No, the behavior of Loren Pechtel is the argument.
I wasn't commenting on your dispute with Loren as such, but on your assertion that Hamas desires prosperity for Gaza.
Loren responded with the extraordinary claim that the reason the greenhouse project failed is because Hamas doesn't like prosperity, without providing a single shred of evidence his claims were true
Evidence would be the behavior of Hamas. For example, their decision to launch the current war. Was that conducive to prosperity for Gaza or not?
Karni crossing was not permanently closed until 2011, long after Hamas took power.
Note also that in January 2005, terrorists from Hamas and other terror groups attacked the Karni crossing and killed six civilians.
Karni border crossing attack
In any case, why should a country have to import goods from a neighbor that is actively attacking it? If Gazans want to export their cucumbers and strawberries to Israel, perhaps shooting rockets at their would-be customers is not good for business, eh?
Hamas ran on a platform of economic development and was actually building infrastructure in Gaza, so I have every reason to believe he knows he's posting bullshit.
LMAO! Hamas was not about economic development, or else they would not be attacking Israel every chance they get.
Building infrastructure in Gaza? Their tunnel network that stretched for hundreds of miles and served to hide weapons and facilitate attacks against Israel is the biggest infrastructure project Hamas conducted.
I also have every reason to believe he does it so that people won't look into the history and reach their own conclusions based on the facts they find.
The facts are that Hamas et al are far more interested in attacking Israel than in developing Gaza's economy. As I said before, shooting rockets at your neighbors is not good for business. Attacking a border crossing and murdering civilians there is not a good way to increase your strawberry exports through that crossing.
If you want to support Loren's claims that Hamas doesn't like prosperity, you'll have to do better than merely assert it the way you're doing here:
I wasn't merely asserting it, I showed that their actions were directed at picking fights with Israel and not with making Gaza prosperous.
If we accept your argument as valid, we must therefore conclude that Zionist settlers who store weapons in their homes in the settlements and instance of the IDF storing weapons in areas where civilian housing exists indicates Zionist and Israelis soldiers don't care about the lives of Jews.
There is a huge difference between settlers having small arms for self-defense (West Bank is lousy with assorted terror fighters) and terrorists setting up rocket launchers in a designated humanitarian zone surrounded by civilians in tents.
If, OTOH, we accept weapon storage in or near homes as normal when a nation or community is threatened with extreme violence,
The only reason Al-Mawasi was "threatened with extreme violence" is that Gazan terror groups were operating from there, as the image of the struck rocket launcher clearly shows.
Hell, the only reason there is even a war in Gaza is because Hamas et al decided to attack Israel and murder >1000 people, mostly civilians.
But to you, that action showed that Hamas clearly had prosperity of regular Gazans at the top of their minds, right?
I never said I support Hamas, or that I want Hamas to prevail. Quite the opposite in fact.
So you say now, but why do you keep defending them? Like saying that they want prosperity for Gazan people, even when they, for example attack a border crossing vital for exports from Gaza.
I think the biggest obstacle to our discussions is your insistence on categorizing everyone as either pro-Israel or pro-Hamas, and refusal to acknowledge that there are other positions one can take and other political parties one can support.
Of course other positions are possible. But somebody who is not pro-Hamas would not spend as much space as you defending them and their actions.
Being pro-peace and pro-human rights means being at odds with racist religious bigots of every stripe. You never seem to get that no matter how many times it's explained to you.
So you should be against Hamas et al shooting rockets into Israel (which increased in 2005 after disengagement). You should be against Hamas attacking border crossings, like they did in 2005. You should be against them using Gaza resources to build an extensive tunnel network and also against them acquiring a huge arsenal of rockets.
Israel did not withdraw the soldiers from the walls and barriers that kept the Palestinians imprisoned.
It's called a border. A border with a hostile entity whose leaders have vowed to destroy Israel. Not heavily guarding this border would be reckless. In fact, it was reckless for IDF not to guard the border far more heavily in early October 2023.
What would you have Israel do instead?
You know the Gazans weren't free to come and go as they pleased,
Again, it's called a border. To cross a border into a country, you need permission from that country. Why should Gazans be free to "come and go as they pleased"? Especially since even when permission is granted, it often gets abused, leading to greater restrictions. Example:
Israel: Gaza sisters smuggled explosives on way to hospital
or to export their products or import goods for sale without outside interference,
Generally, it is not advisable to attack the country you hope to do trade with.
or to develop their natural gas resources, or to generate electricity at their power plant, or to drive or fly wherever they wanted to go. Heck, they weren't allowed to pick crops from their own lands or fish in their Territorial waters without the risk of being shot.
All of those have to do with attacks by groups such as Hamas against Israel. The Gaza Airport was destroyed during the Second Intifada, a reign of terror when Palestinians had murdered about a thousand Israelis, most of them civilians.
Restrictions on fishing have been in place because fishing boats have been used to smuggle weapons for Gazan terror groups. And so on.
It's like you think inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary are "free" anytime the guards are not walking the floors even though you know the guards are still manning the walls and points of ingress/egress, and controlling how much food, water, and basic necessities the inmates receive.
Gaza is not a penitentiary. It's a territory that has constantly been attacking Israel. Worst such attack occurred in October 2023, directly leading to this war.
Your apologetics of Hamas certainly is.
And here we are, back at considering how and why the greenhouse project and other investments in Gaza's economy ultimately failed.
You don't think it had anything to do with shooting rockets and massacring people at the Karni crossing, do you?
Yes, it could have been a success story. It could have been a time of disengagement from hostilities and engagement in mutually beneficial projects. It could have been a time of economic growth and prosperity for both Palestinians and Israelis. That didn't happen.
... because Hamas and other terror groups thought attacking Israel was more important than economic development of Gaza. Which brings us full circle to refuting your claims that Hamas is all about prosperity for regular Gazans.
