This is where your Joe Average Palestinian enters the chat. Is that the existence they want, standing between their elected leaders and the IDF?

They don't have a choice. Hamas hasn't stood for an election in two decades. They don't wield power in Gaza by winning elections; they wield power because they have all the guns and have systematically killed all other political actors in the area.

There's no "entering the chat." This isn't silly social media stuff. Hamas death squads are already moving around Gaza in the areas where Israel has withdrawn, executing people that might be their opposition going forward. The average Palestinian has to support Hamas (or at least do absolutely nothing to oppose them) or get dragged into the street and shot.

No it isn't. The losing side never decides what happens when the war is over; you're forgetting that.
Hamas isn't some splinter group among the Palestinians; they *are* the Palestinians. Until the Palestinians decide otherwise by taking off their green bandannas and going back to their families.

I'm not forgetting anything, because the war isn't over until the fighting stops. Even the side that is losing gets to decide whether they stop fighting.

The Palestinians who aren't Hamas don't have any say in whether Hamas keeps fighting. Hamas isn't subject to civilian electoral control. So it doesn't matter what the rest of the Palestinians want. If Hamas chooses to keep fighting, the war will go on - even if the overwhelming majority of the Palestinians would choose to stop the war, the war will go on.

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