#this aint merica with its boring 2 party system theres like 50 parties at play

[homochadensistm]

Beautiful lesbian wife, I am but an ignorant American wading through the online Dead Sea of Disinformation and Confusing Acronyms. I understand roughly the situation re: Hamas and Gaza, but I don't understand why Israel (or maybe just Likud?) was, prior to Oct. 7, focused more on violence in the West Bank than Gaza. Why would the West Bank be more dangerous? Was it the PNA or the PLO that was the problem? Between the extremist nationalists and extremist religious fundamentalists, aren't the fundamentalists worse hands down, or am I just an American who grew up after 9/11?

.... where *is* the PLO in all of this anyway?

Israel enacts a military occupation on the West Bank (looking from the east), or Judea and Samaria (looking from the past), which is why military presence is always pretty high over there. But, over the past 2yrs iirc military presence in J&S has been especially high, as part of the current govts (or rly any coalition in our hyper election-ridden past, but especially the current coalition) philosophy on settlements - because we live in Clown World where our coalition is made up of corrupt autocrats engaging in incest with batshit insane, genocidal race supremacists (Smut-rich, Bengvir, all the fun ppl), their efforts in expanding the settlement projects of J&S are to be admired, and these efforts require the constant presence of armed forces in the area to protect said settlement projects and settlers.

Aside from the increase in settlement plans and outright land theft sponsored by Big Ultra Security Specialist Government(TM), J&S has terror hotspots like Jenin and Nablus, housing groups such as The Lions Den (rest in piss), Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and, ofc, Hamas. Contrary to what the blue haired girlies like to post on here, Hamas is (and always was) alive and well in J&S. Theyd even win an election there if Abbas (Fatah, think PLO) ever decided he wants to commit both political and literal involuntary suicide.

In general, Hamas' greatest accomplishment was fooling the state that it seeks normalization: from reprimanding the PIJ for firing rockets, to signing more work agreements with Israel (i.e., allowing more Gazans to come work in Israel) Hamas has successfully convinced the state that it doesnt pose any immediate threat and diverted attention from itself in Gaza towards its sister-wives in J&S. J&S also offers an extra layer of danger because Israelis and Palestinians live very, very close to each other, and while some of them get along fine, a lot dont, and routinely harass each other whether by burning each others fields, grenade-bombing each others towns or just doing good ol lynchings, all of which again, requires military presence to protect both parties (but mostly the settlers because the soldiers who are doing the 'protecting' frequently come from said settler communities).

All in all, J&S is practically the wild west peppered with unhealthy amounts of religious extremism and spicy nationalism. It also doesnt help that J&S is basically on top of a giant hill overlooking the entirety of central Israel. If rockets were to be fired from over there.....nowhere would be safe, and theyd definitely be able to aim a whole lot better at our cities.