Read what Ha'aretz had to say in May 1948. It is an illumination of then and now.
Sixty years after, there are enemies who aspire even today to destroy the state of the Jewish nation. They are, however, mostly non-state actors (Hamas and Hezbollah and random others) who play by their distinctively brutal rules of war which endanger the lives of their own people at least as much as they imperil the lives of Israelis. The Gaza moralizers haven't the temerity to admit that the terrorists choose their own stage of battle.
Those who equivocate about this, who pretend that these groups can be conciliated as if they were more or less rational governments are simply ignoring the cruel and crude facts before their eyes.
Late last week Secretary Clinton blithely rationalized--in her insufferable "wave it away" manner--before the House Appropriations Committee the administration's intentions to fund the Palestinian Authority even if Hamas is somehow co-joined with Fatah in running the Palestinian show. And her justification, as the Jerusalem Post reported, was precisely that the U.S.has "continued to provide funds to Lebanon, whose government include(s) Hizbullah."
What a pathetic justification this is. On the very day after, even Ban Ki-moon, a more or less consistent United Nations bureaucratic coward, denounced Hezbollah. "The threat that armed groups and militias pose to the sovereignty and stability of the Lebanese state cannot be overstated." The secretary general went on to say of Hezbollah that it "creates an atmosphere of intimidation in the context of the upcoming parliamentary elections. It also undermines the stability of the region, and is incompatible with the objectives of Resolution 1559," calling for the "disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias."
Ban Ki-moon was quite heated in his statement, first made to Agence France Presse. "I am alarmed that Hizbullah's publicly admitted to providing support to Gaza-based militants from Egyptian territory...I condemn such unwarranted interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign member state." The s.g. at least knows the facts.
The facts are also very much known to Hillary. Her blitheness is, therefore, also insolent, insolent before the truth and insolent before the very process of congressional oversight.
My own guess actually is that what is going in Cairo and in other Arab capitols with intermediaries collecting many frequent flyer miles will result in nothing. That is, that Hamas and Fatah will not bond. No one will be capable of tying their hands, let alone linking their arms. They are at war with each other. The match-makers don't want the marriage made and certainly not to be consecrated. This is the old distinctively Arab game of make-believe. Do you really think the two King Abdullahs want Hamas with more power that it has now?
And, frankly, if there is some union between the two, Fatah will vanish but not before there is one more grand bloodletting. Then Hamas will be in power in both the West Bank and Gaza. Forget about peace, forget about everything. No, "rational choice" may be what they teach at Harvard. But it's not what guides the politicians and the mobs of Araby. You don't like this formulation? Give me a better one.