It is not Gaza’s economic malaise that has precipitated Palestinian violence. It is the other way around: the endemic violence has caused the Strip’s humanitarian crisis. So long as Gaza continues to be governed by Hamas’s rule of the jungle, no Palestinian civil society, let alone a viable state, can develop.

As long as the historic debate about the two-state solution remains unresolved, the future of Gaza in general, and of Hamas’s continued rule of the Strip in particular, will remain open.