Friday, June 20, 2008

Peace Truce With Hamas Is Too Clever By Far

Why bother with a truce with Hamas that is unlikely to last and benefits Hamas in more ways than it benefits Israel?

One popular reason is that it is a way for Olmert to somehow distract from his problems.

Allison Kaplan Sommer and Lisa Goldman offer another:

No one knows exactly when the ceasefire will be violated - whether it is a matter of days, weeks, or months: when the first missile will crack the silence and represent the opening gun to what is expected to be a major military operation in Gaza. The pessimism is based on bitter experience - the Palestinian record on honoring ceasefire agreements is poor, to put it mildly.

So if no one believes it will last, why bother? The overriding reasoning of the Israeli leaders behind the agreement to it is to show that their side everything possible has done to avoid bloodshed - so that when the war in Gaza - which is viewed as inevitable, occurs - the world will know that Israel did all it could.

“Since the repercussions of an operation could be grave, it is necessary first to try the other alternative - so that every mother liable to lose her son in the Gaza alleyways will know. So that every civilian in the Gaza envelope liable to get hit during the fighting with Hamas will know. So that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will know that Israel did not choose a military move, which the Egyptians fear, before giving a chance to the diplomatic move they initiated,” wrote Ha’aretz commentator Arie Shavit, after sitting down with Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak.

Two years ago, the world also agreed that the war with Hizbollah was not Israel's choice--but that did not stop the condemnation that Israel responded with "disproportionate" force.

When Israel pulled out of Gaza, one of the benefits of the Disengagement was supposed to be that Israel would be free to react militarily to Palestinian attacks from there.

Now, Israel thinks it is going to show the world that they tried everything before resorting to war and thus get the world's blessing.

Yeah, that will work.
Israel keeps trying to be too clever by far.

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1 comment:

Soccer Dad said...

Goldman and Summer also write:

Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu is, not surprisingly, vociferous in his opposition to the tahadiya - calling it “inconceivable” and claiming that it will only give Hamas some time to re-arm. He ignores the fact that Hamas has been steadily re-arming all along, even under daily IAF fire. Every time one tunnel is discovered and blown up, another one is completed.

There are many voices calling for a massive IDF ground operation in Gaza. But Israel’s military correspondents have all pointed out that it might be easy to enter Gaza, but it is very difficult to exit. Channel 10’s Alon Ben-David, who is also the Israel correspondent for Jane’s Defense Weekly, waxed a bit poetic during a recent evening news broadcast when he pointed out that “the mud of Gaza is very thick.” There is really no way for a conventional army to hunt down all the individuals who launch rockets out of densely populated Gaza and then disappear into their densely populated neighborhoods.

I don't believe that there's a military consensus about the benefits of an invasion of Gaza. I'm guessing that the two paragraphs quoted above came from Lisa Goldman.