Hamas is not the real issue

Neve Gordon in Comment is Free:

The central issue for Israel is not Hamas, but rather Palestinian sovereignty. The recent crisis reveals, once more, that Israel's August 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was not an act of decolonisation but rather the reorganisation of Israeli power and the implementation of neo-colonial rule. . .

The experiment in Gaza is, in other words, not really about the bombardment of Israeli citizens or even about Israel's ongoing efforts to undermine Hamas. It is simply a new draconian strategy aimed at denying the Palestinians their most basic right to self-determination. It is about showing them who is in control, about breaking their backs, so that they lower their expectations and bow down to Israeli demands. The Palestinians understood this and courageously destroyed their prison wall while crying out into the wilderness for international support. Instead of the expected outrage, the only response they received was a weak echo of their own cry for help.

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