Hamas intends to defy Israel and continue to attack Israel with whatever means they can, and therefore will ensure the mutual destruction of Hamas and the helpless people of Gaza. Perhaps in another context that would be heroic. In this present context, it is simply foolish. Gaza its people and Hamas are irrelevant both to Israel and to the vestiges of the Palestinian government.

Abbas and his cronies would want nothing more than to have Hamas and Gaza disappear from their portfolio of governance. And Israel wishes the same. Israel wants the land; the Palestinian Authority hopes they take it. And they will.

The miserable existence of the people of this place cannot get much worse. They are barley clinging to a civilized existence, and if the world's attention were not upon them, they would not have even the barest means to survive.

Gaza was always a mutual problem for Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The connection between the West Bank and Gaza would require a solitary road from the West Bank, cutting through the whole length of Israel and guarded the entire length. The road connection is impractical and dangerous for Israel. The narrow connection between them would give Hamas and other malevolent gangs, a marvelous opportunity to strike deep into Israel across much of the county's breadth. There could never be such a method of access permitted.

Gaza as a wholly Palestinian entity was an idea doomed to begin with, and everyone knew this. Now Hamas has done exactly what Israel and the Palestinian hierarchy wished for. They have created an enemy state with clearly hostile intent.

Gaza is a rather pretty place along the sea. Arafat built his summer palace there. A grand multistory administrative building just on the shoreline. He had a small house nearby. The little beach cottage was more of a token of humility than a home. Humility was necessary, because just yards beyond the beach are the hovels of the Palestinian refugee camps. He wanted to show his empathy for them I suppose. He rarely stayed in the small house. The Israelis would occasionally shell the beach from gunboats just offshore. They would not hit the house or the compound; just a little artillery intimidation.

I always met him in his compound. We would have dinner in his private dining room overlooking the sea. The dinners were always well attended and quite sumptuous. The refugees ate sparingly. Abbas built a multistory home for himself and his family, just a hundred yards from the Arafat complex. A monstrous ugly red brick building it is. He was rarely there, he preferred the continent.

The Palestinian Authority built these grand places with money from the European Union, the Saudis and the United States. Billions of dollars were misappropriated for the Palestinian Authority's various pleasures. They did not go without, any of them Arafat and his cronies, while the people of the West Bank and Gaza struggled on poverty's edge.

Nothing has changed really. Abbas is as equally venial as Arafat. He will make a deal with Israel and give up Gaza. Gaza was always a problem that could not be solved by either the Palestinians or the Israelis. Unless it just goes away. So it shall.

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Morgan Strong has been a consultant to various television networks on the Middle East. He is a former professor of Middle Eastern History.