Re: Hamas announces 6-month truce with Israel
 

At risk of sounding like a broken record, that is the only way these things progress - the example is with the situation in Northern Ireland. The moderates were doing talking while the IRA, UVF and various other factions were still doing the killing. But eventually it paid off. So, I have to have hope.

Re: Hamas announces 6-month truce with Israel
 

I agree with hoping, and I don't mean to bring you down, but the situation in Northern Ireland isn't quite the same, I think. At least when the day was done, you were talking about the Irish killing the Irish. There were so many ways for one group to identify with the other that eventually both sides had to realize the pointlessness and senselessness of what they were doing. In the last 50 years, both sides have done more to dehumanize each other than look for similarities. I don't think this is over by a long shot.

Re: Hamas announces 6-month truce with Israel
 

I also see it as a problem that the majority of these kinds of peace talks tend to focus on issues of economics and territory....or as Sarkozy said, trying to "achieve peace through economic development, political initiatives and providing guarantees for all stakeholders"...while essentially ignoring the larger, more fundamental issues at the core of the conflict. As I mentioned earlier, there are entire generations of people living in the countries surrounding Israel that have been raised on the belief that Jews are basically monsters who do things like drinking the blood of children to celebrate their religious holidays. Hell, they even had the Palestinian Mickey Mouse, Farfour, "martyred" while defending his family's land from the Jews in a children's show. "Economic development" and the like simply doesn't deal with the ingrained bigotry that drives much of the violence, and I don't see any lasting peace being achieved until the bigotry is dealt with.

Re: Hamas announces 6-month truce with Israel
 

Well, if we are talking about bigotry, then Northern Ireland is another prime example. It is too easy to say it was just about the Irish killing the Irish. It really was much more complex than that politically and militarily, but it is important to remember the hatred between the Catholic and Protestant factions - a hatred that has been ingrained for centuries, not simply since the end of WW2. It still exists, but people have learned to deal with it in a peaceful way.

And really the only way to address this kind of problem is through dialogue and economic development so that neither faction feels that it is the "underdog" any more. Military force solves nothing and just begets further bigotry and violence.

Re: Hamas announces 6-month truce with Israel
 

Agreed....but that's just the problem. I don't recall bigotry-based hatred being a central issue that's been on the receiving end of any serious dialogue in all of the peace talks that have taken place over the years.

At risk of going off-topic, I think there've been plenty of examples in history where military force has resulted in a more net-positive outcome than any other realistic options would have.