ulterior motives

Yglesias:

Israel launches a war in Gaza that’s allegedly supposed to weaken Hamas. Then Israel declares victory, even though the war has in fact strengthened Hamas and weakened Fatah. Then thanks to Fatah’s weakened position, it’s impossible to forge a unity government. But absent a unity government, it’s unreasonable for Israel to negotiate—Q.E.D.! It puts one in a mind of the time when it was impossible with Israel to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority because it was run by a corrupt and incompetent Fatah. No negotiations until political reform! Then when the elections were held, it turned out that the opposition—Hamas—won. And then Israel couldn’t negotiate with Hamas!

Taken in isolation, each of these positions has a patina of reasonableness but the overall pattern is of a government that’s much more interested in finding reasons to forever-forestall negotiations—expanding settlements all the while—than in finding a route to peace.

 Naiiiiiled it.