Pentagon Official: Destruction of Hamas Would Lead to Worse Scenario

[BlindTiresias]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/27/us-mideast-gaza-usa-hamas-idUSKBN0FW01F20140727

(Reuters) - A top Pentagon intelligence official warned on Saturday that the destruction of Hamas would only lead to something more dangerous taking its place, as he offered a grim portrait of a period of enduring regional conflict.

The remarks by Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, the outgoing head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, came as Israeli ministers signaled that a comprehensive deal to end the 20-day-old conflict in the Gaza Strip appeared remote.

At least 1,050 Gazans - mostly civilians - have been killed, and 42 Israeli soldiers and three civilians in Israel have died.

Flynn disparaged Hamas for exhausting finite resources and know-how to build tunnels that have helped them inflict record casualties on Israelis. Still, he suggested that destroying Hamas was not the answer.

"If Hamas were destroyed and gone, we would probably end up with something much worse. The region would end up with something much worse," Flynn said at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado.

"A worse threat that would come into the sort of ecosystem there … something like ISIS," he added, referring to the Islamic State, which last month declared an "Islamic caliphate" in territory it controls in Iraq and Syria.

Confined in the crowded, sandy coast enclave of 1.8 million, where poverty and unemployment hover around 40 percent, weary Gazans say they hope the battle will break the blockade that Israel and Egypt impose on them.

Israeli officials said any ceasefire must allow the military to carry on hunting down the Hamas tunnel network that criss-crosses the Gaza border.

Flynn's comments about the conflict came during a gloomy, broader assessment of unrest across the Middle East, including in Syria and Iraq. Flynn said bluntly: "Is there going to be a peace in the Middle East? Not in my lifetime."

---

Thoughts? Considering Hamas has been in reconciliation with Fatah in order to build a unitary state I tend to agree. Hardcore militant islamicists like an ISIL branch taking over in the vacuum would make Hamas look like liberal moderates.

[randome]

1. So take away some of Hamas' power by making peace with the West Bank.

Where the official Palestinian government resides. But peace is not what Israel wants, is it?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]No squirrels were harmed in the making of this post. Yet.[/center][/font][hr]

[former9thward]

8. The PA in the West Bank is not interested in a separate peace.

They have never proposed that.

[TwilightGardener]

2. Flynn is of the "better the devil you know" school, I guess.

Maybe he's right, I don't know.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

3. Depends on what you're after.

The extreme RW in the Israeli gov't only stay in power as long as there is the threat of violence from Palestinians. If Hamas does go entirely political, and manages to stomp out the other militants in Palestine, suddenly there's a lot of pressure on Israel to actually end the blockade, stop new settlements, etc.

And, btw, according to what the most vocal defenders of Israel tell us, there is nothing 'worse than' Hamas, because Hamas wants the 'utter destruction' of Israel. (Although I read somewhere in the last week or two that Hamas had actually been willing to recognize the state of Israel and make other concessions as part of the unity process. Which is what made Hamas so dangerous to the RWers recently. If they were willing to swing away from violence, the whole makeup of the Knesset could swing leftward.)

[BlindTiresias]

4. Yes I agree

And yeah Hamas has been in reconciliation agreements with Fatah in order to establish a unitary state, which is the big requirement for a two state solution and recognition of Palestine as an autonomous state rather than a territory and thereby ending the legal limbo it is in.

Needless to say the Israeli right wing would be devastated by such a development and quickly lose power. That we have Democrats in the US and here in DU that essentially are assisting the Israeli right wing messaging is absurd.

[former9thward]

5. Where is a link to Hamas recognizing the state of Israel?

It does not exist.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

6. I read it on DU somewhere in the last week or two.

You're free to try and find it yourself. I'm not going to spend tens of hours digging through all of the IP related threads to find one comment for you. Besides, no doubt even if you did find it, you'd just say the person who wrote it was lying, so I'm really not going to waste my time.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

7. Of course, google is your friend, too.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry spoke Sunday with Abbas. The State Department said afterward that Kerry “expressed concern about Hamas’s role in any such government and the importance that the new government commit to the principles of nonviolence, recognition of the state of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements with it.”

Abbas assured Kerry that the new government would adhere to those principles, Psaki said.

Washington Post story from which the above was taken.

There, I didn't need to dig through DU. Apparently there are plenty of stories out there in tradmed about the formation of the unity gov't.

[former9thward]

9. There is nothing there about Hamas recognizing Israel.

Nothing. Google is your enemy in this case.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

10. Ah, Hamas was part of that unity government.

The one for which Abbas was speaking when he issued that statement.

Do you require every Congressional member to issue statements any time the American government does something before you believe it? Or is a single spokesman for the government good enough when it comes to America, but not good enough for Palestine?

[former9thward]

11. Hamas controls Gaza not Abbas.

You said Hamas recognized Israel. That is not true.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

12. Whatever.

I honestly could care less how you want to parse my words so you can declare them untrue. It's not actually going to change anything in reality.

[former9thward]

13. Well we have similar feelings towards each other.

So there is that.