What a surprise.

Bibi will reject everything. Israel does not want peace.

In other news, heavy brown ursines determined to have been using areas with large numbers of trees as latrines.

Israel’s going to make this the excuse for taking over all of the West Bank.

Link didn’t seem to work. Here it is. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/opinion/19Danon.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Israel&st=Search

As if anything will ever really satisfy Hamas or Hezbollah other than Israel no longer existing… Palestinians have their own State, it’s called Jordan.

OT but can I ask a quick question. Last week I saw posts here which referred to new standards or some such on FDL, and contained tongue-in-cheek (I assume) usage of #$@$%&* type character strings in place of profanity. Are there indeed new restrictions on cussing? If so can someone direct me to where these guidelines may be found? Thx in advance and sorry to butt in on the thread.

I haven’t seen anything about cussing. The place just wouldn’t be the same without it. :)

Oh ok, thx. *relief*

I sorta can’t talk at all anymore without it.

This may get me in trouble with people who otherwise would ordinarily agree with me, but:

I’ll sign off on the Palestinian state (something that’s taken me a while to come around to) and I’ll sign off on the ’67 borders with some exceptions — not for large settlements of right-wing extremists, but if there are a few little bumps on the map here and there that would make Israel more militarily defensible. I would hope to see those as last-minute inclusions in the negotiating process.

Assuming there is going to be a negotiating process, of course.

If not careful, Netanyahu will be the newly defined and designated “terrorist” given his penchant for being disagreeable and for disagreeing with just about everyone, including his self-perceived friends.

And of course, Native Americans and Chicanos are not going to be fighting and dying on Israeli soil for the Nation of Israel, and despite Irael’s incessant demand that our combined militaries “practice” together.

Jaango

I agree. There is nothing wrong with fine, upstanding Anglo Saxon jargon.

blah blah blah. there is nothing different here, Obama is trying to play hope a dope with key UN members to get them to lead the charge against recognition of a palestinian state.

oh, Fuck!

http://youtu.be/ke5Mr5eCF2U

This is what I heard…..

You’ve already admitted they are Palestinians, G̶o̶l̶d̶a̶ ̶M̶i̶e̶r̶ Jim. It’s also true that the Likud Party does not recognize the same rights they are demanding from Hamas.

All he whats to know is the next check will be on time? Yep no money for Main Street but Money for the killers of the Muslims. They have health care but do Amerikans? 0 speech another 0 among those that care.

Excellent articulation of the current impasse.

I refer to them as Palestinians because if I call them Arabs I will be perceived as a racist troll. There has never been a State or Country of Palestine, and the few nomadic Arabs who lived in the region (Palestine) which became Israel, Jordan, etc were offered a two state solution (Arab Leagues) from the beginning. They refused. The idea of ‘Palestinians’ being abused refugees begins with mr terrorist Arafat, who used them to great effect by labeling them refugees, ignoring the fact that they left Israel willingly with a promise from the Arab Armies that the dead Israelis’ land would be theirs once the deed was done. So sorry Jews/ Israelis built up the mostly barren desert which became Israel, while Jordan’s leaders stole most of the money given to them by their mandate. Jealousy is an ugly thing.

rarar

David Dayen:

I knew nothing about Gershom Gorenberg, who you cited and quoted, so I looked him up in Wikipedia. The most cogent statement I found on his views was this:

‘Gorenberg self-identifies as “a left-wing, skeptical Orthodox Zionist Jew.”[4]‘

I don’t know too many people who would identify themselves as “Credulous”, so I don’t know what value to put on his self-description as “Skeptical”. I don’t have the same problem with “Orthodox Zionist Jew”.

You seem to present Gorenberg as somewhere (reasonably) between Netanyahu and Haniyeh. And I think you’re suggesting (without stating it) that the reasonable outcome lies somewhere (midway?) between the two extremes…without describing what those extremes are.

“Haniyeh reiterated his views on Sunday at a Gaza rally, expressing “great hope of bringing an end to the Zionist project in Palestine.”

Is it Haniyah’s position that all Jews must be removed from historic Palestine? Or exterminated? Kind of a Jim @ 5 solution in reverse? And would you discuss this “Zionist project in Palestine” that Haniyeh refers to?

I think you’re walking into a quagmire when you accept Gorenberg’s moral equivalence between the two of them.

In response to shekissesfrogs @ 18

You should educate yourself about the real history of the Zionist dream to create a Jewish homeland by stealing one. A good place to start:

http://www.ifamericansonlyknew.org/history/

In the late 1800s a group in Europe decided to colonize this land. Known as Zionists, they represented an extremist minority of the Jewish population. Their goal was to create a Jewish homeland, and they considered locations in Africa and the Americas, before settling on Palestine.

At first, this immigration created no problems. However, as more and more Zionists immigrated to Palestine – many with the express wish of taking over the land for a Jewish state – the indigenous population became increasingly alarmed. Eventually, fighting broke out, with escalating waves of violence. Hitler’s rise to power, combined with Zionist activities to sabotage efforts to place Jewish refugees in western countries, led to increased Jewish immigration to Palestine, and conflict grew.

Finally, in 1947 the United Nations decided to intervene. However, rather than adhering to the principle of “self-determination of peoples,” in which the people themselves create their own state and system of government, the UN chose to revert to the medieval strategy whereby an outside power divides up other people’s land.

Under considerable Zionist pressure, the UN recommended giving away 55% of Palestine to a Jewish state – despite the fact that this group represented only about 30% of the total population, and owned under 7% of the land. ….( (( to read the rest, go to the website…)))

Israel is another symptom of the thorough corruption of the US government. Electoral democracy does not work and Israel’s loyalists in the US have exploited the weaknesses of such a money-driven system fully.

A better system would not have elections. Representatives would be chosen at random (similar to jury duty, except those chosen would have the option to decline) to serve for a limited time. This gets rid of partisanship, provides a greater diversity of opinion and experience, gets rid of the creatures that are professional politicians, and bribes would be punishable as crimes instead of legalized as campaign contributions.

#22 has it right. Why not just turn away from this problem and let the Zionists take care of themselves. No we can’t do that because the politicians keep chasing that money that the Zionists keep throwing their way. The system does not work!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please Note the block of text in the upper left hand corner of the map.

1545. Munster, Sebastian(1489 -1552) –Ptolemy (87-150)
TABVLA ASIAE IIII on verso QVARTA ASIAE tabula continet Cyprum, Syriam, Palestinam…
[Basel: Henricus Petri]
30 x 39 cm.
Woodcut
ALW0749

The myth that zionists made the desert bloom.

Benny Morris disagrees with what you believe. Unless you want to engage honestly there is nothing for us to discuss.

Maybe you responded to the wrong person, like Jim, perhaps. I am sympathetic to the Palestinians after studying the history in depth. It’s a tragedy. I am also sympathetic to the actual survivors of the Holocaust who have been used and tossed away in this zionist project that was planned as far back as the mid 1800′s, maybe earlier.

Just for the record:

Isn’t your response to Jim @ 18? Shekissesfrogs was the party to whom he was responding.

Jim, of course, is just a child, or, perhaps a FalseNewsChannel ignoramus. Too bad they couldn’t afford history books or encyclopedia where Jim learned to type.

It’s really, really basic history, Jim. No disputes, not even by the vast majority of Jews.

Wow. Now he’s channeling “From Time Immemorial” (whoops-I mean, Alan Dershowitz).

Are you going to threaten to sue us and attempt to destroy our academic careers next?

It is Haniyeh who is viewed as the pragmatic moderate in Hamas, and Khaled Masha’al is more hardline. Dayen seems to try to stake out who he sees as centrist and adopt their viewpoint, I’ve noticed.

afraid there are disputes – the left has one history of Israel- including the left in Israel, and the right another, and each does not read the books and research of the other.

Prior to the Ottoman Empire everyone just lived a very poor life there – then post the 16th century, the Ottomans claimed most of the land for the State and one rented – most land was not owned by individuals under the 19th century Ottoman laws (making 7% owned by Jews an amazingly large number as the amount owned by Palestinians was much less). The call to leave Israel by the Arab Armies is indeed history (but so is the Jews getting them buses so they could leave in some areas). The lack of farming land before the 20th century Jews is also History – as is the Arab influx to work the new Jewish farms in the 1930′s/40′s – thus generating “new” Palestinians – and of course the welfare life of refugee – while it sucked in many many ways – was good enough for the 800,000 actual ex-pat “Palestinians” to grow in 3 years to several million.

And everyone picks and choses their “facts” from the above, and then adds a little for emphasis.

Meanwhile regarding Bibi acting like an ass – the reason I came to this post – I suggest the Obama tell those Democratic Party Contributors that self-identify as protectors of a greater Israel and as rejectors of any two state solution to go to Hell. Yes, they will fund ads against his re-election – but it is not like the GOP was not going to fund those same ads. Then Obama should tell Bibi tomorrow night that it is a binary decision – if he endorses adjusted 67 borders and a contiguous state that is sovereign, Obama will back Israel refusing to negotiate if Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish State and reject any UN motion to admit a new Palestinian State – - – but on the other hand if Bibi persists in rejecting the two state solution based on adjusted 67 line borders, the US will join the push to have Palestine recognized as a State and admitted to the UN.

Of course the above requires Obama backbone – so maybe I am just wishing out loud late at night.

Accepting Israel is not really necessary, the demand is just a way to throw wrenches in the spokes and prolong the process while more land usurpation takes place. Recognition should be mutual, but that is done at a higher level than the party level (ie Hamas or Fatah); It’s the PLO or the PA, and they have already recognized Israel. Now Israel wants them to recognize it as a “Jewish” state, so the goal posts are moving.

The US cannot reject or accept a Palestinian State, as it is the General Assembly that votes.

Well, if Barack Obama thought he could wrap things up in a bow on the Middle East with his speech today

David Dayen, you hilarious, hilarious man.

Actually, Jim, the “palestinians” are offspring of the biblical jews that stayed behind and were converted to islam. “Jews” and “palestinians” are basically the same people, but with different habits and language these days. You could even make a strong case that the “palestinians” are more related to the biblical jews than the jewish population in Israel. This is because the jewish diaspora interbred with e.g. europeans etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_people#DNA_and_genetic_studies

Of course the above requires Obama backbone – so maybe I am just wishing out loud late at night.

I would actually say that coming out in support of ’67 borders with swaps and in fact the whole policy from the start re israel – much more backbone than any american administration since ’67….

I would urge anyone interested in a strongly progressive, and deeply informed, perspective on the middle east to read Juan Cole. His blog Informed Comment has been on the required reading list since the start of “Iraqi Freedom”.

His take on Obama’s speech:

The courage of Obama’s speech should be recognized. He will have angered the two central allies of the US in the region, the governments that have formed the two pillars of US Middle East policy. Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah is angry at Obama (calling him more or less a wet-behind-the-ears young man) for abandoning long-time Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. Saudi Arabia views Egypt as key to its own security and is extremely nervous about where politics in that country might go and how it will affect the kingdom. King Abdullah is also furious that the Obama administration has openly criticized the Sunni king of Bahrain for crushing his own democracy movement, which had a disproportionately Shiite cast (Shiites are now 58% of the citizen population but discriminated against economically and kept from expressing their majority politically). Obama if anything was more forthright and harsh in his criticisms of Manama on Thursday than he had been before. Saudi Arabia pumps on the order of 11 percent of the world daily petroleum output, has a significant impact on its price, and has hundreds of billions of dollars in reserves that it invests in the West as well as in the Middle East. Obama has taken a major risk in angering its king and adopting a policy he opposes everywhere but in Libya.

[...]

A bolder speech would have announced that the US would be moving its naval base from Bahrain because we refuse to be in bed with a repressive sectarian monarchy. It would have supported the push for Palestinian statehood at the UN as a wedge against the Likud Party’s intransigence. And it would have mentioned democratization in Riyadh along with the other capitals that were mentioned.

Still and all, it was a fine speech, a courageous speech because it challenged US allies as much as it did US foes, and it put the US on the side of Bourguiba Avenue and Tahrir Square and Benghazi and Deraa and Taizz. That is the side of history on which the US needs to stand. As a set of ideals, it was a big stride in the right direction. As practical policy, it is hard to see how it would be implemented effectively (upbraiding Israel and Bahrain slightly won’t change those crises). But, well, at least Washington is finally not standing in the way of the people in the region.

Read the whole thing!

oh Please. He supported George Bush’s Iraqi Freedom agenda. The only war he’s against is the future war with Iran.

All the loving the President, Senators and The House of Representatives is showing The State Israel is nothing but a money thing. We give Israel around about 4 Billion dollars in weapons and money yearly.Their Lobbyists probably fondle allot that back through AIPAC.In my humble opinion ,this nothing money Laundering on a global scale. Every time the politicians needs more money, they past another bill through congress against those stones throwers.Nobody in congress really wants peace in the Middle East. Hell it a money venture. No body really loses except the people on both sides that live there. Do not let anybody fool you it about the money . Some of the politicians do not love their own family as much as they love the State of Israel.I say cut off all foreign Aid to both sides. The money changers and diatribe will move on to another place in time.

What you smoking bro? Here’s Cole on 17/03/2003 (3 days before Iraqi Freedom commenced):

The case for an Iraqi WMD program in the nuclear area has thus now completely collapsed. Since it was the nukes that were truly scary
(rightwing commentators kept saying Saddam might give a suitcase bomb to
al-Qaeda, never a likely scenario), not botulism or mustard gas, one
wonders if the Congress would have authorized the President to go to war if
it had known there were no nukes.

The Niger documents turn out to be clumsy forgeries, raising questions about whether Bush, Cheney and others who depended on them were attempting to deceive US public opinion and that of the world.

He was spot on about Iraqi Freedom.

It was good to read the predictable Neo-you-know-what rallying cry of ‘Zionists’ and the predictable genetic refutation of the Jews’ legitimacy in Israel. I was afraid for a moment that I was angry for no apparent reason. Thanks for the crystal clear reminder.

the predictable genetic refutation of the Jews’ legitimacy in Israel

Do you only do strawmen or do you whistle as well? There was no refutation of legitimacy. There was support of palestininian legitimacy in Israel/Palestine, something you had tried to deny.

Now that palestinian legitimacy has been established and supported by facts, do you have a comeback on the merits?

Hamas is determined to erase Israel from the face of the earth. Their leaders say it in Arabic all the time and act properly. The Fatah is quite divided among the military “Tanzim” and the Al-Aqsa brigades that devoted to fight Israel until her destruction. There are even ‘some’ moderate PLO political leaders that want to annihilate Israel by “the stages strategy”, which means weakening Israel by political decisions and actions by “spices” of terror actions combined with “stages” of Israel concessions, just as Arafat ordered his people in 1975.

Don’t threat people while you have nothing in disposal! obeying to Russia national interests even when oppose that state?
The US and Israel have good relations that benefits both. Israel helped the US in very sensitive cases, even while the US needed to compete with the USSR. Israel always knew about the USSR, mainly through Arab channels, more than the mighty CIA knew. Israel also helps the US today with much of technical, scientific and military know-how almost for no paying. The new technology inventions, such as the “Arrow” missile system, passed to the US freely and they chose to invest in the project half of the money in condition that some of the producing will be made in US industry too. In that way the US enjoys lot of Israel military and scientific inventions and developments, from drowns and missiles up to electronic and military components. It is assumed that Israel taking part in producing more than 1000 military usage components for the US, most of them derived from Israeli inventions.

Being a fair mediator doesn’t mean pushing Israel aside with peanuts’ promises and at the same time relinquishing the Arabs with fulfilling their duty to stop terror and dismantle the terror organizations.

Your interpretations of the US and Israeli relations are dull and farce and it seems that your perspective influenced by your illusions only.

@AbeBird, @Jim

Suffice to say, your likudian perspectives on Israel / Palestine is far outside any “progressive” mainstream. In fact it’s pretty much stock RedState and FreeRepublic doxa. So is this the answer to where all “kick ass” Obama haters come from? PUMAs and undercover freepers?

Whom the land is? Some facts to meet the Arab lies.

http://osherove.com/blog/2009/1/5/political-the-truth-about-the-palestinian-loss-of-land-1946.html .

Obama already kicked off. See that the Americans will turn their back on him.

Keep peddling the hasbara, friend of Israel. Hope you got your Internet Megaphone charged and ready to go.

This is a very peculiar progressive website: Liking the democratic president: Unthinkable! Peddling stock Freeper hasbara: Fine and Dandy!

But Israel achieved its statehood through very similar means. [A vote in the General Assembly.]

The Palestinians achieved their statehood exactly as Israel did, and in the very same vote. The problem is that they, and their “friends” ann “protectors” in the Arab world rejected Palestinian statehood if the state of Israel was allowed to exist as well.

Egypt and Trans-Jordan occupied the Palestinian lands and kept the Palestinians in camps, rather than allowing them to establish a state. (Trans-Jordan even changed its name, which was now inaccurate.) Not a word of protest was ever raised about this occupation.

After more than six decades of rejection, the they want to turn back the clock and have the UN declare a Palestinian State, without abandoning their aim of erasing the State of Israel.

There is a word for this: chutzpah!

The palestinian peoples universal human rights are not dependent on the behavior of Egypt or Trans-Jordan. Either one believes in democracy or one doesn’t. Keeping millions of disenfranchized people on land your country occupies, allowing them no representation and no citizenship is unacceptable. The baseline is set: 1967 borders as the starting point for negotiations. What is there to consider? Here’s a chance to strike a peace deal and for Israel to become a democracy proper, with recognized, secure borders. Time to negotiate.

When the oppressed have become the oppressors forgetting one’s own history?

That’s chutzpah! A disgusting example of hypocritical behavior levied against people, by people who have been oppressed and continued to be treated as second class citizens, in an alleged democracy. “BULLSHIT!”

Kisses, there seems to be rampant disagreement about whether or not the Security Council needs to approve the question of Palestinian statehood going before the General Assembly.

Reuters says Yes; a panel (yes, I sucked it up to listen) on Morning Joe said Yes, no dissenters.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/q-palestine-become-united-nations-member-state-213138643.html

Help me out?

I’m obviously not shekissesfrogs, but my 2 cents: Israel was admitted membership in the UN by the General Assembly, so the same should go for Palestine:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_273

Thanks, Sherwood; I know it was, but WAS is not WILL, IMO. ;o) The Prez did not say, only expressed is disapproval, which may have been what all the other Peace Restart talk was about.

That politicians posture so often makes things extra confusing and frustrating.

Just saw Norman Finkelstein and Noura Erakat on Democracy Now! this morning (http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/20/did_obamas_mideast_speech_signal_us), and they reiterated that Obama’s 1967 borders proposal isn’t a new position for the United States. With Netenyahu rejecting this proposal, I really wonder how the negotiations will be able to move forward.

Thanks for the explanation. I little too nuanced, maybe, for me to follow…
but thanks all the same.

Here is a comment I left in another diary about the Law of Nation Building

Docs on Kosovo which is a similar situation:
The Law of Nationbuilding
- Does the UN Security Council have Authority to create new States?

Definition: What is a State?
To discuss the creation of a state it is necessary to have an idea what kind of entities are considered to be states under international law.

Despite the fact that there are other definitions one prominent definition is given by Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States § 201: “Under international law, a state is an entity that has a defined territory and permanent population, under the control of its own government, and that engages in, or has the capacity to engage in, formal relations with other such entities.

B. Customary International Law on State Creation
“The question of whether an entity is a state and should be so treated has given rise to two opposing theories.
One theory is that the act of recognition by other states confers international personality on an entity purporting to be a state. In effect, the other states by their recognition ‘constitute’ or create the new state. […]

The opposing position is that the existence of a state depends on the facts and on whether those facts meet the criteria of statehood laid down in international law. Accordingly, a state might exist without being recognized.”[6]

The factors that are required by the latter position are, as a minimum, that the entity whose legal status is controversial are those stated in Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States § 201: a permanent population and defined territory, a government and the capacity to engage in relations with other governments.

Since 1991 numerous additional factors have emerged[7], for example respect for the provisisons of the UN Charter, guarantees for the rights of national groups and minorities or respect for the inviolability of all frontiers[8].
[...]

4. Concluding Comments on the UN Charter
The above analysis shows that the only chapter that could provide the necessary authority to create states for the Security Council is chapter VII of the Charter. But the powers under Chapter VII are too limited to could allow the Security Council to create states. Hence, the UN Charter does not provide the legal basis for the creation of new states by the Security Council. Since, as explained above, the UN Charter is the only treaty that could provide such powers, the authority to create states is not given to the UN by International Conventions.

In respect to both Israel and Palestine for the questions above, I wonder if the US can be sued to stop recognizing Israel as a State because it’s breaking it’s own Foreign Relations Law? Israel doesn’t have defined borders nor does it abide or have ” respect for the provisions of the UN Charter, guarantees for the rights of national groups and minorities or respect for the inviolability of all frontiers”.

And the UNSC cannot create a State, and they can’t veto one either, but the other UN member states can recognize it, so can it vote to let them join the UN?

The insistance that a state must come from a “Peace Process”, fake or not is hoo ha.

[...]

That’s all I know. it’s really worth it to read the one document at the link.

Thank you kindly, Kisses. It may end up being like the question of what a law means: it means what the courts say* it means.

It will get interesting in September.

I agree that it is time to negotiate. In fact the time is long overdue, but how does one negotiate with a party with the stated aim of destroying you and your country? Israel is certainly guilty of human rights abuses in Gaza and the West Bank, but they could have been stopped at any time since 1947 by the simple expedient of mutual recognition and respect.

The Palestinians could have had a state based on the 1967 borders in 1967, but was unwilling to accept them. They are clearly oppressed, but they and their “allies” could have ended the oppression at many moments in the past 60 years.

One hopeful sign of the “Arab Spring” was that finally, the “liberal” voices in the world were addressing the oppression of Arabs by Arabs. The demonstrators in Tahrir Square were demanding the rights enjoyed, however imperfectly, by Israel Arabs.

Juan Cole supported the war to take out Saddam, just not the way it was conducted. (Everything that is old is new again!)

I also sympathize with Kerry, because I declined to oppose the war. I felt that a) Saddam was a genocidal monster, and getting rid of him would benefit the Iraqis, and b) the ‘dual containment’ of Iraq and Iran as a policy was a fatal dead end that had just put the US in the position of denying needed medicine to Iraqi children (actually Saddam manipulated the system to rob the children and give to the Baath officials, but the US got blamed). Even the ‘no-fly’ zone for the Kurds probably couldn’t have been kept up indefinitely, and if the US ever withdrew, Saddam would have massacred the Kurds all over again.

[..]
*Helena Cobban took umbrage at my saying originally “march to keep Saddam in power” because she felt it was a slur against anti-war protesters, implying that that was their goal. I wasn’t, however, talking about other people; I was talking about my own ethical stance. I knew for a fact that Saddam was not going to be overthrown by internal forces and that he was committing virtual genocide against people like the Marsh Arabs. For me, marching against the war would have been done in knowledge that it would result in Saddam staying in power.
But I disagreed almost completely with the *way* the war was carried out:

He’s not “for the war” but he’s not against it, and anyone who’s against it, is for genocide of the Kurds. He’s what Ecan calls a cruise missile liberal: killing people for humanitarian sake.

I could find a zillion quotes where the goal of Zionists is to destroy the Palestinians and deny them their land and lives and use this as an excuse for everything going forward. It is precisely this tactic that uses the past as a means to destroy peace in the present or the future. It is not true in the present. It’s time to move on and find some forgiveness and empathy on both sides.

You really have to go deep into the manure pile to dig up the same arguments that were used to justify slavery to defend the Israeli culture of oppression against even it’s own Palestinian citizens.

Perhaps, but take note that even if he was for taking out Saddam (for whatever reason) he kept his intellectual integrity and was 100% forthcoming in reporting on the b-llshit case used to sell the war, three days before hostilities commenced. I trust his reporting on the Middle East 100%. He’s yet to be off the mark.

I agree that it is time to negotiate. In fact the time is long overdue, but how does one negotiate with a party with the stated aim of destroying you and your country? Israel is certainly guilty of human rights abuses in Gaza and the West Bank, but they could have been stopped at any time since 1947 by the simple expedient of mutual recognition and respect.

The Palestinians could have had a state based on the 1967 borders in 1967, but was unwilling to accept them. They are clearly oppressed, but they and their “allies” could have ended the oppression at many moments in the past 60 years.

Israel doesn’t have to negotiate with Hamas, they can declare that they will negotiate in good faith for peace with Fatah, if Fatah are in power. And that they will negotiate in good faith with Hamas if they recognize Israel.

The “alliance” between Fatah and Hamas is an alliance to work together to set up democratic elections. Israel can declare that they will negotiate in good faith with whoever wins the election and recognizes Israels right to exist. Israel could also freeze all settlement activity as an incentive for palestinians to make the “right” choice.

There is every possibility for peace. The obstacles are:

1) Palestinians that don’t want to accept the reality of Israel.
2) Israelis that want all the land west of the Jordan river.

Those groups need to be marginalized, then peace will come. The problem is they havent been marginalized, on the contrary.