Just when life looked like it could not get any worse for the people of Gaza, the lights went out. With temperatures soaring into the mid-90s earlier this week, the power company supplying electricity to as many as half of the strip's 1.4 million people ran out of fuel for several days. As with just about everything that happens in the Middle East, the problem boiled down to politics. Surprisingly, however, the decision leading to the cutoff of fuel shipments came from the European Union, shining a broiling hot spotlight on one of the dilemmas confronting the international community as it seeks solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Europeans believed that the electricity funding was helping finance Hamas, a group that, although elected by Palestinian voters, rejects Israel's right to exist. If your goal is to help find a durable and just solution to the tensions dividing Israelis and Palestinians, what do you do about the Islamic Resistance Movement, better known as Hamas?
The Gaza Dilemma: Aiding Palestinians Without Helping Hamas
