It is really sad to say; the three hundred plus Gaza dead as well as the hundreds or thousands wounded; and even the well planned Foreign Ministry information offensive will most likely be a waste in terms of anything resembling a long term solution / resolution to Hamass’ maniac Pavlovian commitment to attacking Israel.
When the Hamas rocket attacks began several years ago, and Israel sent in the army for short term attacks at launch sites, or responded with artillery fire in an attempt to suppress the rocket attacks, I wrote that Hamas would not cease firing until all of Gaza was leveled. Until every tree and building that could conceal a rocket team was destroyed and all the land was open and exposed. I stand by that statement. It is as accurate today as it was then.
This is not to explain or justify the current IDF actions. Just an attempt to set an accurate structure of understanding and reference to the conundrum faced by the decision makers in Israel.
Hamas can not afford to be “taught a lesson” or to appear weak in the face of the Israeli attacks. For Hamas to refrain from attacking Israel in response to the Israeli air strikes would be emotional spiritual and political suicide for the Islamic organization.
Anything short of a full scale invasion and re-occupation of the strip may slow down Hamas and bring a pause to their insistent rocket attacks against Israeli civilian targets; but as a long term solution/response I think its not going to happen! It is difficult to analyze these past years of Hamas rocket attacks with having any other goal on their parts, other than re-occupation. The wet dream of Hamas is to get as many Israelis as possible close enough to be able to kill more of them. If that can only be done by occupation, than so be it. If hundreds of thousands of Gazans suffer, thats OK as well. They know that the world will sympathies with them and condemn Israel ie, Israel looses support while they score points for suffering, in this long term conflict.
In the mean time a tremendous amount of our nations account as a legitimate and honorable member of the family of nations is corrupted. especially among the Europeans.
As it is, the relationship with Europe very much resembles what we have with our two neighboring Arab states with who we have peace treaties. The leadership for many reasons maintains a kind of “peace ” and normal relations with us, while the population exhibits deep animosity and negativity. It seems to me that sooner or later the attitude of the various official national leaderships will catch up with their respective “street”(‘s).
As far as Hamas is concerned Amos Oz got it right when he pointed out in his response to the current offensive : “If innocent Israelis are killed – good. If innocent Palestinians are killed – even better.”
The real challenge is that there appears no other reasonable alternative response. Negations are meaningless while we all know that Hamas has used and would continue to use a cease-fire to strengthen their military capabilities with the result being in greater casualties in the long run. I refer here to both Israeli and Gazan casualties.
We could be very wise to explore the all to similar process that took place in and around the Hizbollah War of ’06. The differences do not cover the similarities and by rejecting the comparison we lose the opportunity to learn.
