Israel and Hamas Dec 27th 2008
From Economist.com
Israel responds to rocket attacks with a massive air raid on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.
NOBODY should have been surprised by the massive air raids Israel launched on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip on the morning of Saturday December 27th, in which the Palestinians say some 195 people were killed. Israel’s government had spent a week declaring as noisily as possible that some such operation was inevitable unless Hamas resumed the truce it declared over on December 19th. Instead, Hamas spent a week pounding southern Israel with almost 300 rockets and mortars. Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, invited Israel’s foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, to last-minute talks in Cairo to avert armed conflict, but his efforts failed. “Enough is enough,” said Ms Livni.It is too early to tell whether Israel’s response, the most lethal attack it has made on Gaza since Hamas seized power in mid-2007, will inaugurate a prolonged cross-border war or, once Hamas has taken stock, lead swiftly to a new truce. Israel would probably prefer an early ceasefire. Its calculations are haunted by the unsuccessful war it fought against Hizbullah in Lebanon in 2006. In that conflict it hoped to subdue Hizbullah with air power alone, but its aircraft could not prevent the well-armed Islamist movement from firing thousands of missiles into Israel for the duration of a war that lasted more than 30 days. In the end the Israelis had to mount a costly and ill-prepared ground offensive before both sides accepted a ceasefire.
This is an experience Israel will be eager not to repeat in Gaza. Having withdrawn all its soldiers and settlers from the coastal strip in 2005, Israel has no interest in recapturing Gaza and becoming responsible once again for the welfare of its 1.5m residents. Much as it would like to topple the Hamas government, it also knows that fighting an estimated 15,000 highly motivated gunmen in the strip’s congested cities and refugee camps would be a costly affair for both sides. Hamas, meanwhile, has taken a leaf out of Hizbullah’s book and smuggled a large arsenal of rockets into the strip, which it now promises to fire deep into Israel in retaliation for Saturday’s Israeli air strikes.
For the present, the aim of both sides may be quite limited: winning enough of a victory to reinstate a truce on terms more to their own liking. Israel wants Hamas to stop all firing across the border. Hamas wants Israel to end the tough economic blockade it has clamped on the strip in an effort both to halt the rockets and undermine Hamas’s ability to run a successful administration. But now that both sides are shooting in earnest, negotiating a new ceasefire will be hard. Neither can afford to look as if it has been defeated, and Israel’s position is complicated by a general election due in February. Both Ms Livni, the foreign minister, and Ehud Barak, the defence minister, are candidates as leaders of their respective Kadima and Labour parties. Their conduct of the war will help to dictate their political futures.
If the fighting does continue, and especially if Palestinian civilian casualties mount, there is a danger of further escalation, the biggest worry being the possibility of Hizbullah joining the fray in aid of its Palestinian brethren. Ever since the 2006 war in Lebanon, Israel and Hizbullah have been training and rearming in feverish preparation for a second round. Since Hizbullah enjoys close links with both Syria and Iran, that could light the fuse for a wider regional war. Hence the calls from around the world on Saturday for a renewed ceasefire. And although Israel says its operation is just beginning, an early ceasefire may be precisely the result it wants