Daniel Levy, writing in Prospects for Peace, highlights the emerging plan that is being articulated over the last days from many quarters after the Hamas victory in Gaza. He says that it is in danger of becoming entrenched, even though it is a fantastical one – divorced from reality and far too similar to the previous failed policies that helped create this disaster.

The emerging plan is known variously as promoting Fatahland, while punishing Hamastan, or West Bank first, or feed the West Bank/starve Gaza. There is no detailed elaboration of the plan yet, but its outline would look something like this. Use the new reality as an opportunity to drive home the division between the West Bank-Fatahland and the Gaza-Hamastan.Visibly demonstrate to the Palestinians that Fatahland is a happy place with an advancing peace process, while Hamastan is a dark and hopeless place excluded from this march of peace. Ultimately, so the story goes, the Palestinians embrace the Fatah alternative. Hamas peacefully accepts the consequences or is militarily defeated and we all live happily ever after.

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