Quote:
Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.
Agreed insofar as it is a bit of a mind exercise, since we're unlikely to see the day.
But a unified state would nullify two of Hamas' attractions (for lack of a better term):
1) Outright violence in the form of missiles / bombings are no longer necessary under a true one state situation.
2) Civic initiatives like schools / healthcare etc... that Hamas bankrolls will receive national funds.
I see three types of people voting for Hamas today: the violent, the reactionary, and the desperate, yet civic minded (again for lack of a better term). The violent are driven solely by point #1, and always will be. The reactionary will occasionally cling to point #1 but would drop Hamas in a heartbeat if there was peace. For the civic minded, they're holding and their nose voting for Hamas for point #2; they turn a blind eye / are not interested in the violence.
Under a putative single state, only the violent will be served by voting Hamas. Everyone else will migrate away. The violent, as anywhere, are the minority.
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You miss the most powerful factor in the entire region, and the most attractive reason for voting Hamas into power: religion.
Hamas ran with a policy of instituting Sharia, not only in Palestine, but all of the Holy Land. Perhaps you would get a Hamas that puts aside the rockets and drifts closer to the modern incarnation of the Muslim Brotherhood, where its origins lay and a heavy influence still resides. To believe the virulent strain of Islamism in the region would just up and dissipate soon as the Jews and Muslims decided to live together in the same state, though, simply isn't realistic knowing the importance of the Muslim religion in the region and the history of Islamism in the area (and the resurrection of the Muslim Brotherhood elected into power in the surrounding countries since the Arab Spring). In a unified state Jews would very quickly be in the minority, and the gap between the two population groups would only continue to grow as the years progress, as the statistics show is happening already in the region.
As far as my opinion goes, a dismissal of Hamas following a "unified state" solution is an incorrect conclusion to make.