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Israel-Gaza Megathread #2

This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.

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There are two big issues underlying Hamas.

The first is Pan-Arabism. After the Ottoman Empire fell there was a desire to unite all of the Arab lands in a "Greater Syria". A Jewish state smack dab in the middle was contrary to this dream. The Muslim Brotherhood was and is a big proponent of Pan-Arabism. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

So there will always be a lot of money available to fund anti-Iraeli activities.

Next is polygamy. There are naturally more reproductive age men than women. You'll often hear that there are more women, but that's due to women living longer. Post menopausal women don't play a part in these numbers.

In most societies the difference small and manageable, but once you allow polygamy you have a massive surplus of young men. There are only two ways to deal with that... encourage young men to leave or encourage them to die in some conflict. Either wars or sectarian violence.

Small communities in non-polygamous countries can just drive out the young men, FLDS towns are notorious for this.

But once you get large populations that's not an option. So there's some mix of encouraging emigration and supporting sectarian conflicts.

So Hamas is basically a way to use a structural societal problem to achieve some political goals.

Polygamy isn’t particularly common in Gaza.