GAZA: OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS? IT NEEDS MORE THAN A TUNE-UP. Jules Crittenden writing for Pajamas Media notes:

...There were fears expressed of a terrorist state emerging on Israel’s flank in Gaza, an inroad for Iran. Those who hold these fears must not have been paying attention. Israel has been surrounded by terrorist states for its entire modern existence, and the presence of Iran-backed terrorists in Gaza is nothing new. Hamas had suspended its suicide bombing campaign, but maintained a steady barrage of deadly rocket attacks, along with abductions, as much as Hamas figured it could get away with, while Iran was both providing support and egging Hamas on. Having already brought war and economic ruin on the Palestinians, any fig leaf of legitimacy the terrorist organization might have had from its election was blown away by merciless internecine slaughter.

But taken in context, now is different. There was a time that the main enemy were belligerent Arab nations that could be pressured. Now the main enemy are terrorists that are not so easily pressured and are now lauded by many as freedom fighters. These terrorists are now funded as never before and act with an unheard of impunity. Until events indicate the contrary, the issue is not of fig leaves--but of blinders: and the West has shown a tendency to replace them with amazing ease.

Israel has blinders too. Crittenden writes:

Already isolated before its henchmen started tossing Fatah members off the roofs of Gaza, Hamas is now pleading for Arab “neutrality.” Egypt, already active against smugglers, is moving to contain Hamas. Israel has promised to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. But what Hamas did was turn Gaza into a free-fire zone for the Israeli Army. There is no reason whatsoever for Israeli restraint in crossing the border to excise the cancer, and no one who can credibly raise an outcry against Israel when it does.

Crittenden is writing about a different Israel from a different time. True, there is no rational reason--but restraint has become a habit for Israel: originally imposed by the West, but now so enforced that Israel appears conditioned to bypass the option of using real military force over a prolonged period of time. Lebanon was an exception which in the end will only dissuade Israel further in Gaza.

The real consequences of Gaza are only just beginning to be felt.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Gaza and Jules Crittenden and Hamas.

THE US IS ONLY TRYING TO HELP. This is what is supposed to help:

Embattled Mahmoud Abbas got a major boost in his increasingly bellicose showdown with Hamas on Saturday, with a U.S. diplomat saying he expects a crippling 15-month-old foreign aid embargo to be lifted once the Palestinian president appoints an emergency government without the Islamic militants.

And by rights it should--just another example of US largesse and aid. The question is whether US aid and support for Abbas up to this point is a large part of the reason for the mess that Abbas is in now:

US-backed efforts to undermine the Hamas-led government over the past 16 months have failed, largely because most Palestinians clearly do not regard Fatah as a better alternative to Hamas. In the aftermath of its defeat in the 2006 election, Fatah failed to draw the conclusions and get rid of all the icons of corruption among its top brass. Moreover, Fatah did not engage in any kind of internal reforms, and representatives of the young generation remained marginalized.

Even if free and democratic elections were held tomorrow in the Palestinian territories, it is highly unlikely that Palestinians would vote for the same people they voted out in 2006. Besides, many Palestinians would argue that Hamas did not fail in government; from day one, no one actually gave them a chance to rule.

By openly embracing Abbas and Fatah, Washington has caused them grave damage. The weapons and funds that were supposed to boost Fatah ahead of a confrontation with Hamas have only increased Hamas's popularity on the streets of the Gaza Strip. The public support for Fatah made Abbas and Muhammed Dahlan look, in the eyes of many Palestinians, like Antoine Lahad, the former commander of the pro-Israeli South Lebanon Army. And when a Palestinian sees that the Americans are trying to bring down his democratically-elected government, his sympathies go straight to the government and not to those allegedly involved in the conspiracy.

Adding Israeli support into the picture is hardly going to improve matters. Allahpundit adds his 2 cents and puts it this way:

Needless to say, having the Zionist enemy come in, crush the locals, and reinstall the corrupt king on the throne isn’t going to do much to repair that credibility, especially now that Abbas has signaled he’s willing to abandon Gazans to their fate and deal with Israel separately. That carrot had better be awfully tasty or else the “solution” here, such as it is, may be a reoccupation of Gaza with Israel the only authority in the area.

Just how much of a solution would that be?

Technorati Tag: Israel and Gaza and Palestinian Civil War.

BEWARE WHAT YOU WISH FOR: Granted that Gaza is not the kind of place most countries would fight to call their own--just how much trouble could Gaza cause Hamas?

Amir Taheri writes in Hopeless in Gaza:

Some 85 percent of Gaza's estimated 1.7 million inhabitants depend on U.N. refugee organizations, mostly funded by the United States, for food and other daily needs. Yet Hamas would still need some $1.5 billion a year to keep the place afloat. Iran has promised to help, and the pan-Islamist movement of which Hamas is a branch is also certain to be generous. But even if that kind of money becomes available, Hamas' ability to keep Gaza going, even at the miserable level of its current existence, is not guaranteed.

Having withdrawn from Gaza last year, Israel has sealed the strip's land, sea and air borders. The only outlet still open is the Rafa'ah crossing on the border with Egypt. Were Egypt to close the crossing, Gaza could become one of those sealed rooms in which mysterious crimes are committed.

Often labeled "the biggest prison on earth," Gaza depends on Israel and the West Bank for virtually all of its water and electricity and much of the raw material and spare parts its businesses need. If Israel, the West Bank, the Europeans and the United Nations let Hamas stew in its juices in Gaza, the Islamist movement might well collapse under the weight of the strip's economic problems and social tensions.

Alot of the potential for Hamas to follow in Hizbollah's footsteps--both as a governing body and as another battle front against Israel--is going to depend on what they do with Gaza.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Gaza and Palestinian Civil War.

THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS: Some say that with Fatah fleeing to the West Bank, Two-State solution now aptly describes the Palestinians own situation. Others say that it is not clear that the West Bank is Fatah Turf, leaving Gaza squarely under Hamas control and the West Bank up in the air.

Enter Martin Indyk in an op-ed for The Washington Post, claiming the future of a Palestinian state lies with Fatah in the West Bank. According to Inydk, Gaza is a mess--and now it is all Hamas' mess.

This turn of events would free Abbas to focus on the much more manageable West Bank, where he can depend on the Israel Defense Forces to suppress challenges from Hamas, and on Jordan and the United States to help rebuild his security forces. As chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and president of the Palestinian Authority, Abbas is empowered to negotiate with Israel over the disposition of the West Bank. Once he controls the territory, he could make a peace deal with Israel that establishes a Palestinian state with provisional borders in the West Bank and the Arab suburbs of East Jerusalem.

As we leave Mr. Indyk drooling at the possibilities, we should consider:

1. It is not clear that the West Bank wants Abbas, even after last weeks events
2. Based on the last elections Hamas is the choice of Palestinians.
3. Considering the weak leadership of Abbas, why should he be imposed on the West Bank?
4. The US backing of the corrupt Fatah has helped neither Fatah nor the US--continuing this failed policy is asking for trouble (See: Fatah's final death blow).

Speaking of Israel, Indyk has the Israeli position all figured out:

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has an interest in this outcome, too. Elected on a mandate to leave the West Bank, Olmert was gravely weakened by the Lebanon war last summer. His best hope for political salvation lies in movement on the peace process. With Ehud Barak's election as Labor Party leader, Olmert now has a partner with security credentials who can lend him credibility and who may also want to prevent the West Bank from going Gaza's way.

Huh?

1. Today's Olmert has no mandate for anything--other than resignation.
2. Does Indyk seriously suggest that in light of events in Gaza--even before Hamas' takeover--the majority of Israelis now want to leave the West Bank?
3. Is Barak really "a partner with security credentials" considering that the Winograd Report makes Barak's withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000----which Barak at the time described as "a happy day"----its starting point and notes how Hizbullah grew stronger during his term.

Indyk is intent on seeing the creation of a Palestinian state, and the current situation simply allows him to play with all kinds of scenarios.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Martin Indyk and Palestinian Civil War and Gaza.

HAMAS ON THE EGYPTIAN BORDER: Israel is not the only concerned with having the Iranian satellite Hamas on its border. The Big Pharoah writes:

It seems that we’re going to have new neighbours pretty soon. Hamas is currently on its way to consolidate its power over the Gaza strip. Egypt, at least the government, is watching this with tremendous concern. My advice to the Egyptian government is to deploy thousands upon thousands of army troops on the Gaza borders and beneath. The borders there are pretty small and could be controlled. This will definitely have to be in agreement with Israel.

This will be one of the topics Olmert will be bringing up when he visits the US:

Olmert will also raise the topic of deploying a multi-national force along the Gaza-Egypt border in his meetings with Bush and later with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. An international force would be deployed in order to curb the smuggling of arms from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, and strengthening Hamas.

Israel, however, has not yet formulated a unified stance regarding the deployment of the force, which would be commanded by the Arab League, and the security cabinet will meet on the topic when Olmert returns from the U.S.

Is a force commanded by the Arab League any better an option than an Egyptian force?

Meanwhile, An Unsealed Room writes on a personal note:

Egypt is tightening its borders, afraid of a flood of refugees from Gaza. The blogsophere's favorite gal in Gaza, Laila, has just gotten out. She seemed quite happy when Hamas won the election. I wonder what she's thinking now -- besides that everything is Israel's fault, she always thinks that.

Anyway, I'm glad she got her son out of there.

What a mess--which is just what Iran wants.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Egypt and Gaza.

THAT'LL SERVE HAMAS RIGHT: There are no end to the different opinions on Hamas' takeover of Gaza. Mark Kriorian of The National Review Online, thinks this is good news:

I've got to say that I don't share the concern over Hamas' takeover of Gaza. First, it was a foregone conclusion once Israel scraped Gaza off its boots; I'm only suprised it took so long. The consequence is, as Martin Indyk put it today:

Whatever transpires, Gaza has become Hamas's problem. It's a safe bet that the real attitude of Abbas and Fatah is: Let Hamas try to rule Gaza, and good luck.

As I wrote several years ago, worse is better — the Islamist nuts need to be allowed to take power because the only way that Islamic society will ever evolve in a constructive, pro-modern direction is to allow the only remaining alternative, theocracy, to prove its complete inability to cope with reality. Iran is well on the way to that end, with the Islamic faith itself becoming increasingly discredited there. It's a risky strategy, but it actually has a chance of working, unlike the nation-building mirage we've been chasing for several years now.

Even if Krikorian is right, who knows how much destruction and misery will be created along the way for the entire region--and beyond.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Gaza and Palestinian Civil War.

AN EGYPTIAN'S ANALYSIS OF WHAT'S BEHIND GAZA: Mona Charen writes for The National Review about those who blame Israel for what is happening in Gaza--and one who does not:

a reform-minded Egyptian author published an online essay (translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute) that penetrates to the heart of what ails Palestinian society and the Middle East in general. Kamal Gabriel’s analysis would resound for its wisdom anywhere, but it is particularly noteworthy coming from within the Arab world — a useful reminder that voices of reason and benevolence are not altogether silent in that part of the world.

Gabriel writes:

[T]he all-against-all infighting and its basic code have become the mental and psychological makeup of the Palestinian people, as a natural result of the predominant discourse of hostility and incitement. [This discourse] has been adopted by Palestinians of all persuasions and in all the factions — religious, pan-Arab revolutionary, and leftist. It is a discourse whose aim was sowing hatred, having recourse to violence, and enjoying spilling blood.

At first it was directed against the so-called Israeli enemy, and it uprooted any possibility of or tendency towards rational mutual comprehension or of recourse to discussion, dialogue, and negotiation . . .

This was translated into political language in the slogan that the Arab-Israeli struggle is an existential struggle, and not a struggle over borders, and its implementation in practice was the so-called martyrdom-seeking operations for killing Israeli civilians. The hatred was transformed from hatred of Zionism to hatred of Jews, "the sons of apes and pigs."

Perhaps no one has noticed — for where are we to find someone to notice, in the absence of reason and rationality? — that when you take an individual or a group away from the culture of using reason and peaceful dialogue, and replace it with the culture of violence and of killing those who are different, you cannot then afterwards control it and direct it to be used against one single side.

. . . It starts with the Zionist enemy who is occupying the Holy Land, and the violence and the hatred spread dangerously, like fire, in the psyche . . . . They consume everything around them — and the first thing they consume is the light of reason. . . . Thus we observed, and gave our blessing to, the conflagrations of violence and hatred . . . and its expansion is the fraternal violence we see [today] . . .

In my estimation, this is the fruit that we are harvesting because we sowed thorns for over half a century.”

And it is a very big harvest too...

Technorati Tag: Israel and Gaza and Palestinian Civil War.

THE SOPRANO-FICATION OF GAZA: I doubt if the ending to this will be quite as vague.

As of this writing, Hamas forces have overtaken the majority of the Gaza Strip, including several strongholds once controlled by Fatah, Hamas's bitter rival. Internecine Palestinian fighting has claimed hundreds of lives and displaced thousands of civilians. The government has been dissolved. The UN is considering sending peacekeeping troops to stanch the bloodletting.

Some observers have presented the struggle as an ideological war between Hamas's Islamism and Fatah's secular nationalism. But a more appropriate analogy is to the gangland mob drama The Sopranos, which concluded its eight-year run earlier this week.

This comparison isn't meant to be fatuous or to make light of a serious and tragic situation. But the similarities are too apt to ignore.

Read the whole thing.
Or else...

[Hat tip: Instapundit]

Technorati Tag: Israel and Palestinian Civil War and Hamas and Fatah and Gaza and The Sopranos.

DOES FATAH HAVE EVEN THE WEST BANK? Israel Matzav quotes from a Jerusalem Post article that Fatah is in even worse shape than it appears...much worse.

Technorati Tag: Palestinian Civil War.

CAN THIS MARRIAGE BE SAVED? Abbas has fired Haniyeh and says he will install a new government--replacing the Hamas-Fatah coalition. Haniyeh's response seems a tad removed from reality considering how members of Fatah have been caught, taken outside and executed:

At a news conference in Gaza City early Friday, deposed Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called Abbas' declaration "hasty" and said he would maintain the unity government. He said the Hamas militia would impose law and order "firmly, decisively and legally." He also rejected the idea of a Palestinian state in Gaza only, run by Hamas.

It's all just a big misunderstanding--between terrorists.

See for yourself.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Palestinian Civil War and Hamas and Fatah.

ALL BETS ARE OFF: Of the various scenarios being offered in the wake of the takeover of Gaza by Hamas, one is to dump Oslo altogether:

The political crisis has propelled a debate among Palestinian intellectuals over whether Palestinians might be better served by dumping the trappings of the 1993 Oslo peace agreement, which created the enfeebled Palestinian Authority, and leaving themselves under Israeli occupation without their own government.

This would, in effect, swap the two-state solution for a one-state vision in which Arabs might someday achieve a demographic majority in the region that includes Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. The idea has gained momentum since the power-sharing agreement reached in February between Hamas and Fatah failed to get the international community to end its ban on aid to the Hamas-led government.

"One cannot exclude such a possibility: that this is the end of the two-state solution," said Yitzhak Reiter, a fellow at Hebrew University's Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace in Jerusalem.

Of course that power-sharing agreement didn't get the complete backing of Hamas and Fatah either--but why quibble? Besides, recent demographic research indicates that the Palestinian demographics are not everything they've been cracked up to be.

[Hat tip: Hot Air]

Technorati Tag: Israel and Palestinian Civil War and Hamas and Fatah.

THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA? Krauthamer sees the Palestinian civil war in the context of Iranian influence:

This is the beginning of the Palestinian civil war. Round one happened this week, and it's over. Hamas has won in Gaza, it will take it over. And it is the worst elements.

As one high administration official said the other day, these are the extreme elements of the extremists. And this is essentially the first Palestinian independent territory — Israel is out of Gaza — and it will now become a terrorist state.

And it will also be, this is extremely important, a client of Iran. Hamas is supplied and financed by Iran. Iran has now a constellation of allies and clients in that region, the way the Soviets had around the world. It's got Hamas now in Gaza, it's got Hezbollah in Lebanon, it's got Sadr in Iraq. And it has a country, Syria, as its only Arab ally in that region. . . .

[I]t's an Iranian client crescent, and it is the beginning of a general Iranian, Islamist revolutionary infiltration of the Arabs. Which is why Egypt is afraid, because Gaza has a border with Egypt, and why it's the beginning of a great struggle between Persian, non-Arab, Shiite and radical Iran with all of these Arabs.

So it's the beginning of a new era in the Middle East.

Technorati Tag: Iran and Israel and Palestinian Civil War and Charles Krauthammer.

LESSON OR POST-MORTEM? Was Spinoza a Zionist?

Perhaps it’s time to update our Spinoza. It’s not so much that nature abhors a vacuum anymore, it’s that terrorist will thrive in one.

The Democratic party meme is now two-fold on foreign policy: a) withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible and b) re-engage the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. But there is no Israeli-Palestinian peace process right now. Not when, as Charles Krauthammer put it last night, “Hamas has won in Gaza, it will take it over. And it is the worst of elements.”

So might we take a lesson not from the 1970s forced withdrawal from Southeast Asia, which left us with killing fields and slaughter, but, say, 2005? The world wanted Israel out of Gaza, just as so much of the Democratic party wants us out of Iraq. Israel left Gaza. And the void was filled by the laying of tracks for the peace train? No, not hardly—rather, Iranian supported Hamas took over. There is now a new Hamas government on the border of Israel and Egypt, and a new Iranian state in the Middle East. Nice work. Might this be a lesson about withdrawing from such places when it is clear to the naked eye that terrorists are salivating at such possibilities?

Or is one man's salivating terrorist just another man's freedom fighter--with an appetite?

Technorati Tag: Israel and Palestinian Civil War and Hamas and Fatah and US and President Bush

U.S.: CLOP AL CHEIT OR AL HAMAS? During one sitting of CNS, Victor Davis Hanson heard the following apologies for Hamas:

I lost count of the various contortions. One talking head censures the Americans for not recognizing Hamas despite its refusal to disclaim its reason-to-be of undoing the Jewish state.

Another cited the “culture of violence” unleashed by the U.S. (read Iraq) — i.e., apparently the West Bank was like Nantucket until 2003.

Yet another lamented our support for elections that ushered in Hamas, as if the generic support for democracy makes us culpable for the odious government that the people freely chose to elect. (As if one who voted for such a terrorist clique would expect the United States to keep subsidizing it; as if one would have to keep talking to Hitler because he was once elected).

And then, of course, was the most Orwellian of all — our failure to support (e.g., send arms to) Fatah! (Is a terrorist organization no longer a terrorist organization when it is one-upped by another terrorist organization?)

Does that mean that Israel is off the hook?

Technorati Tag: Israel and Palestinian Civil War and Hamas and Fatah and US and President Bush

YA THINK? Fatah officials call for Mahmoud Abbas to resign

Palestinians better hope Abbas doesn't ask Olmert for advice.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Palestinian Civil War and Hamas and Fatah and Abbas and Olmert.

WHEN PROPORTIONALITY IS ON THE OTHER FOOT: Also known as NIYBY (Not in Your Back Yard):

But Middle East experts say that few countries are willing to send troops into the increasingly lawless territory, and Bush administration officials expressed little interest on Wednesday in supporting such a force.

This in spite of Indyk's warning:

“What would happen is that Hamas would take over and Gaza will be a full terrorist state, right on the fault line of the Western world,” Mr. Indyk said. “We should all understand what the stakes are here. It will be a haven for all the bad guys — Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad.”

"Bad guys"?
This isn't cops and robbers.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Palestinian Civil War and Hamas and Fatah.

PLEADINGS GO UNHEEDED. Hamas refuses to listen to reason:

"They're firing at us, firing RPGs, firing mortars. We're not Jews," the brother of Jamal Abu Jediyan, a Fatah commander, pleaded during a live telephone conversation with a Palestinian radio station.

Psssst: tell you're not Zionists...

Technorati Tag: Israel and Palestinian Civil War and Hamas and Fatah.

AS TWO STATE SOLUTION SOLIDIFIES: So what are the implications for Israel in the short term--expect a variety of pundits from all over (not to mention bloggers) to weigh.

Just to get you started, Arutz Sheva offers some benefit to Israel

A Hamas victory may work against it, Greenfeld explains, in that it is likely to turn the international community against it, will force Hamas to deal with administrative issues, will sharpen its dispute with Egypt, and more.

One specific ramification of a Hamas victory is that without Hamas recognition of the Oslo Accords, it cannot demand that Israel fulfill its Oslo-obligation to provide a land-corridor between Gaza and Judea. Fatah, however, does recognize Olso.

At the same time, there are those who think this situation is looking increasingly familiar:

With Hamas apparently on the verge of taking over Gaza, former IDF Generals are concerned that the area will turn into a Hizbullah-like "Hamastan" within reach of large parts of Israel.

According to Arutz7, possible reactions to include:

o a ground offensive and a need for the IDF to stay
o diplomacy--with reliance on targeted strikes on terrorists and relying on Egypt
o bringing in the UN (which Hamas has already rejected)

In addition to all this, summer is on the way with expectations that Hizbollah is going to put its new stash of weapons to use.
And who knows what Fatah will do from the West Bank to improve its own reputation.

So what will Olmert do?

As memories of the Six Day War recede into the background, probably nothing novel or daring--most likely the 'safe' route of diplomacy and targeted killings.

What do you think?

Technorati Tag: Israel and Hamas and Fatah and Palestinian Civil War.

GAZA AS HAMSTER CAGE: Personally, I was thinking more along the lines of a rat's maze--but Judeopundit has a point.

Still, hamsters?

Technorati Tag: Palestinians and Gaza.

CIVIL WAR--OR WEST SIDE STORY? Planet Israel tends towards the latter:

It's being called a "coup," and a "civil war," neither of which are accurate because they imply that there exists a "Palestinian" people, a unified nation, which is struggling over its future direction and purpose. In reality, this is just clans and gangs in a subnational, largely illiterate society, fighting over money. The savage killing is a result of the policies of misguided, wealthy western states, a consequence of fifty years of broad-minded political correctness run wild.

Perhaps, but part of the turf they are fighting over is Israel.

Technorati Tag: Palestinian Civil War and Hamas and Fatah.