There are other reasons why the Islamic/Israeli conflict will not end. First, it is being funded by the West. The more the Arabs lose, the more funding they receive through numerous bilateral and international mechanisms. So why make peace? Their intransigence keeps them afloat financially, and keeps their countless unemployed/underemployed transfixed on terrorising Israelis rather than directing their frustration at their corrupt/inept/barbaric/murderous leaders.

Secondly, Israel is not permitted to defeat her enemies decisively, although she is capable of doing so. Every war is brought to a premature close by instant demands for a ceasefire. Even when her neighbours lose land as a result of a war they started, as in 1967 or 1973, it is taken as axiomatic that Israel must return that land. That her neighbours have every incentive to continue the conflict is blindingly obvious.

Oh for fucks sake stop it John! Hamas, and Hamas alone is responsible for the lack of aid to its people:

Would you seriously have us believe that Hamas’ murderous behaviour came about just because aid was stopped? It wasn’t, of course, hundreds of tons of food and medical aid pass into Gaza each month (if Hamas and its minions can resist shooting up the crossings) most of it to be held back by Hamas and sold back to the people who should get it free:

Hamas has been stealing medicine and food sent by international donors, distributing these supplies among its members and selling the rest for profit. This accusation, appearing in numerous eyewitness reports in Palestinian Authority newspapers since the end of the Gaza War, has now been corroborated by UNRWA.

Al-Ayyam and Al-Hayat Al-Jadida have been reporting that armed Hamas men have comandeered trucks delivering food to UNRWA and have shot at the truck drivers.

Hamas has also refused to allow charities to distribute any of the supplies. An article in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida describes how Hamas militias took control of two charity organizations in Jabaliya and in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, and made them sign an agreement not to distribute any aid or “carry out social or humanitarian actions.”

The following are multiple reports of Hamas’s continuing theft of donor aid:

“UNWRA reported yesterday that Hamas police confiscated supplies of humanitarian aid from one of the distribution points under its control in Gaza. Two days ago, they report, more than 3,500 blankets and 406 food parcels were confiscated by Hamas police officials.”
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 5, 2009]

“Yesterday the Hamas militias took control of two charity organizations in Jabaliya and in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip. Sources said that the Hamas militias took control over the Association for the Disabled in Jabaliya, and the “Our Home” association in Beit Lahiya. They forced the people in charge of the two [charity] organizations to sign that they obligate themselves not to distribute any aid or carry out social or humanitarian actions.”
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 28, 2009]

“[Hamas] took control by armed force of the aid trucks and of the goods that were sent to the private sector. The supplies were distributed between the [Hamas] party members and afterwards the remainder was put up for sale at exorbitant prices… People’s stories range from stories of murder of innocent people in cold blood to the unloading of bags of flour to the houses of Hamas activists while their neighbors were left starving. When they asked [for some of the flour] they were offered to buy at prices which they could not afford to pay.”
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 22, 2009]

“Hamas kidnaps Fatah members while they distribute aid … Armed Hamas members kidnapped Fatah movement members yesterday while they were distributing aid to citizens… they also attacked a senior policeman wildly… and refused to transfer him to hospital for treatment after the attack.”
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 28, 2009]

Why should my taxes pay for terror? The UK government passing these people the tissues while their leaders carefully parade their deliberately-engineered victimhood makes me sick. The Palestinian people may well have elected Hamas as democratically as they knew how, but Hamas has not ruled democratically and has consummately failed them again and again.

And what sane government would treat with these thugs? What other sort of animals than these would use hospitals as shelters from which to wage war?

Israel has taken three months to report publicly on its conduct of the recent fighting with Hamas. And as part of its newly published report, it has revealed how Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh took over a ward of Gaza’s Shifa hospital for the duration of the fighting, and operated a command and control centre there.

The Palestinians have not denied this claim.

Hamas guards were posted at the entrance to the hospital ward and field commanders took advantage of the humanitarian corridor and cessation of action that the IDF instituted every day for several hours, to enter the hospital and meet with senior Hamas officials to receive instructions.

Where is the outcry against this?

According to a report in the Washington Post, hundreds of Palestinian patients have been trapped in the Gaza Strip, unable to travel abroad for crucial treatment for cancer and similar diseases, because of infighting between Hamas and Fatah.

Gaza’s medical referral committee which helps sick residents to access treatment outside the Strip, has been shut down.

And therefore Palestinians cannot access the treatment they previously enjoyed, in Israel and elsewhere.

For example, ten year old Ribhi Jindiyeh, a lymphoma patient, “lies in bed at home, skinny and jaundiced, too weak to move”. He underwent chemotherapy last year in an Israeli hospital, and when he returned home to Gaza in January, he seemed better. Now, he is urinating blood. And because of the Hamas-Fatah feud, he cannot return to Israel.

Meanwhile in Gaza City, 12 year old Muhammed Zibdeh, a brain cancer patient, waits for a permit to travel to Israel. He was treated in Israel last year, and now because of the Hamas-Fatah feud he cannot go back and continue receiving the Israeli doctors’ treatment.

Says Muhammed Zibdeh’s father: “I can’t help him, and he might be dying before my own eyes…”

“They are playing with the lives of people and their pain” said a leader of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. “There’s a complete absence of responsibility”.

An Israeli NGO, the Israeli branch of the Physicians for Human Rights, has tried to facilitate entry into Israel, but cannot fill the role which Gaza’s medical referral committee played.

(- Source: Associated Press Report in the Washington Post, 28 April 2009)

Again, where is the outcry against this?

And finally, what do you make of this:

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/131331

Note that it refers to owners of arms smuggling tunnels. Do you think that these owners allow the arms to pass into Gaza free of charge? See if you can guess where the money comes from to pay the tunnel owners and for the arms themselves.

From my tax money, and you are arguing that they should get even more of it!

I am impressed, Internationalist, that you actually read them through. Unless you didn’t/couldn’t get beyond the first sentence of each…

That just about sums it up.

Perhaps the following links may help.
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4214375.stm

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-cuts-off-palestinian-tax-funds-as-relations-hit-new-low-842092.html

As for the comments regarding the “launch terror attacks on a neighbouring country”, it would be helpful to remember that Israel itself was born out of terrorism (remember the King David Hotel and Irgun, Palmach, Haganah etc) and it is a little hypocritical to deny people the right to resist occupation with whatever means are at their disposal. in any event handmade rockets are no real match for smart missiles and phosphoros bombs.
You may also wish to consider:

http://spotlightcomments.blogspot.com/2009/01/action-to-resolve-gaza-atrocity-is.html

http://spotlightcomments.blogspot.com/2009/01/israeli-assault-on-gaza.html

http://spotlightcomments.blogspot.com/2009/01/israel-war-crimes-in-gaza.html

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The hypocrisy is in expecting Israel to work towards its own destruction when any other country’s response to a existential threat would be to annililate its enemy.

Admit it – the only peace you are interested in is one in which Israel no longer exists.

Oh what a selective memory you have. I always laugh ironically when folks try to blame Hamas’s deadly purge of Fatah on Israel. Folks die when Israel tries to defend itself? Israel’s fault. Folks vote-in extremist Jew-hating party? Israel’s fault. Folks die when Palestinian factions fight each other for control of protectionist and smuggling rackets? Israel’s fault. Old Palestinian woman stubs her toe on doorstep? Israel’s fault. Cloudy day? Israel’s fault.

To exclude Hamas from any involvement in a peace proccess, and to continue the blockade of the Gaza strip and the associated trade and economic aid prevention, is international lunacy and hypocracy in the extreme.

You seem to be labouring under the assumption that the Hamas are poor. That is patently not true. Apart from all the smuggling, they raise money by hijacking aid conveys and auctioning off the proceeds to the highest bidder.

You also think that Hamas are interested in economic stimulus in Gaza. Again you are wrong. Funds they do raise are not spent on intrastructure, but on acquiring arms.

You think that Israel should deal openly with Hamas – an organisation sworn to destroy Israel. How could it possibly be in Israel’s interests to do that?

Or is your real angle the wanton destruction of Israel? That can be the only possible explanation for your vective.