Many high-level meetings of security experts and officials in Israel have tried over the past few weeks to come up with policy directives regarding the future of Gaza. This is a positive development, especially because over the past 11 years there has not been a serious review of Israel's strategic goals in Gaza. Even after three wars with Gaza, the Israeli policy has been to leave a weakened Hamas in power.
When the policy of “isolation” (bidul in Hebrew) of Gaza began – after the Hamas coup d'etat against the Palestinian Authority in June 2007 – the basic idea was to advance the peace process in the West Bank and its economic development while closing off Gaza, so that Palestinians could easily see the difference between the two regimes, their interaction and openness to Israel and to the world. Those were the days when Dr. Salam Fayyad was prime minister in Ramallah. Though he was the “darling of the United States and the West” whom some Israelis called “the Palestinian Ben-Gurion,” prosperity and peace did not appear.
With each round of violence and war, Hamas grew stronger. As the noose around Gaza tightened, the people of Gaza and the West Bank increased their anger toward Israel, not Hamas. The idea of punishing the people of Gaza for choosing Hamas did not succeed in weakening Hamas's control of Gaza. Hamas grew stronger and the people of Gaza suffered more.
They became the victims of both Hamas and Israel.
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