It's fascinating to me how people will talk about whether Israel is a democracy or not and then in the same breath talk about how Hamas is the democratic choice of the people of Gaza. Hamas won an election in 2006, hosted a coup, severed Gaza off from the rest of the Palestinian Authority, rejected the idea of holding another election or reuniting with the West Bank, and has ignored or worked to sidetrack any peace negotiations held by the actual Palestinian government in Ramallah ever since. But sure, Hamas' Gaza is a democracy because they won a vote 17 years ago and have installed a regime of autarky and starvation and made sure no one could vote them out over it ever since.
It's wild to me that so many people in this thread are treating Hamas, rather than Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas, as the legitimate face of the Palestinians. The Palestinians have a leader and they have a government and it wants no part in this stupid war! This is on Hamas.
Following from this, I wonder if people should not consider "Palestine" a single entity anymore, but rather two: the West Bank ran by Fatah and a de facto Republic of Gaza ran by Hamas. Kinda like the PRC vs Taiwan situation (and so instead of say, a two state solution, it'd be a three state solution)
Personally I think that a state with discontiguous parts like that is doomed to separate and Palestine isn't even the first example! (East and West Pakistan say hi)
