Imagine if Palestinians took over the King David Hotel and killed a bunch of people. I'm sure there are some Palestinians who would like to do that. It would be further proof that there is no one to deal with on the Palestinian side, and they are not a true partner, as Rahm Emanuel put it.
Of course the Pakistanis–or apparently, now, their allies–do this kind of thing all the time. And they still have a state. No one has deprived them of self-government because, in their ongoing border dispute with the Indians, they have done horrible horrible things.
The Pakistanis recognize the existence of India, but not its right to exist on Kashmiri territory. Yet despite this nonrecognition, the Pakistanis have all the equipment of the modern nation state, including nukes. While Hamas is deprived of any international standing because it does not recognize Israel's right to exist.
The other major difference between India/Pakistan and Israel/Palestine is that the Pakistanis are not attacking American buildings. Their border dispute has not become internationalized in anything like the way that the Palestinian right to self-government has become an international issue. We try to stay evenhanded in the India/Pakistan dispute.
While in the Israel/Palestine one, we are firmly on one side, and have helped to deprive the other side of statehood and territory for the last 61 years. And you wonder why the World Trade Center doesn't exist any more. And why sage intellectuals say that the great threat to world peace is from non-state actors. State actors are more stable. And we have deprived the Palestinians of statehood forever.
