Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire, but no one is under any illusions. The latest round in the Gaza-Israeli war will end in another extended lull, and the two sides will be no closer to peace.
Well-meaning politicians, opinion-formers and do-gooders talk about the need for peace. The two sides must sit down and talk, they say, and hammer out a political solution.
In spite of the record press and media coverage of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, rarely are Hamas’s objectives put in historical perspective. Hamas are not Palestinian nationalists but Islamists. Hamas, an acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement, simply does not have a negotiating position, short of the annihilation of Israel and the subjugation of Jews to Muslim rule, as per its Charter.