Cutting off the head of the snake III

In 2004 an American Hellfire missile, fired from an American attack helicopter manned by an IAF flight crew, took out an old man in a wheelchair and a dozen bystanders in Gaza City.

The old man was Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, reputed head of Hamas.

"The head of the snake."

At the time there was a lot of infantile gloating about having dispatched the head of the snake.

What a glorious victory! Nevermind that we'd just murdered an old man in a wheelchair and a dozen bystanders; he was the head of the snake!

It was a Hellfire missile well spent.

Two years later Hamas won the elections in Gaza.

Free and fair and utterly democratic elections by all accounts, just like the ones we in the Nations of Virtue love to sermonize about.

By the time another year was over, Hamas had routed the PA in an ill-advised counter-revolution that we put the PA up to.

Hamas have been the undisputed masters of Gaza ever since.

Just a couple of months ago the Emir of Qatar, an erstwhile ally of the Nations of Virtue, paid a visit to Gaza and promised 400 millions in rebuilding assistance.

Since then there have been pro-Hamas rallies galore in the supposedly PA-controlled West Bank. There is little doubt that in a fair and free election Hamas would rout the PA in the West Bank as well.

All of which flows from having cut the head off the snake in 2004.

Perhaps "cutting off the head of the snake" is a strategy that could bear revisiting.