Israel & Palestine IV (Part 4 of 4): "The Intifada Years"
Covering 2005 to 2009, with a particular focus on the takeover of Gaza by Hamas.
Even though I have taken down my previous Israel & Palestine posts, I still wanted to finish up the last chapters in my own personal time. After all, I spent so much time deep-diving into this subject over the past year and a half, that I didn’t want to just end the journey without reaching my final destination.
I have decided to make available (at least temporarily) this final segment of “The Intifada Years” (covering 2005-2009) because it primarily focuses on the election of Hamas in 2006 and the civil war in Palestine which culminated in the Hamas takeover of 2007, which many feel is what stagnated the peace process completely and got us to where we are today.
I got deep in the weeds on this one, because as you may or may not be aware — the debate over what actually happened in 2007, and who was at fault, has been renewed at an even greater intensity since the 10/7 attacks. So this chapter has a particular relevance to the debates that you are hearing today. (And I also think that the article “Captives” by Lawrence Wright, which I excerpted from at the very end of this piece, resonated with me even more strongly today than it did at the time.) If you’re interested in the subject, the PDF is available for you to download below:
Just note that this PDF actually opens with the final segment of my previous writing (on the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005) because I have since revised parts of it — and because I think it is actually important to have that context before you dig into this new chapter. (The new stuff actually begins on page 9.)