I haven't tried to fusion three replies into a single post for a long time... the result will probably be a horrible mess.
Well the most important thing that is obvious from the graph is that attacks were commonplace before the pullout. Rocket attacks only went up after Hamas were elected and actually went down under Fatah.
So simplistic comments about how the Gazans rewarded Israel for the pullout by immediately starting attacking them are quickly revealed for the nonsense they are. The true story is that there were moves from Fatah to try to limit the attacks by terrorists. The attacks didn't stop but anyone who thinks that the government of Gaza could make a few phone calls and stop the attacks is an idiot.
I simply don't believe that this information is available from the referred graph only. First thing I noted is that the level of incidents is pretty constant, until there is a single spike just before the pullout. Unless there is something else to back that one up, I would consider it statistically insignificant. Also the links I provided mention of Fatah personnel themselves doing attacks in Israel that will not be visible in the graph as they are not mortar or rocket attacks.
The other thing that I could deduce from the graph is that the Palestinians had targets closer before the pullout, hence the requirement of weapons with a longer range.
However, I have no way of knowing if this is true, but this would look reasonable and would make sense according to some training in Army.
Want to find the same figures for the other side instead of simply assuming that the this is all aggression from the Palestinian side?
If you can find a reliable list, please do so.
What should it have to do with Gaza? Nothing. What does it have to do with Gaza? Well it's pretty obvious that an attack on Lebanon is going to result in an increase in terrorist action against Israel. Again only a fool would expect terrorists who already hate Israel to sit on their hands and do nothing while that was going on.
OK, I'm starting to see an interesting pattern here. I consider Palestinian state already as a separate country which has central government and thus should be able to reduce the terrorism by some amount [which, what I think, it should be and probably it is also how Israel is recommended to view it]. However, the above snippet and our earlier discussions suggest that it is more like a decentralized command structure which each faction controlling some part of the area [which is probably what it actually is].
This leads me to a single conclusion: at the current state Palestinians are incapable of governing themselves. That means either UN or Israel (preferably UN) will have to provide the basic building blocks of society until Palestinians can do it themselves. And this also makes the Palestinian occupation by Israel seem a lot more reasonable policy despite the condemnations of the international community.
Your later comment:
You should have helped Fatah more with the policing of Gaza.
in this respect sounds like hypocrisy at best. I thought Israel pulled out of Gaza due to negotiations with Fatah and allowed Fatah to act like a party in charge as it should be and was required. International community condemned the Gaza occupation (includes policing), but now you are suggesting Israel actually shouldn't have left? Which way is it as you can't have both?
I can however find plenty of debate and op-ed on the matter. For instance the fact that they tried to do it to Yasser Arafat which you asked for proof of earlier is so obviously a fact that it's uncontested in Wikipedia.
Those actions gave Hamas lots of time to get their foot in the door.
I thought we were talking about current day and thus Abbas. I note Arafat was certainly being pushed away by both US and Israel, but Abbas? I don't think so, also for the reasons Splinter provided. The way I see it is simply that some of the power structure in Palestinian regions require violence to exist, which is a factor of Abbas being unable to stop it. Perhaps he appeared ineffectual because Palestinian themselves were also a factor? Forgive me if I'm not too familiar with the nuances of English, but I thought the word "goad" implies intentional malice behind the actions and not a chain of events that led to each other.
I also recall Israel shouting they don't negotiate with PLO and Fatah but if you look at it, they actually did and managed to get some agreements from both sides. Are you claiming they didn't negotiate seriously and fully committed?
What it comes to your analogy, I also had difficulties to interprete it. Over the years, I have found that the imaginary examples are unfruitful to discussion in many occasions and suggest you don't use them. Or do it very carefully. It is highly likely that the analogy is actually oversimplification and/or out of context window.
You like to claim you understand the Arab mindset but let's put it this way, what do you really think would have happened if following Fatah's rise to power the deaths of civilians had stopped?
This comment strikes me as odd. If I were nastier person, I would say it is designed to win an argument by being impossible to check. I remind you that predicting future is difficult, but predicting or interpolating the past has proven to be just as difficult. It is impossible to know what would have happened.
That's never going to work. Maybe if you can get Israel to give up an amount of land equal in size to Gaza. But offering to remove settlers who really never should have been there in the first place isn't a solution.
I'm not clear about the legal status of West Bank. I recall some resolution back then which said it was not legal, but there were some comments about it being legal later. In any case, I think it is absolutely necessary to place Palestinians into a united piece of land. Israel has pulled settlers from Gaza. It could do so also in West Bank if the region stabilises.
I find it rather hard to believe that the American people would turn a blind eye to genocide. I know for a fact that Europe wouldn't want to have anything to do with them. So let's not continue with the pretty silly argument that Israel could simply wipe out the population of Gaza with no political repercussions.
The problem is that Israel is already doing something despite the international repercussions, as, like Splinter says will happen in any case. The bigger factor is US military aid that I suspect to decrease in coming years.
You sidelined the PLO, Fatah on the the other hand were made to seem ineffectual. As I pointed out to Mika he was left in a situation where no one believed he was actually in charge or that he had the ability to stop the deaths of civilians. That opened the door for Hamas.
You should have left Abbas to run his own country instead of responding to every single rocket attack by shelling or bombing the positions and then claiming that civilian casualties are simply collateral damage. You should have helped Fatah more with the policing of Gaza.
Well, since we seem to have an Middle East expert among us with good understanding of Arab culture, why don't you represent your solution to the problem and open it for the discussion? It is not that anybody from UN would ever read this, but this could serve some educational purposes from the region. At least I have learned something while reading this thread.
Mika
