Hamas grip on Gaza hardens: peace outlook bleak

Source: ABC News

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Hamas' control of the Gaza Strip is now virtually complete. Since the summer, the Islamic militants have silenced and disarmed their remaining opponents, filled the bureaucracy with their supporters, and kept Gaza's economy afloat, even if just barely, despite a 16-month-old international embargo and border blockades by Israel and Egypt.


With nothing in sight to weaken Hamas' grip, the political split between Gaza and the West Bank - the two territories meant to make up a future Palestinian state - looks increasingly irreversible.

That conclusion was also reached by the International Crisis Group, an independent think tank, in a September report describing Hamas' ascendancy, and the split is one of the main obstacles to U.S. efforts to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal...


Read more: http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/1008/562583.html

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Can you imagine if we'd had real world leadership the last eight years -- imagine how vastly different the Mideast might look now?

that could of prevented this epic theft of land...oh wait, it wasn't your backyard seized...so in someway it is justified. In someway. And the Brits should have full rights to all of Ireland. Etc.

Class act some of you.

Following the six day war, the allowing of "settlements" was a travesty of policy and judgment by both the Israeli & US governments. It was also stupid. The seeds of resentment were allowed to be sown, and now we all reap the inevitably grand and bitter harvest.

This understood, the Bush administration is even farther out of bounds than any US administration in modern history. Bush totally ignored the Mideast for years.

Hopefully, genuine diplomacy will "surge" under a new administration...

just saying.

Are we ready to try something else yet? Or is this "stay the course" blather.

Bush's Mideast policy visa vi Israel & Palestine was "hands off." That's how things devolved to this point.

It is true he has not done jack shit to push the "peace process" along, but he has meddled plenty. He just has not bothered to make any pretense of even-handed dealings. But that is nothing like "hands off".