Snapped Shot

actually, the attacks did cease, until the israelis violated the ceasefire on november 4th when the IDF entered the strip. in retaliation for the incursion, hamas has fired a bunch of rockets into israel in the past month and a half, and israel has retaliated for those rockets with various strikes into gaza and blockades of food and fuel supplies to the territory.

when you tell only 1/2 of the story like that, it's really not doing much for your credibility.

hamas probably is threatening to "not renew" the ceasefire in order to get better terms this time around. i expect that both israel and hamas will reach an 11th hour ceasefire agreement later this week. the reason israel keeps entering into these ceasefires is because hamas often (though not always) does honor them .
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one thing you should always be suspicious of are articles in english that pepper their writing with arabic words. it's often an attempt to take a concept that exists in english and make it seem sinister and foreign by using an alien term. and, in my experience, they're always used in incredibly misleading ways. so, for example, "tahdiya" and "hudna" are often used as synonyms. but because some hamas officials have used the word "tahdiya" to refer to the agreement on some occasions, that leads rightwing commentators to claim the agreement is something less than a ceasefire. never mind that other hamas officials, or sometimes the same ones at different times, have used the word "hudna".

but anyway, yes, the israeli government initially justified its violation of the ceasefire because it claimed there was a plot to kidnap israelis via the tunnels it raided. the problem was, the tunnels didn't go into israel, they went into egypt. the story simply didn't make sense. so later the israeli officials dropped that line and claimed that they were going in to close to tunnels to stop the smuggling of weapons into gaza from egypt. surely you remember that, you posted about it yourself right here! but the so-called "actionable intelligence" used by israelis to justify breaking the ceasefire turned out to be a cover story.

and yes, israel always says that it reserves the right to break ceasefires when it has actionable intelligence. likewise, hamas always says that if israel enters gaza it will respond with rocket attacks. but neither of those things are made part of the ceasefire agreement. but neither of those things are part of the ceasefire agreement, they're threats by each party intended to keep the other one in line.

besides, by your logic, the fact that hamas says stuff like that up front would also excuse their rocket attacks. if israel's statement that it can still raid gaza if it has actionable intelligence means it is excused when it raids gaza, why wouldn't hamas' statement that if there is such a raid it would respond with rockets, absolve hamas?
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"After an Egyptian-mediated truce went into effect in last June, rocket attacks dropped off significantly (from a high of 257 in February to just one in July, eight in August, one in September and two in October.)"

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=40809
(i always do embedded links wrong on this site. sorry about the naked urls.)

it is true that rockets from gaza didn't stop completely. but it's also true that hamas would arrest people for firing rockets in violation of the ceasefire.
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL103182282

that is, until the israeli incursion in early november.

oh, and hamas is the elected government of the palestinian authority. for that reason i think it is fair to view them as having the ability to enter into agreements with israel. israel may not recognize them as the legitimate government there, but hamas doesn't recognize the israeli government as legitimate either.
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"their political aspirations, Hamas was only elected into power by the Gaza Strip"

no. hamas was elected at the governing party for the entire palestinian authority. what happened is that fatah assumed it would win and then, when it lost, refused to give up the keys to power.

there was a political standoff for about a year, with hamas claiming it was the legitimate leader and fatah refusing to acknowledge the election results. then fatah (backed by both the u.s. and israel) attempted a coup that failed spectacularly in gaza. fatah ended up getting kicked out of the strip entirely, leaving hamas in control of the strip. fatah then arrested a bunch of hamas supporters in the west bank (where it has more control), effectiving dividing the PA territory between two competing governments, one elected and one not. hamas is the one that is elected. but fatah is the one that has gotten more recognition internationally simply because it is liked better and not because it has any legal claim to legitimacy.

and the reason why the 2006 palestinian elections are generally viewed as fair is because international observers thought they were fair and because the opposition party (i.e. hamas) beat the incumbant (i.e. fatah). that doesn't generally happened in fixed elections. remember, at the time of the election, the security forces at the polls were all fatah people.

"And aside from even all of that, the PA government itself does not recognize the legitimacy of Hamas over the Gaza Strip, which would seem to make your arguments about Hamas being a justifiable negotiator in these ceasefires a moot point, wouldn't it?"

see above. the fatah-controlled PA violated its own law by refusing to cede power to hamas after that group beat it in the election.

"Is it Fatah vs. Hamas hatred and bias?"

no, it's a real political disagreement. historically fatah was a secular/nationalist party and hamas is an islamist party. (fatah, for example, has a lot of christian members). but the waters are a little muddy because fatah has gotten into the religion thing a little bit to try to undermine hamas' support with religious muslims. their biggest policy split is over the oslo accords. fatah entered into them whereas hamas always opposed them. but most of the difference between them comes down to power. fatah simply doesn't want to give up its role as ruling party.

"Is Fatah worried about the state of international donations were it to officially recognize the terror group as legitimate?"

i don't think so. after all, it does officially recognize hamas as a political entity. it just refuses to recognize hamas' victory in the 2006 election. also fatah itself was once branded a terrorist group (and still is by a lot of people). fatah has profited a lot from it's face-off with hamas simply by contrast. it now sells itself as "the good one" or "the one the west can deal with" and helps demonize hamas as a way to increase its own stature internationally.

"Either way, the scope of the negotiation—i.e., that of a lawfully elected government of a nation on one hand, and a band of thugs on the other—remains unchanged, as far as I can tell."

well, except that you seem to have them reversed. both are pretty thuggish. but hamas is the one that was elected.

(note: fatah leader abbas was also elected, in the 2005 election held after arafat died. hamas boycotted that election. abbas can and does claim some legitimacy from that election, except that he should not be in charge of the government because the PA has a modified parliamentary-styple form of government. so that means that the majority party, i.e. hamas, should be in charge)
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apparently kevin is advocating ethnic cleansing as the solution to the israeli-palestinian problem.

that pretty much says it all.

oh, and i realized i didn't respond to captainfish's above comment. you'll note that he starts with november (and for some reason prints the november stats twice). as i said above, hamas has been firing rockets into israel ever since israel violated the ceasefire on november 4th. so the good captain's comment doesn't actually contradict anything i said.

i wonder if he noticed?
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