https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/palestinian-authority-gaza-hamas/675695/
Make Palestinian governance better instead of leaving a vacuum for Hamas to fill.
Yeah. But when your own leader fails you, where can you go for help?
EDIT: My answer: They go to Hamas, because they can no longer trust the Palestinian Authority.
I am answering this based on the internal politics that leads to what happens now, and why the PA very slow in mitigating the crisis. The way how the world react, although relevant, is not the issue as per discussed by the news article.
Humans who will stand against war crimes.
But Israel gets a free pass for war crimes, so it's okay.
Not to say they didn't fail but they were in an impossible situation given an impossible task with an opponent that was never interested in negotiating in good faith.
There's more than enough blame to go around on the failure of negotiations, depending on who you believe. For example:
Clinton blamed Arafat after the failure of the talks, stating, "I regret that in 2000 Arafat missed the opportunity to bring that nation into being and pray for the day when the dreams of the Palestinian people for a state and a better life will be realized in a just and lasting peace." The failure to come to an agreement was widely attributed to Yasser Arafat, as he walked away from the table without making a concrete counter-offer and because Arafat did little to quell the series of Palestinian riots that began shortly after the summit. Arafat was also accused of scuttling the talks by Nabil Amr, a former minister in the Palestinian Authority. In My Life, Clinton wrote that Arafat once complimented Clinton by telling him, "You are a great man." Clinton responded, "I am not a great man. I am a failure, and you made me one."
Dennis Ross, the US Middle East envoy and a key negotiator at the summit, summarized his perspectives in his book The Missing Peace. During a lecture in Australia, Ross suggested that the reason for the failure was Arafat's unwillingness to sign a final deal with Israel that would close the door on any of the Palestinians' maximum demands, particularly the right of return. Ross claimed that what Arafat really wanted was "a one-state solution. Not independent, adjacent Israeli and Palestinian states, but a single Arab state encompassing all of Historic Palestine". Ross also quoted Saudi Prince Bandar as saying while negotiations were taking place: "If Arafat does not accept what is available now, it won't be a tragedy; it will be a crime."
In his book, The Oslo Syndrome, Harvard Medical School professor of psychiatry and historian Kenneth Levin summarized the failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit in this manner: "despite the dimensions of the Israeli offer and intense pressure from President Clinton, Arafat demurred. He apparently was indeed unwilling, no matter what the Israeli concessions, to sign an agreement that declared itself final and forswore any further Palestinian claims."[38] Levin argues that both the Israelis and the Americans were naive in expecting that Arafat would agree to give up the idea of a literal "right of return" for all Palestinians into Israel proper no matter how many 1948 refugees or how much monetary compensation Israel offered to allow.
Sorry for the r*ddit link but here's a map of the camp David offer:
Clinton threw a hissy fit at Arafat because he didn't get this feather in his cap for his legacy. There has never been a serious offer from Israel.
Here's a later one:
Point being that, depending on who you ask, Arafat decided to stop negotiating. Something Prince Bandar labelled criminal.
Rightly or wrongly, many Israelis seem to have come to the conclusion that any proposal would never be enough. Maybe the Palestinians could have gotten more out of it, it was clear that the Israeli PM was desperate to sign a deal, because he knew his future was riding on it. Arafat gained in popularity for taking a hard line. Israeli PM Barak predictably lost popularity and the election, because many Israelis thought he had gone too far.
Bibi supported Hamas in Gaza because he and his party know that keeping the Gazan Palestinians separated politically from the Westbank Palestinians would make a two state solution impossible.
You need to ask Israel for that. That not the point of this article. The point is when Palestinian Authority fails, it creates a power vacuum - that's when the Hamas comes in.
Thats the point. Israel needs to have Hamas exist, so that they can have Hamas as the bad guy - the non-trusted entity that can never be welcomed into negotiation. As a result of that, they will only negotiate with the good guy - The Palestinian Authority - the only so-called legitimate representative of Palestinian people. They problem is, the good guy is not doing anything favorable for the people that they represent, and instead they become a tool to the the Israel gov itself, so that at the end of the day instead of achieving their goal of 'building a state on 1967 borders', they are actually loosing more land to the illegal settlers. Israel is of course happy with the outcome.
EDIT: I'll add below some more 'perceived' insight to this as I got more free time now
The Palestinian Authority - the only so-called legitimate representative of Palestinian people.
Why do I label the as the 'so-called representative? Because they are not legitimate Palestinian representative. Fatah lose 2006 election. They should relieve their power and transfer them to Hamas that won the Election. But they didn't. Technically they illegitimately grabbed the power given by the people to Hamas.
And how long has Palestinian Authority (Fatah) governs? Since 2006, that's about 17 years. 17 years without election. If that happens in other countries, we will call them dictator. But the West won't say anything because that will disrupt the status quo. The funny thing is, Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) postponed the election in 2021 by giving a ridiculous reason: Israel has failed to confirm it will allow voting in East Jerusalem (source). The truth was, Mahmoud Abbas was afraid Fatah would lose (again) or even he would lose to others in his own party [source: Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday called off next month's parliamentary elections after challengers from his own party threatened to weaken his hold on power.].
What I put forward here is to discuss what I think relevant to the article, the internal power struggle, at domestic level, that in some way led to what happened on the 7th.
I don't mind being proven wrong but I appreciate more replied that discussed on the internal issues instead of staying to the external issues (the world is to blame, ask them to stop bombing then etc). And please read the article before giving your views as the article is interesting because it was written not by a typical journalist, instead by a senior fellow at Washington Institute for Near East Policy who used to hold various position in the Palestinian Authority.
Israel needs to have Hamas exist, so that they can have Hamas as the bad guy - the non-trusted entity that can never be welcomed into negotiation. As a result of that, they will only negotiate with the good guy - The Palestinian Authority - the only so-called legitimate representative of Palestinian people.
There is actually more to this. Israel's government used the argument that Hamas exist -and so the National Authority isn't talking for all Palestinians- as an excuse to not negotiate with your so called "good guy" at all.
Israel's government used the argument that Hamas exist -and so the National Authority isn't talking for all Palestinians
Have you got a source to back them up?
As far as I know, last negotiation (2014) collapse because of the announcement of reconciliation between the 'good' guy and the 'bad' guy.
Israel has hit back hard following an agreement on Palestinian unity by suspending already faltering peace negotiations just days before the expiry of a deadline for the US-brokered process.
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, accused the western-backed Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, of forming an alliance with Hamas, which he called "a terrorist organisation that calls for the destruction of Israel" – and hinted at further retaliatory measures.
On April 23, Fatah and Hamas announced a new reconciliation agreement to form a technocratic government of independents and to begin a process to hold elections in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel responded by officially calling off the negotiations.
BTW, what I mean when I say 'negotiation' is not in the literal sense. Loosely, I mean 'to engage diplomatically'.
The power vacuum was literally artificially created by Israel. Do you think they didn't know that this would happen ? They literally wanted to make an example out of Gaza like "see what happens when we step down of a region? Do you want this to happen?" Do you think Israel actually will let Palestine be united in one voice? They actually loved the fact that Hamas exists, as long as they can keep the violence to a minimum.
Well, Palestine doesn't live in a self sustaining bubble, it's not like officials there control the flow of goods, electricity, and water. That's Israel. So I'm not really sure how important being leaders of an open air prison really is.
Maybe if Israel treated Palestinians with equal rights instead of treating them like subhuman, then they probably wouldn't care for radical groups like Hamas.
The power vacuum was literally artificially created by Israel. Do you think they didn't know that this would happen ? They literally wanted to make an example out of Gaza like "see what happens when we step down of a region? Do you want this to happen?" Do you think Isreael actually will le Palestine be united in one voice? They actually loved the fact that Hamas exists, as long as they can keep the violence to a minimum.
