Another six days of war – another 40 years of misery?

I guess I might have been wrong in my blog post about the Six Day War: The events in Gaza the last days have shown that the Palestinians are clearly not yet ready to govern their own state. At least not in a peaceful, even remotely democratic fashion.

Six days of civil war

According to the BBC, Hamas is now in full control of the Gaza strip after six days of fierce fighting and more than 100 deaths.

The Fatah and Hamas movements – both members of the so-called coalition government have hereby shown that they are perfectly capable of having their own bloody Six Day War, without any Israeli interference.

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya told the CNN that

- Our presence in the government came about from democratic and popular will and through the ballot boxes. We restate that we will continue to follow democratic conduct and respect the political system and all of its components which came through the elections.

No peace for the weary

So far, Hamas’ actions have shown neither democratic conduct nor respect for the political system. Until Hamas starts trusting the ballot boxes for real and put down their assault rifles and rocket launchers, their will be no real Palestinian state, no deals with Israel, no help from the West and no peace for the war weary Palestinian civilians.

Photo of the Gaza strip barrier: Zero0000 / Wikimedia Commons