Comment by FireBeyond
1 year ago
> ignored ... and that led to a monster growing at their borders
Ignored? No, most of that administration actively encouraged and fostered Hamas for years and years. To their mind, it was better for their aims to build Hamas into a hardline organization, and more appealing than the alternative, which was a Palestine which was (slowly) becoming more open to compromise, more diplomatic (around the end of Arafat).
It pushed their nationalist agenda further to have a boogeyman in the form of Hamas, than to have to answer awkward questions like "Palestine is being very reasonable and open, so why isn't Israel?"
Hamas and Likud - both vehemently opposed to a two state solution.
This is not quite true. The late Hamas rhetoric was that they are opposed two-state solution, but quietly, somewhere in 2010-s they began agreeing to 1967 borders.