Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, whose Hamas-led government negotiated the cease-fire with its militant wing, blamed Israel: "We made great efforts at keeping the truce and there was a positive Palestinian position, but unfortunately this position was met by expanding the aggression and escalating it against the Palestinian people," he said. "It's not a Palestinian problem, it is an Israeli problem."
..."The cease-fire has been over for a long time, and Israel is responsible for that," the spokesman, Abu Obeida, told the Voice of Palestine radio station. "We are ready to kidnap more and more, and kill more and more of your soldiers."
It's really quite sad. We sympathize with average Palestinian citizens, and believe that some of Israel's policies, particularly the wall, the bulldozing of complete neighborhoods, and the illegal use of clusterbombs are abhorrent. It's been said before, but bears repeating: if the Palestinian leadership accepted Israel's existence and lobbied for its own state by adopting nonviolent means after anti-colonialist, civil rights champions like Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and even Martin Luther King Jr, they'd receive their own country, maybe even East Jerusalem and the pre-1967 borders. But the thing is they don't have leadership.
No one who represents them has both the pragmatism to move away from the banner of jihad and towards reality (you, Hamas) or the strength and solidarity to actually get a deal done (you Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat's successor.)
So Hamas will probably carry on its war and get maybe 10-15 Israelis killed, Israel will retaliate, getting 80 militants killed (and civilian "collateral damage") and the world will look on, thinking "those damn crazy middle-easterners." It will take years for the blood of the Holy Land to ever be cleansed, and for the people there to live the way God intended-in peace and compassion with one another.
It's a freaking shame, too.
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