Just a Reader
Member
What nonviolent path was that to be? Israel never saw Gaza as anything else than an open air prison.1) UNRWA doesn't have to be part of Hamas to have negative effects. Hamas is siphoning money / materials off them either way.
2) As for belligerence...I don't know. The false premise I think most westerners operate is thinking that Palestinians would leave peacefully if Israel just left them alone...meanwhile Palestinians and Arabs in neighboring countries don't say that.
For decades people could travel between Israel and the territories and there was some "peace". I could agree the first Intifada bore out of frustration with being occupied. But "land for peace" never seemed to suffice. Palestinians, IMO did not have leverage to deem any of the various peace dealings as "unfair". Now they are just in a worse spot.
Israel removed settlements from Gaza in 2005 as an incremental display of what they could do nonviolently and the response was anything but positive. Sure there was still a blockade to ensure dangerous weapons weren't imported...but again there was an incremental attempt to show a non-violent path and it was squashed.
This is not to say Israel is blamless - far from it. The original plan of occupying those territories to eventually trade for peace was a failure. All the settler violence and IDF aggressiveness need to stop and are hurting any chance of peace.
But fundamentally, Palestinians have not accepted any moves toward peace. This is a much bigger thorn in the conflict. If Palestinians don't first accept their future country is going to be basicallly be the borders they currently have, nothing else can change this downward spiral.
With the expansion of the illegal settlements over the past years there is the question, how any Palestinian state is supposed to be viable anyway.