This site is unconnected to the award winning blog concerned with: "Reflections on human rights and peacemaking in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" for that site please click on:
http://guidetotheperplexed.blogspot.com/
MAIN POINTS
1 Israeli leaders of all significant parties have decided that Hamas’s military wing will have to be neutralised.
2 There remain differences among the Israeli parties over tactics but none at all on the overall strategic goal.
3 These differences will express themselves very soon if the present government does not pursue the strategic goal sooner rather than later.
4 Labour and Kadima will lose the centre-right ground if they fail to achieve significant political and military advances.
5 Hamas also have a long term military strategy part of which involves not engaging IDF forces except when necessary or where a clear advantage can be gained.
6 Hamas probably have sufficient missiles and general supplies to last another eight to ten weeks. The missiles include: a limited supply of Iranian long-range Fajr missiles that can hit Tel Aviv, as well as a large supply of Grad missiles that can hit most if not all of southern Israel. The supply of short-range Qassam missiles is probably in the tens of thousands.
7 Hamas remain very confident of eventual “victory” by which they mean surviving the current IDF limited incursion with almost their entire military capability, and their total political control of the Gaza Strip, unaffected.
8 Israel is preparing for a war with Iran, Syria, and Lebanon should they force the issue. Sooner, or later, Hamas’s military capability in the Gaza Strip will be neutralised
· ANALYSIS
· It has become clear that an agreement has been reached between Kadima, Labour, and Likud that Hamas’s military wing will have to be neutralised. The main political parties have decided that Hamas cannot be treated like Hizb’allah for the following reasons:
1. The rise of Hizb’allah in Lebanon is an entirely domestic Lebanese political phenomenon. A small poor Shia minority has, as a result of demographic expansion exceeding all other groups in Lebanon, become the largest minority group. The traditional political links to the Shia in Iraq and Iran have been re-established and there is nothing Israel can, or should, do about it. As long as Hizb’allah remains committed to domestic concerns and does not attack Israel, Israel need not respond. Hizb’allah remains constrained, in the short term, by domestic political concerns and the large international and Lebanese Army force on Lebanon’s southern border with Israel. If Hizb’allah initiates a war with Israel it will drag the whole country into ruin and have to pay a high political, strategic and military price.
2. Hamas, by contrast, have no other political rivals in the Gaza Strip. They have no concern for civilian casualties, in fact they see each civilian death as a propaganda victory for their cause and a political blow to Israel, in other words Hamas have no political, military, or strategic constraints. As long as Iran can supply them with weapons and finance they can survive indefinitely.
3. Hamas can perpetually sabotage any peace agreements reached with the Palestinians. In effect this gives Hamas a veto over the two state solution. In reality this means that whether Israel tries to pursue either the right wing or liberal-left strategies of a new accommodation with, or withdrawal from, the West Bank, Hamas can sabotage or veto either strategy.
4. Because of the lack of any strategic political or military constraints on Hamas their influence will always pose a threat to Israel in relation to the West Bank. Hamas can bide its time and takeover the West Bank either through the ballot box or a coup as soon as an opportunity presents itself. This also means that Iran has a permanent veto over whether there can be any peace agreements or withdrawals from the West Bank. Also, Hamas can survive indefinitely as a substantive military force with Iran’s financial and military support with both sharing the strategic goal of eliminating Israel.
· The current military incursion into Gaza is extremely limited in scope, manpower, strength, and depth. It has barely touched Hamas’s political or military resources or standing. The result is that the main Israeli political parties cannot maintain unanimity over the operation there for long. Likud want the issue resolved as quickly as possible, Labour, headed by Minister of Defence Ehud Barak is far more cautious on every level.
· Because of the cautious strategic approach by both the Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Ehud Barak the operation has followed the reverse pattern to conventional military, political, and strategic wisdom. Their focus has been overwhelmingly on maintaining low IDF casualties therefore their strategy has been adapted to fulfil this goal, and has been based upon accretion and attrition. Normally a blistering and overwhelming operation using far superior forces would have taken over the entire Gaza Strip within hours and a determined mop up operation using overwhelming force would have followed lasting a couple of weeks. This would have led to high IDF casualties (several hundred deaths at the very least) but it would have resulted in political, strategic, and military control.
· Ashkenazi and Barak have chosen an opposite approach in order to minimise IDF casualties. The aim is to slowly gain control over the Gaza Strip focussing on the north, where most of the missiles are fired from, and the south where all Hamas’s supplies arrive using the 300-1,000 tunnels that have been dug from the Gaza Strip into Egypt. The constant warfare allowing little respite or sleep for the fighters and population, it is hoped, will slowly wear both down. Water also will become a problem as dehydration saps concentration and strength. As each week passes it becomes harder and harder for either the population, upon which Hamas depends totally, or the fighters, to function in the way Hamas had planned.
Hamas’s dependence on the population is crucial. If the population is removed or cannot render support or cover, Hamas fighters are exposed and have to either come out and fight or be starved out of, or be hunted down within, their hiding places.
· The disadvantages of this approach are obvious. It could take many weeks or even months. It leaves Israel exposed to international obloquy and isolation. It severely damages any ties or relationships Israeli politicians and diplomats have carefully nurtured over the last few years with Europe and the Arab and Muslim world. It puts pressure on all the moderate Arab regimes. It radicalises the Arab and Muslim world. And, it makes it almost impossible for any Arab states to propose talks with, and recognition of, Israel.
· Ehud Barak has also taken an extraordinary risk in relation to President-elect Barack Obama. It is true that Israel can count on US Congress and Senate support in its campaign against Hamas terror, but Barak has forgotten that Obama controls the US delegation to the United Nations. Obama could, and may even be sorely tempted to, allow a sanctions motion against Israel to pass through the UN Security Council, or at least threaten to allow its passage. In the unlikely case that such a resolution is passed it will be binding upon Israel and will leave it absolutely no room to manoeuvre. Israel will then try and get Senate and Congress support to pressure Obama to change his position but the damage will have been done. All future operations against Hamas will be constrained by this potential threat to Israel’s very economic survival and prosperity. Should Obama even consider such a strategy to pressure Israel in this way it will almost inevitably ensure US African-American-Jewish relations will be characterised by extreme, occasionally vitriolic and even violent, tension. It will also increase US Jewish emigration to Israel, the vast majority of whom will be right of centre.
· Nevertheless, many other options will remain open to Israel even in this worst-case scenario. Israel will no longer be, or feel bound by, any ceasefire agreements should Hamas continue to send rockets into Israel, and a long campaign of bombing will begin onto the Gaza Strip accompanied by ever more daring small raids. Hamas will feel, rightly, that it was “victorious” but in a protracted war of attrition there can be only one victor. Egypt, Lebanon, and the Arab world, did not win their wars of attrition against Israel; nor can Hamas.
· It is also clear that the Israeli leadership have assumed war with Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Hamas, may be inevitable. Should Iran force the issue Israel will ensure that no military threat can continue on its southern front.
Links:
For the best English language news site on Israel:
http://www.jpost.com/
For a vigorous Liberal-Left position of the Israeli daily paper:
http://www.haaretz.com/
For a Centre-Left view on Israel, in occasionally appalling English:
http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3083,00.html
¨For an insight into Arab and Muslim media coverage of the Israel-Palestinian issue, anti-Semitism, and other Middle East issues see:
http://www.memri.org/
For an overview of the media coverage of Israel see the BICOM (Britain Israel Research and Communications Centre) site. Below are the sites for -News headlines with links to each site:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/headlines
A written summary of the news:
news:http://www.bicom.org.uk/news
The main issues behind the news:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/briefings/behind_the_news/
Extracts from editorial and article Opinion:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/comment-and-opinion
A small selection of Quotes:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/quotes
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