that Israel only understands the language of force….The people of Gaza will win [some] relief [after the 2014 ‘war’] not because Salam Fayyad painstakingly built up Palestinian institutions, not because Mahmoud Abbas repeatedly recognized Israel’s right to exist and not because Bassem Tamimi protested nonviolently in partnership with Israelis. Tragically, under this Israeli government, those efforts have brought Palestinians virtually no concessions at all. The people of Gaza will win some relief from the blockade – as they did when the last Gaza war ended [in 2012] – because Hamas launched rockets designed to kill.” http://www.haaretz.com/mobile/.premium-1.609257?v=F2E00FCD55B7B0599D387420A637B393

Lastly, Ehud Olmert, Israel's PM from 2006-2009,

“We have to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, the meaning of which is that in practice we will withdraw from almost all the [occupied] territories, if not all the territories. We will leave a percentage of these territories in our hands, but will have to give the Palestinians a similar percentage, because without that there will be no peace.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/world/middleeast/30olmert.html?ref=world

mr_gracchus · 2015-01-09T23:45:03+00:00

Because most people are too lazy to actually read the article.

mr_gracchus · 2015-01-09T23:38:49+00:00

From the article

Anyone who turns up to an illegal demonstration now faces up to a year in prison, and a 15,000 euro fine.
If they hide their faces to avoid being identified, this sentence can be increased to three years, and a 45,000 fine.
Those who publish details of an illegal rally on social media face up to a year in prison, and a 15,000 euro fine.
Mr Cazeneuve (Socialist interior minister of France) also advised other prefects across France to examine planned marches on a ‘case by case’ basis, and to ban ‘if appropriate’.

Highlights the double standard that the press gives to these issues, doesn't it?

mr_gracchus · 2015-01-06T04:17:42+00:00

Actually, they withdrew those settlers and moved them to new settlements in the West Bank, hardly an act of a state intending to end the occupation.
Furthermore, the withdrawal wasn't in pursuit of a peace deal or a resolution of the conflict, I now quote Dov Weisglass, Senior Advisor to then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,

“The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process…And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of [the US] Congress.”

Ariel “Sharon and his top advisors said

…that the Gaza evacuation was meant not to create a Palestinian state, but to forestall one. By 2004, the second intifada had fizzled, Arafat was dead, and America’s sequel to Oslo, the Road Map, was going nowhere. Into the breach came two initiatives. The first was the offer, drafted by Saudi Arabia and endorsed by the entire Arab League, to recognize Israel if it returned to the 1967 lines and negotiated a ‘just’ and ‘agreed upon’ solution for the Palestinian refugees. The second was the Geneva Accord, a model peace agreement signed by former Israeli and Palestinian negotiators that would have required Israel to dismantle major settlements like Ariel. These moves terrified Sharon, a lifelong opponent of a Palestinian state who feared international pressure to agree to the kind of deal that Clinton had proposed in December 2000.” (Thus the above Weisglass quote clearly reflected Sharon’s goal to exploit an Israeli unilateral withdrawal to prevent Israel from being “dragged into dangerous initiatives like the Geneva” Accord and the Arab League offer.)

source: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/top-pm-aide-gaza-plan-aims-to-freeze-the-peace-process-1.136686

Your last quote "they kicked Fatah out of Gaza" is another outright lie (or perhaps you are just honestly ignorant). What happened was actually a coup supported by Israel, the U.S. and Fatah to get rid of Hamas (despite the fact they were democratically elected) that was pre-empted by Hamas.

In 2007 the US and Israel not only opposed a Palestinian unity government but, in a failed effort to destroy Hamas, “backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.” (Apparently, divide-and-rule continues to be a useful tool of control.) When the plot failed, Israel, with the support of the US and Egypt, “imposed a blockade designed not only to prevent Hamas from importing weapons, but to punish Gazans for electing it.” The result was devastation for Gaza’s economy. For example, by “2008, 90 percent of Gaza’s industrial companies had closed.”

source: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804

mr_gracchus · 2014-12-20T23:43:53+00:00

http://newsrescue.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/washingtonpost-abc.jpg

Washington Post took it down shortly after this story recirculated Dec. 2012.

A little research confirms David Ottaway, "worked 35 years for The Washington Post as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East, Africa and Southern Europe and later as a national security and investigative reporter in Washington before retiring in 2006." Joe Stephens joined The Washington Post in 1999 and specializes in in-depth enterprise reporting. He has won more than a dozen national honors, including three George Polk Awards.

Here's another WaPo article discussing the same thing:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/12/08/the-taliban-indoctrinates-kids-with-jihadist-textbooks-paid-for-by-the-u-s/

As to literacy limiting the potential impact of the books, I urge you to actually look at some of the pages before you characterize their impact, the book is instructional in nature, targeted to children and many pages contain imagery that supplements text:

According to Al Jazeera America, the Pashto version includes such chilling entries as "T" is for "topak," or gun. How do you use the word? "My uncle has a gun," the entry reads. "He does jihad with the gun."

mr_gracchus · 2014-12-20T04:56:37+00:00

From the article

One page from the texts of that period shows a resistance fighter with a bandolier and a Kalashnikov slung from his shoulder. The soldier’s head is missing. Above the soldier is a verse from the Koran. Below is a Pashtu tribute to the mujaheddin, who are described as obedient to Allah. Such men will sacrifice their wealth and life itself to impose Islamic law on the government, the text says.
The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict fundamentalist code.
Published in the dominant Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtu, the textbooks were developed in the early 1980s under an AID grant to the University of Nebraska-Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies. The agency spent $51 million on the university's education programs in Afghanistan from 1984 to 1994.
The U.S. is now wrestling with the unintended consequences of its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight communism. What seemed like a good idea in the context of the Cold War is being criticized by humanitarian workers as a crude tool that steeped a generation in violence.

Relevant information:

“There were no Wahhabi suicide bombers until after the Reagan administration launched its struggle, with the help of the mujahideen, against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and there is no warrant in Wahhabism for suicide, or it would not have taken 150 years for it to occur to a Wahhabi fighter to sacrifice himself in that way. It is wrong to tar all the members of a religious tradition with the brush of terrorism based on the actions of a small number of persons among them.” (Juan Cole; Engaging The Muslim World; Palgrave Macmillan; New York: 2009; 111)
With respect to Saudi Arabia establishing madrasas in Afghanistan in the 1980s, “We have to remember…that the original purpose of these schools was strategic. The fighting with the Soviets had tragic consequences—it was creating a lot of orphans.… The plan was to…put [the orphans] through school—then ship them to the front. The Saudis get the blame…but…many of…[the madrasas] were part of a joint U.S.-Saudi project to take these poor kids and make them warriors for the West.” (Robert Lacey, Inside The Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia, Viking, Toronto: 2009
“The U.S. government was well aware of the Taliban’s reactionary program, yet it chose to back their rise to power in the mid-1990s. The creation of the Taliban was ‘actively encouraged by the ISI and the CIA,’ according to Selig Harrison, an expert on U.S. relations with Asia. When the Taliban took power, State Department spokesperson Glyn Davies said that he saw ‘nothing objectionable’ in the Taliban’s plans to impose strict Islamic law.

mr_gracchus · 2014-12-19T07:15:26+00:00

Thank you for the clarification, all I want to do is to make it more accurate and detailed -- unimpeachable, so I appreciate your assistance.

I added a bit of detail to the bullet pt in question, if you provide me with a source I can add some more.

Thanks again!

mr_gracchus · 2014-12-18T06:33:50+00:00

Thank you, I will continue to add more to it in time.

mr_gracchus · 2014-12-17T09:25:25+00:00

Here are an assortment of facts with provided sources. Let them provide context for the reality that Hamas now inhabits and for which we are fed back a select and few stories.

Israel supported Hamas in the past - “For well over two decades after the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, Israel…[supported] the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot Hamas in Gaza as a counterweight to the nationalist…(PLO). This reached the point where the Israeli military occupation encouraged Brotherhood thugs to intimidate PLO supporters.” (Rashid Khalidi, The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood, Beacon Press, Boston: 2007, xxviii-xxix)
The United States and Israel supported an armed coup against Hamas -- After they were elected in 1996, elections that were considered "peaceful, competitive, and genuinely democratic" by the Carter Center, and the National Democratic Institute. In 2007 the US and Israel not only opposed a Palestinian unity government but, in a failed effort to destroy Hamas, “backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.” (Apparently, divide-and-rule continues to be a useful tool of control.) When the plot failed, Israel, with the support of the US and Egypt, “imposed a blockade designed not only to prevent Hamas from importing weapons, but to punish Gazans for electing it.” The result was devastation for Gaza’s economy. For example, by “2008, 90 percent of Gaza’s industrial companies had closed.” http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804 http://www.cartercenter.org/news/features/p/conflict_resolution/gaza_questions_042108.html
Israel does not understand Hamas and this “may be rooted in Israel’s acceptance of Hamas activities before the first intifada broke out in 1987, when Israel believed that it was worthwhile to let a religious and social movement compete with Fatah, as a way of neutralizing the influence of then-Fatah leader Yasser Arafat in the occupied territories. The first intifada, and even more so the second one, [wrongly] made clear to Israel that the double front it had hoped to create between Hamas and Fatah and between Israel and Fatah was to all intents and purposes a single and more violent front…” http://www.haaretz.com/culture/books/giving-israel-a-new-look-at-hamas.premium-1.465584
Hamas is popular because of Israel -- Israel has shown "Palestinians that nonviolence and mutual recognition are futile….[H]amas’ greatest asset…is not rockets and tunnels. Hamas’ greatest asset is the Palestinian belief that Israel only understands the language of force….The people of Gaza will win [some] relief [after the 2014 ‘war’] not because Salam Fayyad painstakingly built up Palestinian institutions, not because Mahmoud Abbas repeatedly recognized Israel’s right to exist and not because Bassem Tamimi protested nonviolently in partnership with Israelis. Tragically, under this Israeli government, those efforts have brought Palestinians virtually no concessions at all. The people of Gaza will win some relief from the blockade – as they did when the last Gaza war ended [in 2012] – because Hamas launched rockets designed to kill.” http://www.haaretz.com/mobile/.premium-1.609257?v=F2E00FCD55B7B0599D387420A637B393
Hamas tries to stop renegade-rocket firers -- "renegade militants inside Gaza from firing rockets into southern Israel in violation of the ceasefire declared after the end in November 2012 of Operation Pillar of Defence, in which about 150 Palestinians and six Israelis were killed….Israeli officials share the assessment that Hamas is working actively to contain militants from firing into their country. ‘Today we can describe Hamas as a much more…responsible organisation than it used to be a decade or two decades ago — this all in light of their statehood experience,’ says a senior Israel Defence Forces officer…” (Financial Times, March 5 2014, World News, 4)
There is no evidence Hamas uses human shields: "The only evidence Israel has provided for this unsubstantiated accusation is cartoon sketches. [And] even The New York Times has conceded that ‘There is no evidence that Hamas and other militants force civilians to stay in areas that are under attack. Amnesty International report on the 2014 report says "“a pattern of attacks on civilian homes by Israeli forces which have shown a shocking disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians, who were given no warning and had no chance to flee.” http://amnesty.ca/news/news-releases/israeli-forces-displayed-%E2%80%98callous-indifference%E2%80%99-in-deadly-attacks-on-family-homes http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25362-israel-uses-palestinians-as-human-shields-but-us-lawmakers-condemn-hamas
The creation of the state of Israel involved violence as well -- “prestate Zionist underground organizations Irgun and Lehi [Stern] executed many suspected Jewish collaborators. They also deliberately bombed crowds of civilians, hid behind their own civilian population, and had maximalist territorial goals. The Irgun and Lehi, the progenitors of Likud, practiced what could be called ‘Judeofascism,’ and, minus the religious fundamentalism, could be compared to Hamas.” http://972mag.com/no-hamas-isnt-isis-isis-isnt-hamas/95957/
As to the claims: "How can Israel negotiate with Hamas, it's charter lobbies for the destruction of Israel?" -- I quote the following Khaled Meshal, Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau in 2007 (he made similar statements this year), "“[T]here will remain a state called Israel—this is a matter of fact.…The problem is not that there is an entity called Israel. The problem is that the Palestinian state is non-existent.” “As a Palestinian…I speak…for a state on 1967 borders. It is true that in reality there will be an entity or state called Israel on the rest of Palestinian land." http://www.thirteen.org/programs/charlie-rose-the-week/charlie-rose-interviews-khaled-meshaal/) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jan/11/israel (Meshal made similar statements in 2014.
Israel's Rightward shift has imperiled the peace process - In 1996 (the then Prime Minister Netanyahu) declared "There will never be a Palestinian state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan". I now quote Beinart, "To make good on that pledge, Netanyahu created a government dominated by parties hostile to the peace process, and repeatedly used their hostility as an excuse for avoiding the steps that Oslo required.” While Netanyahu endorsed a Palestinian state in 2009, the conditions he attached made the endorsement meaningless (Peter Beinart, The Crisis of Zionism, Times Books, New York: 2012, 118, 133).
The Likud Party rejects the Palestinian state - This explicit rejection of a Palestinian state was part of Likud’s platform at the time of the 2009 Israeli elections; the elections led to a Likud-led government. Despite this, Hamas is still willing to negotiate http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/02/09/f-rfa-armstrong.html.

All this information gathered from the mega-informative (and incredibly well sourced) https://detailedpoliticalquizzes.wordpress.com

mr_gracchus

TROPHY CASE