Getting rid of Hamas—not bribing it—is the only hope for peace in Gaza. - by Stephen M. Flatow

That charade went on, year after year. Arafat kept sponsoring terrorism against Israel. The State Department kept certifying that he was fulfilling his obligations in the Oslo accords. Congress and American Jewish leaders kept looking the other way. And the money kept flowing.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
23 July '18..

U.S. President Donald Trump’s senior Mideast advisers are proposing to give Hamas billions of dollars if it will recognize Israel and suspend terrorist attacks. Bad idea. Getting rid of Hamas—not bribing it—is the only hope for peace in Gaza.

In a Washington Post op-ed on July 20, presidential advisers Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, together with U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, noted that despite the international community’s gifts of “billions of dollars” to Gaza in the past 70 years, unemployment is at 49 percent, and 53 percent of Gazans live below the poverty line.

The Trump team’s solution? Give Gaza many billions more in exchange for some paper promises by Hamas. Talk about throwing good money after bad!

If Hamas “acknowledges that the existence of Israel is a permanent reality,” “abides by previous diplomatic agreements” and “renounces violence,” the U.S. officials wrote, then “all manner of new opportunities becomes possible” because “engaged, interested parties with resources” will start pumping in foreign aid. Gaza will “enjoy economic success and integrate into a thriving regional economy—if they let us help.”

In other words, the Trump administration is willing to provide U.S. taxpayers’ money in exchange for Hamas’s promises.

And that’s all they would be—promises.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.