tony

Totally normal behaviour from a totally not authoritarian or far-right extremist apartheid government.

From: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/polls-show-majority-gazans-were-against-breaking-ceasefire-hamas-and-hezbollah

In other words, the vast majority of people in Gaza want the PA administration wants Hamas stripped of power. Given the numbers, this includes even people who have a positive view of Hamas overall.

like Palestinians don’t want that also.

Exactly. This fiction that Palestinians all want Hamas to murder Israelis, or even want them to stay in charge is dangerous, because they open the door to even more moderate people buying the idea that the only thing preventing peace is Palestinians wanting it.

From https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/polls-show-majority-gazans-were-against-breaking-ceasefire-hamas-and-hezbollah :

While the majority of Gazans (65%) did think it likely that there would be “a large military conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza” this year, a similar percentage (62%) supported Hamas maintaining a ceasefire with Israel. Moreover, half (50%) agreed with the following proposal: “Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction, and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.” Moreover, across the region, Hamas has lost popularity over time among many Arab publics. This decline in popularity may have been one of the motivating factors behind the group’s decision to attack.

In fact, Gazan frustration with Hamas governance is clear; most Gazans expressed a preference for PA administration and security officials over Hamas—the majority of Gazans (70%) supported a proposal of the PA sending “officials and security officers to Gaza to take over the administration there, with Hamas giving up separate armed units,” including 47% who strongly agreed. Nor is this a new view—this proposal has had majority support in Gaza since first polled by The Washington Institute in 2014.

Also worth adding, since people don't seem to realise this: The majority of Palestinians alive today were not of voting age when Hamas won those elections, and a very substantial proportion were not even born.

And even then, of course, while Hamas won the largest number of votes, even back then they still only had the support of a minority (ca. 44%) of the electorate.

Exit polls during the same election showed near 80% support for a peace agreement with Israel, and 75% who wanted Hamas policy towards Israel to change. In other words: It's also disingenuous to see even the support for Hamas that was there in elections as support for the more extreme aspects of Hamas' actions.

Israel would give anything in the world to have peaceful rulers in Gaza.

All the evidence tells us this is not true.

I see, if it is speech you agree with and believe that there should be no punishment, then it is find to be anonymous. Is the reverse true, if this was an anti-Arab hate group, would you call for such protection? I doubt it. You would call for them to be unmasked and punished.

How nice of you to decide you know my views. Especially when you get it so offensively wrong.

If someone made a statement of the same content as they did, with the groups reversed, no, I sure as hell would not argue for them to be unmasked, nor would I argue for them to be punished, and I would think it was vile and a sign of deeply nasty authoritarian beliefs to do so, because the ability to debate without someone taking actions that are clearly intended to intimidate and ruin someone's life over disagreeing with me is something that is fundamentally incompatible with all my beliefs.

Put another way: I find the views you are expressing here reprehensible, because I consider standing up for the right of specifically those you disagree with to be a core and essential factor in whether or not someone is a good person and someone who believes in freedom and democracy. But I have no desire to see you punished for them, because I do fully believe you have the right to them, and the right to express them, without worrying about consequences.

Now, had you actually argued for violence or other illegal actions against specific people in a way reasonable to consider incitement, or intended to deprive others of that same freedom, then I would want to see you unmasked and punished for that.

To me, this desire to punish and to impose consequences is at its core a deeply authoritarian, anti-democratic belief.

In the end, I know where your disingenuous argument comes from. You are a rules for thee and not for me kind of person.

I take offense at that. Are you going to give us your full real identity, in accordance with your own principles, because someone takes offence at what you have said? I certainly would not demand it, because I find the notion of demanding to unmask someone offensive, but you yourself have argued that people should stand up for what they say.

Indeed, if it is not objectionable, there should be no punishment, in which case if they could trust this there would be no issue with them signing their names to their statement.

You are right, they likely do not sign their names because they fear retribution. In other words: They do not trust that there will be no punishment. The demands to unmask them show that this risk is real. It does not follow from this that this is something that warrants punishment.

See how that works: Someone can believe - whether or not they are right - that there is nothing in it warranting punishment, and at the same time believe that there will be punishment anyway.

That is a logically consistent position to hold, and sufficient to warrant not disclosing their names, and so it is not valid to try to infer from this that they belief that they've done something wrong, nor is it reasonable to expect everyone who believes in a cause to consider it so important to them personally that they are willing to risk their future careers over it.

Unless you yourself have taken greater risks in the name of this cause, you have no basis for demanding of them risks you are unwilling to take yourself.