Some people just refuse to play nice

I have, for a very long time, held the widely unpopular view that the United States needs to get its big fat nose out of Israel and let the natives there sort things out for themselves. I was once again convinced that this is the right play today when I read about the Hamas response to the Israeli pullout from the Gaza strip settlements.

Hamas: Armed Struggle is Sole Strategy

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal declared on Wednesday that the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank marked the beginning of the end of the Zionist dream in Palestine.

Mashaal was speaking to reporters in Beirut and his remarks were broadcast live by a number of major Arab TV satellite stations.

Dubbing the pullout a "defeat in the face of Palestinian resistance and a significant step with historic dimensions," Mashaal said that as far as Hamas was concerned, the disengagement marked the beginning of the death of the Zionist dream.

You know, I play a lot of poker. (Hang in there with me... you didn't just wander into a different post. This is going someplace.) At the end of any game, with the end being defined as the point where you get knocked out of the game, the defeated player always departs with a comment along the lines of, "Good game, guys. Good luck everyone." Somehow, celebrating the "beginning of the death of the Zionist dream" doesn't strike me as very good sportsmanship. You're getting some land back. You're moving towards having your own independent nation built on contiguous real estate, and doing so far faster than anyone could have believed only a few years ago.

Hamas is never going to be satisfied until every last Jew is either dead or moved out of the area. There are plenty of folks in Israel who feel the exact same way about the Palestinians. (Including those who run around making public statements that "there is no such thing as Palestine" etc.)

Some wounds are apparently too deep to heal. They will either sort it out or they won't. Keeping an American presence in that area is one of the main factors motivating terrorists to try to exterminate us. Let's call it a day, already.