no Arab money, no transfers from Palestinian Arabs living abroad.

The Palestinians have been the Arab’s proxy in their war on the Jews/Israelis along with being the Communist world’s Realpolitik goons.

One can be sure that the UN will prop them up even as it conducts eventide services for Holocaust Memorial Day.

It looks to me like terrorism has been very good for Hamas. They are now in charge in the PA and I’ll bet they move to muscle in on the PLO soon. They’ve got lots of money coming in from Arab and other sources. They “won a victory” over Israel about Gaza, at least in their own minds. The only other Arabs to win such a victory over Israel are Hezbollah, who are also terrorists come to think of it. And Hamas’ advocacy of terror is one of their main appeals to the Palestinian electorate. The terrorists will consider that they are on a roll.

Bibi basically got non-compliance of the agreement from Arafat in exchange for Hevron; the same non-compliance as the Roadmap. Bibi couldn’t even complete a term and the people threw him out.
Since the madness of Oslo made its appearance Sharon was the first one to get things under control.
As for the Sharon family their corruption was purely a family affair. The Likud Central committee is now the bane of Bibi’s life until he/they can get that in order.
US pressure whether from the Clinton Admin or the Bush one forced Israel into agreements that were never complied with by the arabs.
The Roadmap was a laugh from the start with Israeli TV coverage of the Arabs taking part at Aqaba exposing their hypocritical attitude. Just the visual, far from poker faced, expressions of Mubarak and co. as they reacted to statements made Bush appear a dupe.
As it was termed here: “The Roadmap to Hudnas Where”.

As for the Gaza borders:

we know is that this is the side that “won” the argument over abandoning control of the border between Egypt and Gaza.

the side that won was the Rice/Wolfensohn side in what Dry Bones described as “brokering Israel’s arms”.
See his November 16 cartoon.

Pity more people did not see the interview on Israel’s Channel 10 when London & Kirshenbaum had Wolfensohn whining about the tough questioning that had him admitting that what they forced on Israel was for the good of the Palestinians and that any security issue was Israel’s problem to resolve.

Now with hindsight maybe the couple can tell what they accomplished by permitting a jihadist footing in the region.

The Israeli public found confidence in the Sharon led govt., and even if he is not at the helm, his team apart from Bibi is intact and certainly more convincing than the names likely to make it to ministerial positions in the other parties. When Livni took over the Foreign Ministry from Shalom there was a sigh of relief across the country.

No, I don’t think I’m missing the point. I don’t expect Hamas to change it’s essence. The most I expect is more of their evasions and quieting of the rhetoric when it suits them.

It doesn’t matter so long as Israel holds firm: Olmert or whoever follows him must, in every speech, (1) ram home the credo of Hamas, quote from their charter and generally make sure their beliefs follow them like a bad smell, and (2) refuse to negotiate peace and statehood with a Hamas-tainted PA unless they rewrite their charter and destroy their weapons. For the rest, they can be left to mend the roads and make the trains run on time, so long as there are no attacks on Israel.

I know Hamas can’t back away from its charter, but that’s not Israel’s problem: It’s the Palestinians’. By now it’s clear to Israel and to Hamas, if to no-one else, that Israel can survive the terror war and beat Hamas into the ground as needed (even though the effect is never permanent). At some point, the Palestinians will have to choose between clinging to Hamas and remaining in eternal limbo, or voting them out to have a shot at a negotiated peace and statehood. Hamas, in turn, will have the option of reforming itself, which it can’t do; accepting electoral defeat—at which point it has lost; or rejecting popular will and staying in power by force—at which point it has still lost.

If European and American backers of the PA can develop some spine and act likewise, that would be a huge help—which was the point of my previous post. And handing responsibility for funding the PA to the Arabs would pile more pressure on Hamas, because the other Arabs don’t like the Palestinians enough to want to put out all that money, and they are afraid of Islamists.

What would truly be fatal weakness would be for Israel, the US or Europe to give Hamas any “face-saving” option that allows negotiations without renouncing the charter and proving their change of heart by disarming. In the case of Hamas, it’s not actions alone that count—the words are what will choke them.

thank you for the factual analysis of these elections. i have a tongue in cheek evaluation of the elections on my blog.

With few exceptions they have been nothing but useless.

Not gonna get into a long political debate here. But will note several things.

One, Bibi got a far better agreement (Wye) while dealing with a relatively hostile US adminstration than Sharon did (Road Map) while dealing with a relatively friendly US administration.

Two, while Bibi always opposed unilateral disengagement, he stayed in the cabinet in order to try to shape it, and “jumped ship,” as you call it, only after losing the argument over whether to abandon the Philadelphi corridor. Plus, it allowed him to extend his stellar performance as finance minister.

Three, the Sharon family played no small role in the nepotism and corruption within Likud. The recent departures did not eliminate Likud’s problems in this regard, but Kadima certainly has no bragging rights on the issue. Nor, for that matter, does Labor.

But my comment wasn’t so much about Bibi or Likud as about the fact that the post-Sharon Kadima government is untested on the security front. Just about the only thing that we know is that this is the side that “won” the argument over abandoning control of the border between Egypt and Gaza.

chsw