1. After Trump's declaration 6 months ago, I went to Damascus Gate in Jerusalem and asked Arabs there what they thought of the decision to move the US embassy. Most were dismayed, but didn't justify violence. Some explicitly told me that they were upset with America, not Israel.
2. Today, over 35 people have died in Gaza so far. It seems to me that Hamas used this sequence of protests to whip up latent dismay and convert it into potent hatred and violence against Israel.
3. It's interesting to note that the violence is occurring almost exclusively in Gaza. There's little acts of sympathy in the West Bank or east Jerusalem. The anger is very clearly being stoked by Hamas.
4. Hamas knew that by holding a number of demonstrations, at some point things would end up becoming intolerably violent and degenerating into bloodshed.
From that point, it's easy to get more and more people to come out and protest.
From that point, it's easy to get more and more people to come out and protest.
5. Israel could have handled this significantly better. It could have used non-lethal means instead of going from largely ineffective riot dispersal methods directly to live fire. And Liberman's bellicose pronunciation of "100 snipers" was terribly ill-advised and wrongheaded.
6. Nevertheless, it would be foolish to fall into the tired "cycle of violence" claptrap that so often arises. These demonstration-cum-riots and the ensuing deaths of many Gazans were entirely avoidable, and occurred chiefly because Hamas wanted it to happen.
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