Subject: Re: Hamas launches mass attacks on Israel
I'm not sure Palestine does either, but they should be allowed to peacefully exist as a normal state.

Whatever the "shoulds," there is now no way that Israel will ever allow Palestine to be a normal state so long as Hamas exists as a politically viable entity within it. Normal states have a security apparatus and a military. There is no scenario in which Israel will allow a military that might be controlled by Hamas in either the West Bank or Gaza.

It is possible that Hamas was the proverbial dog that caught the car, here. This is Israel's 9/11 and Iran Hostage Crisis, rolled up into one big traumatic ball. There will be domestic support for Israel to go in and kill everyone even remotely connected to Hamas, root and branch, and not stop attacking until every one of them is dead or fled. Whether they can do that, they will certainly try. If they succeed, that might end up being one good thing to come out of this for the Palestinians - Hamas was always a canker on their lives - but it will be one of the only good things to come from what promises to be a long period of war and death.

If ever a two-state solution was possible, after this there will never be a two-state solution so long as Hamas exists.