Nazareth, Israel // There are two persistent myths about the aim
of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza: the first that it is an entirely defensive move,
a way to end the rocket fire of Hamas; and the second that it is designed to
restore the army’s credibility after its failure to cow Hizbollah in 2006.
No doubt the Israeli army has been itching to repair its battered
image, and for sure the rocket attacks from Gaza create domestic pressures that
are only too clear to an Israeli government about to face an election.
But it is a gross misunderstanding of what is unfolding in Gaza
to believe Israel’s motives are capricious. The politicians and generals have
been preparing for this attack for many months, possibly years – a fact alone
that suggests they have bigger objectives than commonly assumed.
Israel seized this particular moment – with western politicians
dozing through the holidays and a change over of administrations in Washington –
because it ensured the longest period to implement its plan without diplomatic
interference.
The pressure on Israel to reach a political settlement will grow,
however, as the inauguration of Barack Obama on Jan 20 approaches. That explains
why, as the army brings ever greater force to bear on Hamas’s urban heartlands,
the outlines of an Israeli plan are starting to become visible.
Despite talk in Israel that a chance to topple Hamas is within
reach, that option does not have to be pursued. Israel’s aims can be achieved
whether Hamas stays or falls – as long as it is crushed politically.
Certainly, a permanent re-occupation of the enclave with its 1.5
million inhabitants is not desired by Israel, which withdrew its settlers and
soldiers in 2005 precisely because the demographic, economic and military costs
of directly policing Gaza’s refugee camps were considered too high.
It therefore needs another ceasefire similar to the one that
expired on Dec 19. The questions are: who will “sign” it and what will be its
terms?
Writing in The Jerusalem Post newspaper this week, Martin Kramer,
a leading Washington neoconservative analyst on Middle East issues, suggested
that Israel’s goal was to forge an agreement with Mahmoud Abbas and restore his
rule in Gaza. “Hamas would swallow the pill in the name of ‘national unity’,” he
argued.
The idea that Mr Abbas and his Fatah party can ride into the Gaza
Strip on the back of Israeli tanks may be a fantasy that makes sense to the
neocons who brought us “regime change” in Iraq, but few in the Israeli
government or army seem to believe it is feasible.
In any case, the distinction between Fatah’s “rule” over the West
Bank ghettoes Israel has created and Hamas’s oversight of the prison that Gaza
has become is one Israel appears keen to maintain. The Israeli vision for the
West Bank, in which significant parts are annexed, depends on its political
severance from Gaza.
Instead, Israel is again pursuing its favourite mode of
diplomacy: unilateralism. According to officials quoted in the local media, it
wants a deal that is approved by the United States and western governments but
passes over the heads of Hamas and the Palestinians.
At a recent cabinet meeting, Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister,
put it this way: “There is no intention here of creating a diplomatic agreement
with Hamas. We need diplomatic agreements against Hamas.”
According to the latest reports, the ceasefire would require, as
before, that Hamas prevent all rocket fire out of the Strip, but it would also
introduce what officials are vaguely terming a “mechanism” on the only border
with Gaza not under Israel’s control.
During its lengthy blockade, Israel has been able to prevent
goods, including food, medicines and fuel, from entering the Gaza Strip through
crossing points on its two land borders while its navy patrols the sea coast.
But Gaza also shares a short southern land border, next to the town of Rafah,
with Egypt.
Before the 2005 disengagement, Israel sought to control this
fourth border too by bulldozing swathes of Palestinian homes to create a
no-man’s land between Rafah and Egypt. This area, overlooked by military
watchtowers, was referred to as the Philadelphi corridor.
After the withdrawal, Israel hoped the steel wall along the Rafah
border and its oversight of the crossing point into Egypt would ensure that
nothing went in or out without its approval.
However, a small private industry of tunnelling under the wall
quickly burgeoned, becoming a lifeline for ordinary Gazans and a route for
smuggling in weapons for Hamas.
Egypt had little choice but to turn a blind eye, despite being
profoundly uncomfortable with an Islamic party ruling next door. It faces its
own domestic pressures over the humanitarian catastrophe that has been visibly
created in Gaza.
Israel believes the current invasion will have achieved nothing
unless this time it regains absolute control of the Rafah border, undercutting
Hamas’s claims to be running the Strip. The “mechanism” therefore requires that
technical responsibility is lifted from Egyptian shoulders.
According to the Israeli plan, it will pass to the Americans,
whose expertise will be called on to stop the tunnelling and prevent Hamas from
rebuilding its arsenal after the invasion comes to an end.
Israel may additionally seek the involvement of international
forces to diffuse the censure the Arab publics are likely to direct at Egypt as
a result.
Once Hamas has no hope of rearming and cannot take any credit for
the Gazans’ welfare, Israel will presumably allow in sufficient supplies of
humanitarian aid to pacify western governments concerned about the images of
Gaza’s cold and hungry children.
Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian analyst,
believes that in this scenario Israel would probably insist that such supplies
come only through the Egyptian crossing, thereby “fulfilling another strategic
aim: that of making Gaza Egypt’s responsibility”.
And once the Gazan albatross is lifted from Israel’s neck, Mr
Abbas and his West Bank regime will be more isolated than ever. Undoubtedly, the
hope in Israel is that, with Gaza disposed of, the pressure will grow on the
Palestinian Authority to concede in a “peace” deal yet more Palestinian land in
East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
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