By Gideon Levy
"Here is a success story: Israel and the West imposed a boycott on the Palestinian Authority with the aim of weakening Hamas, and a year and a half later this brilliant policy has yielded its fruits: Hamas has become stronger. If there is a lesson from the fiasco in Gaza, here it is: Starving, drying up and blocking aid do not sear the consciousness and do not weaken political movements. On the contrary......
Israel and the U.S. are now embracing Mahmoud Abbas. There is a considerable amount of hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness about this. Not long ago he was considered a leader with "plucked feathers." All of his requests and demands were rejected, one after another, and every effort was made to undermine his government. So what has changed now? There is no basis for claiming that the talk about the need to strengthen Abbas is designed to hurt Hamas. Gaza is lost. Fatah will not mount a comeback anytime soon in Gaza after its leaders fled to Ramallah, abandoning its people to the mercies of Hamas. It is very bad that Hamas took over Gaza, and Abbas should indeed be strengthened, but the limitations of this approach must be recognized: Things will not be as they were before......"
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