That’s why when Israel put its foot down and said “nope” pretty much everyone played along, as best exemplified by the absolute shitshow that was Western reaction to the 2006 Palestinian elections.

What reaction was it that you regard as a shitshow to the 2006 Palestinian elections?

The kind of abject horror that’s now making four different heads of state say “we are not exporting weapons to Israel” (with varying degrees of truthfulness) to placate their populations simply wasn’t there.

Yes, that's taken an additional 20 years of Israeli massacres.

So to respond to your point: Western governments and people did want to being peace to Palestine, but it was viewed as just another regional conflict, not as settler colonists ethnically cleansing an indigenous population with Western support, so they were just another participant in the farce.

None of that has anything to do with the point regarding Hamas and whether its behavior has been in some way central to Western awareness of Gaza.

They also wouldn’t need to, because the West wouldn’t give a shit about Gaza without Hamas activities to put Palestine in the news.

Is your argument that Hamas running a disproportionately conservative mafia state in Gaza, funded by Israel and American 'allies' like Qatar, and the resulting tensions between Hamas and Fatah, wherein elections have been impossible for nearly 20 years now, has been in some way pivotal towards Western awareness of Israeli crimes?

Or has it been that the past 25 years of total domination of the Israeli right over the Israeli government has resulted in a government policy by the Israeli right that is, necessarily, more naked and brutal than ever to appeal to their core constituencies and hold onto power, alienating foreign allies to shore up domestic support, and Hamas's contribution has been limited to boosting the polling numbers of Bibi et co?