What's really telling isn't just the timing of this decision (right in the middle of a cease-fire), but who its targeting. This is the West Bank, not the Gaza Strip. The west bank is generally more stable and more legitimate, and has far less association with Hamas. This is an
extremely provocative move. Its either punishing Abass for not standing against Hamas, or its provoking Abass to do something stupid. I guess really its both.
Why are they doing this? I mean, from what I can tell this settlement has been in a sort of existential limbo for a while now. There are already houses there, and they've been fighting (and losing) in courts for their legitimacy for years. Approving it now is a pretty bold, and arrogant move. It may only be 1k acres (which may not seem like a lot but is worth probably 10 mil undeveloped at least and can easily hold 5k houses), but its basically a slap in the face to the US and others. No more a crime than what Hamas does, not even near as bad. But worse because it comes from a real government.
Israel seems to make two points regularly, but fail to synthesize them to the obvious conclusion. The first is that Hamas is not a legitimate government, that its basically a terrorist organization. The second is that Hamas's crimes against the Israelis are worse than the Israeli retaliatory/defensive actions. These are both, I think, pretty fair statements. The problem is that Israel uses the second point to justify its actions, feeling that as long as their crimes are not as severe as Hamas's then they are in the right. But that's the problem. This line of thinking only works if they assume Hamas, like Israel, is a legitimate government and should be held to the same standards. Hamas is a terrorist organization. There have no standards, and they act like it. Israel HAS to hold itself to higher standards.[DOUBLEPOST=1409844306,1409843838][/DOUBLEPOST]
http://www.theonion.com/articles/palestinians-starting-to-have-mixed-feelings-about,36497/
