force because hamas doesn t acknowledge the existence of israel because hamas says they will fight until israel is demolished, and hamas says we will never negotiate with israel. the difficulty i think, and going back to prime minister netanyahu, is that the way hamas acts and the way netanyahu acted in order to weaken the palestinian authority and fund hamas with qatari money, helping hamas becoming this was just bribe. so bribing hamas or using qatari money as bribe to keep hamas quiet for as long as possible, and even money that was designed, designated to go to that civilian project or the other was under the control of hamas and made them stronger. this is something i think israel should reconsider. do we want to enforce a stronger hamas after the war or maybe try to make the palestinian authority much stronger.
on the ground has never been more complicated. you have a conservative prime minister who faces his own even more conservative settlers. you have the palestinians divided between hamas and fatah, the two rival parties controlling the west bank and gaza. you also have when you look at that stage and all five of them, one common enemy, one thing they all fear, the one party that s not there, and that s iran. it looms over the back. and they re all afraid that iran s meddling, whether it s with helping hamas, hezbollah in lebanon, that this will change dynamics on the ground. they often talk about peace talks being the last ditch effort, the last time you can do it. but we actually are getting there. the situation on the ground, the balance of power in the whole middle east, is beginning to change. robin makes an excellent point. david gergen, our senior analyst, is with us from boston. robin makes a good point. the big question is can these leadermake in on the map. to make a key point