It is hard to figure out exactly what the Hamas takeover of Gaza means, but several things are clear to Undismayed. I have made a helpful list.

1. The BBC is simply obsessed with Palestinians. Isn't it rather strange, old chap? You would think that, should you be unfortunate enough to have to hear Robin Lustig, that absolutely nothing else is happening in the world.

2. NPR is similarly obsessed, although it is several notches below the BBC, which is drooling at the chance to blame the Israelis for the Palestinian putsch. NPR is not mustering the same glee they did last year at this time during the Lebanon war. I think they are thinking (clearly for the first time): "holy cow, these Palestinians really are terrorists, all of them!"

3. The BBC interviews I have heard with the Palestinians are just priceless as the interviewees observe the civil war within the Palestinian soul between corrupt terrorist embracing Fatah and purist fanatical terrorists Hamas and bemoan the lack of attention on the common Israeli enemy.

4. But more at the heart of it, the true face of the soon-to-be- independent state of Palestine is clear. It is a terrorist state aligning with the terrorist mini-state in Hizbollah-controlled Lebanon and the terrorist macro-state in Iran. it is a terrorist axis of evil. No North Korea to be found (Hans Brix!)

The fact that Fatah is the best, most moderate option is really rather stunning and telling. There is a marked shift taking place in the region when terrorist gangs control so much territory in the middle east, especially on the heels of the US invasion of Iraq.

6. The pretense that the Palestinians actually want a state is rather hard to sustain when they have spent zero time trying to do anything in Gaza even remotely related to development. Which means...

7. Let's be blunt: following the Israeli withdrawal and the Palestinian destruction of the infrastructure they left behind (down to, literally, smearing their shit on the walls of greenhouses, and with Fatah eliminated from any role there, should the region just be put into lockdown and made into a Middle Est version of "Escape from New York."

8. Maybe Fatah should get its independent state to squeeze slush funds out of in the West Bank as a reward for only loving terrorism a little. They can see if Palestinians can how you say how you say, actually try to make their society work for itself. The Gaza strip can be walled off and left until they all eat each other. Literally, not metaphorically.


9. Things are going to get much worse.