Wandering through the Washington Post the other day, I happened across an interesting article/opinion column (not sure how to classify it) on Israel's pullout from Gaza.
It was interesting to start with, not because anything in it was unexpected, but because it was written by a Palestinian.

Re-read it a couple times. Much of the "woe is us" mentality readily apparent. Much of the standard variety blame games. One bit struck me:

I ask him about the job creation programs sponsored by the Palestinian Authority and some international organizations. These temporary, low-paying jobs are just "painkillers," Ala'a said; they're mostly useful "just to keep people's mouths shut." Ala'a is a supporter of Hamas because its Islamic charities provide food, education and medical services to many refugee families here. "Hamas provides not only political alternatives, but economic ones also," he says.

Much has been made by politicians grandstanding on the Israeli/Palestinian issue on the so-called "cycle of violence", in which they claim that one side or the other (usually, Israel) is required to simply sit back and take repeated attacks on the chin as a "gesture of good faith", because the other side will always "respond" to an attack. Many times it's also used as an epithet trying to emphasize how sad things are in the region.

Allow me to put forth another version of the "cycle of violence", one which makes more sense to me. It works like this: Hamas gets up in the morning and hates Israel. Hates Israel so much, in fact, that killing Israelis is secondary to the livelihood of the Palestinian people.

So Hamas gets up and shoots a few rockets at Israel, sends in a few suicide bombers, shouts Allahu Akbar a few times, and before you know it there's dancing in the streets and someone's passing out candies to kids because they "struck a blow" by lobbing in ordnance that killed random Israeli civilians. And a few hours later, wouldn't you know, Israeli troops are lobbing missiles back or coming through the streets looking for the terrorists (Hamas) who are responsible. And since there's been a suicide bombing and rocket attack, Israel locks down their border, and goods don't flow, and workers can't cross over.

And so in a day or so, Palestinians are miserable. They don't have jobs anymore, the money supply dries up. People get hungry. And Hamas comes back, because they see an opportunity. They can hand out a few loaves of bread, shout "we are protecting you from the Occupation", fire their guns into the air, and gain popularity. And they repeat the process: shoot the Israelis, make sure the border stays closed up or locked down, or at least on heightened security, let the people starve, come by with a few loaves of bread, give a sermon about how Hamas are "saving" the Palestinian people...

Nevermind that had Hamas not attacked in the first place, the Palestinians would still have jobs, would not be worrying about Israeli missiles or troops, and would be eating real meals rather than the lousy loaf of bread Hamas is handing out. Because by this point, all the Palestinians have been fed for years is the Hamas propaganda.

That's the cycle of violence in a nutshell. A really cynical ploy, based on keeping Palestinians down for the political goals of Hamas - because the last thing Hamas or any of the other terrorist groups needs, even the Palestinian Authority themselves, is a HAPPY Palestinian populace.

However, in anticipation of one comment: no, the common suggestion doesn't work. It doesn't work for Israel to just leave their border open. Why? Because if they do, we're going to see more buses bombed and more innocents killed by suicide bombers. And they have every right to do what they can to keep their own citizenry alive.