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Gaza Conflict Is Just the Latest Round in a Long War
(New York Times) Steven Erlanger - The round of warfare between Israel and Hamas is really just another round in the unresolved Arab-Israeli war of 1948-49. A permanent peace treaty seems far away. Israel wants to disarm Hamas to end the attacks and indiscriminate rockets that now reach most of Israel. But how, without a permanent peace? Hamas claims the whole of the British Mandate of Palestine as land granted by Allah, which cannot be ceded. In other words, Israel is illegitimate and its occupants should "go home." The most any senior Hamas official ever offered was a "hudna," a cease-fire, which the Prophet Muhammad offered enemies to restore his strength. But a hudna is not a peace treaty.