The Mourning after ...

The dust is beginning to settle on the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas. The ceasefire is generally holding -- Israel has claimed to have completely removed its soldiers (though many are still deployed along the border just in case), there's only sporadic firing on Israel, outsiders including media and international observers (e.g. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon) are coming for "visits"-- so the focus is now on dissecting its results and creating a new future.

The New York Times has dedicated a "room for debate" blog thread to the issue. The Globe & Mail (Canada) reports how angry the UN Secretary-General is following his tour of the damage. CNN has sent its reporter Ben Wedeman to survey the damage and speak to the people. Few in the world has a kind thing to say about Israel or a critical comment about Hamas' behavior in using human shields or use of neutral sites (a UNWRA school, hospitals or residential neighborhoods) to fire upon Israeli military and civilian (over the border) targets. Oh, well...

Was this inevitable? Hamas by merely surviving the Israeli onslaught and not folding won the war? That Israel, whatever, the legitimate causes for going to war was the loser?

To better evaluate the results, it would be interesting to see what was written before or early in the war.

The International Crisis Group published a briefing "Ending the War in Gaza", Middle East Briefing No. 26, 5 January 2009 (pdf). In it, they evaluate the three major players in the conflict--Hamas, the Palestinian Authority (Fatah and Mahmud Abbas) in "the West Bank"and Israel -- and their interests and prospects in engaging in war/conflict.

They write:

1.Hamas

Hamas might not have wished for a full-scale confrontation. There are indications it believed its brinkmanship would force Egypt to mediate a new ceasefire agreement entailing opening of the crossings and persuade Israel to accept it. Three days after the ceasefire’s expiration, a Hamas leader in Gaza said, “there is a previous agreement on the truce with conditions that have not
been met by Israel..." ... The Islamist movement arguably wagered that a steady stream of rockets could force that outcome at minimal cost to itself. But if all-out war was not intended, it was deemed an alternative preferable to the status quo. Hamas leaders made clear that perpetuation of the existing situation was tantamount to renewal of a one-sided ceasefire ... “our strategy is to end the siege using all means”.

[A]s Hamas leaders plainly saw it, a confrontation carried potential benefits. Speaking in the wake of Israel’s attack, a Hamas spokesperson in Lebanon said:

We didn’t really have a choice. It was either die slowly because of the blockade or more quickly due to confrontation. Israel was telling us, “accept the blockade that is killing you”. Despite all the suffering, this aggression put an end to a more painful situation. Now, the whole world is seeing that Palestinians are being killed. Before, people would die and no one would take note.

For Hamas, they were not only fighting Israel but also Egypt--for keeping the Rafah crossing closed--and the Palestinian Authroity in the West Bank.

Israel is not the only party blamed. While anger toward Israel was predictable, outrage at Egypt and the PA does not lag far behind. A Hamas supporter said, "Abbas and [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak are using civilians in Gaza to
teach Hamas a lesson”. At Gaza City’s Shifa hospital, victims’ families curse Abbas and Mubarak with no less vehemence than they do Israel; a woman crying over her two children – one dead, one brain-damaged – accused them of “killing innocent people in Gaza to teach Hamas a lesson”. None of this should be viewed as necessarily translating into support for Hamas; many still resent the movement for its failures in government, its bloody takeover and repressive means. Another grieving woman, who also had lost children, cried that she hoped that “God will exterminate Hamas”. But, in many quarters, the intensity of Israel’s attacks, the feeling of betrayal at the hands of Egypt as well as the PA and Hamas’s steadfastness for now are playing into the Islamic movement’s hands.In the end,Should Hamas nonetheless be in a position where it no longer can effectively rule Gaza – a situation Israel might create intentionally or unwittingly – a movement leader claims it will simply go nderground and “revert to its original state as a resistance movement”. During the Egyptian
reconciliation drive and again in the wake of the ceasefire [the six month one which was in effect until shortly before the war], senior Hamas leaders repeatedly emphasised that preserving the movement was more important than preserving the Gaza government.

2. The Palestinian Authority/West Bank

The Palestinian Authority and Fatah are not involved in the current Israeli-Hamas confrontation and yet – or as a result – they (especially the former) currently are emerging as among its more notable losers. Abbas in particular is in a delicate spot, unable either to play a significant role or
find the right words.

In the end,

The final impact of events in Gaza on the West Bank remains unclear. What is less uncertain is the toll it is taking on the PA leadership’s fortunes. Mustafa Barghouti, a former presidential candidate and head of the Palestinian National Initiative, put it characteristically bluntly:

The current crisis demonstrates to many that Abbas is incapable of representing or protecting his people. If he has good relations with the U.S., why can’t he stop an assault on his own people? If he doesn’t have good relations with the U.S., then what has he been doing the last four years? Good relations with the U.S. was his whole program. Likewise, if negotiations with Israel are not working, he should resign; if negotiations are working, why is Israel doing this to Gaza?

3. Israel

Israel, too, was dissatisfied with the ceasefire, especially as it applied to returning Gilad Shalit and opening of the border crossings (for aid). Nonetheless, they did hope that the ceasefire would somehow be renewed, Israel--though Defence Minister Ehud Barak--held its fire despite the massive increase in rocket fire immediately following the cessation of the ceasefire.

At the core though, was their need

not to give in to Hamas’s insistence that they be opened.

For Israel, it was important to persuade not only Hamas but others in the region that the Islamist movement could not extract concessions through violence ...

Additionally, though in the background, the upcoming Israeli elections on 10 Feb, also informed the planning process and response. Barak needed to present himself as THE military leader different from Amir Peretz and a positive model following the debacle of the 2nd Lebanon War with Hizbollah (2006). Each party needed to ensure that going to war won't backfire on them.

“Going to war in an election period is not a wise move. One knows how to get into a war but not how to get out. The whole thing can turn upside down very easily. Barak simply felt he has to do it, and do it now, in order to achieve the main goal – stopping the fire on Sderot and the south”. Regardless of the electoral season, virtually any Israeli government would have felt compelled to react.

[Yet] ... reluctant to act, Barak went all-out once the decision was made. The initial bombardment from air and sea elicited widespread satisfaction in military circles. It targeted the locations of Hamas’s rule over Gaza: police stations on the first day, killing over 200 Palestinians, the highest recorded number in a single day in the occupied Palestinian territories since 1967; the tunnel supply lines on the second; and homes of Hamas leaders and government buildings on subsequent ones. ...

A key lesson Barak drew from the 2006 Lebanon War is the crucial importance
of who is seen as victor and who as loser. He believes Israel’s power of deterrence decreased in the Second Lebanon War. He will, therefore, not allow this campaign not to reach its objectives or to end with the appearance of an Israeli defeat ...

With time, earlier reported differences between security officials seeking a prompt exit strategy and politicians aspiring to reshape the political map appear to have considerably narrowed. The emerging consensus centres on an air and land campaign aimed not only at ending rocket fire but also at destroying or at least seriously impairing Hamas’s long-range rocket capabilities, security apparatus and longer-term threat potential, halting or seriously reducing weapons smuggling and barring any Hamas activity within a perimeter of several hundred metres from Israeli borders.

The options confronting Israel are multiple. The question is how much damage can be inflicted upon Hamas and its leadership which would temper its terrorist behavior while not creating a real power vacuum that no one of real stature can fill? How can it avoid getting itself stuck in an occuation mode? Does it have the wherewithal to strike quickly and effectively and then get itself out of ythe Gaza morass to the "applause of the world community"?

In terms of press coverage, it hasn't been good. Even American TV, Meet the Press (4 January), was highly critical of the Israeli actions--be it its limiting access to foreign press, its attacks responding to Hamas fire upon "innocent civilians" (though it's difficult to ascertain/verify whose a dressed up Hamas fighter and who's the innocent bystander).