Israel's Hubris

A friend made a comment on my previous post wondering why I haven't said anything about the current situation in the Gaza strip (those weren't her exact words but that's what I read between the lines).  I don't know why, really.  I suppose it could be fatigue.  It could also be that in my mind the Israeli offensive is so obviously vile and short-sighted that I really don't feel like it needs comment.  Then again, if we stop raising our voices out of fear of repetition, or simply because we're tired of the debate, then we hand victory to the opposition; we forfeit our right to to be heard.  Thank you Selma for reminding me of that.

As a pragmatist, I have to ask the question: what does Israel hope to accomplish by leveling Gaza? They've stated publicly that they don't wish to topple Hamas - the alternative could be worse: all out chaos in which any of a number of even more radical groups could emerge as Gaza's protector. Eliminating rocket attacks on Israel?  Seems naive considering Hamas rockets are homemade Magyver jobs.  Even as the technology improves and the rockets travel farther, the know-how to produce them becomes embedded in the Hamas network.  Killing off a few rocket-cells will not eradicate that knowledge.  The rockets may stop, for a while, but they will be back.  

What's more likely, in my opinion, is that Kadima, the ruling party, is facing elections amid waning popularity and they realize that, traditionally, parties that are tough on the Palestinians tend to win Israeli elections.   They want to project toughness.  They want Israelis to know that they have what it takes to protect them from the dangerous Other snarling at them from the cage it's been put into.  

That prison was an Israeli construction, aided by Egypt, when it unilaterally  withdrew from Gaza.   They claimed to give Gazans 'freedom' from occupation when in fact they were really trading occupation for imprisonment.  The plan worked: Gaza disintigrated into chaos providing the justification Israel was looking for to level it.  

Israel is ruled by the politics of fear.   It's a fine line parties like Kadima walk, on the one hand convincing Israelis that they are being kept safe while at the same time keeping the very fear alive, a little like a dentist handing out sweets to his patients.   It's a sick game, and a deadly one at that and it begs the question of whether there is any endgame at all to Israel's military campaign.  

Granted, Hamas must shoulder some of the blame: it could have renewed the 6-month old truce. But quite frankly, the truce was not paying any dividends for them.  Gaza was still in lockdown and the international community still shunned Hamas leaders while Israel's targeted assasinations of the Hamas leadership continued.  If you look at the statistics, you can see what could be another reason for Israel's aggresion: attacks on Israel from Gaza dropped dramatically during the ceasefire - from 2 278 in the 6 months before it to 329 during the cessation of hostilities, the vast majority of those coming after November 4, when the agreement fell apart (0nly 15 mortar shells and 11 rockets, and zero fatalities, were recorded from July 1 to November 1).  So Hamas held up its part of the bargain while Israel did not (the agreement was for Israel to stop the Gaza blockade, which never happened).  Mouin Rabbani, a contributing editor at the Middle East Report, makes a convincing argument that Israel was likely worried about renewing the truce in light of the fact that Hamas had kept its word while Israel had not. Hamas, therefore, would've had a great deal of negotiating power that could've forced the Israelis to end the blockade, which they are obviously unwilling to do.  Provoking an end to the ceasefire avoided the painful concessions Israel thought it would have to make had the truce lasted (for an interesting backgrounder on the events leading up to the Israeli invasion, read Rabbani's full report).

But where does Israel find itself now?  It has gone beyond the point of no return.  Nothing short of eliminating Hamas and installing a friendly power broker (whether that's international peacekeepers or Fatah) will satiate them now.  Defeat, after the 2006 Lebanon fiasco, is unthinkable.  This invasion is as much a demonstration to the Israeli people that its army has learned from that misadventure and is the powerhouse it claims to be as it is a political ploy to appease Israeli public opinion and push the devastated Palestinian political establighment to the brink of collapse thereby producing a more pliable negotiating partner.  

For Hamas, the endgame is simple.  Survive.  Its survival is an Israeli defeat.  Keep the rockets flying over Israeli towns and cities to prove that it will not be bowed by Israel's military might.  In my mind, Hamas has the advantage.  Israel will be forced to fight their foe street by street in the maze of Gaza City.  It will be a bloodbath on both sides.  And in the end, nothing will change.

And who loses?   The Palestinians of Gaza themselves who are being slaughtered for what is in the end a campaign for political expediency.  They've lived through horror for much of the past decade and unless the world finally holds Israel to account for its brutal and ineffective policies, there is no end in sight.