Gaza's Government must promise to cease its attacks
THERE is no faulting the Israelis for optimism in their incursion into Gaza. The assumption that underwrites the decision to send troops into the unhappy enclave is that the army can finish the job the air force began, by destroying the Hamas terrorist movement's leadership and arsenals. Despite Israel's overwhelming advantages in equipment and expertise, it is impossible to imagine that this move will bring a lasting peace. Hamas is not a normal political party and does not govern Gaza in the interests of its inhabitants. Rather, Hamas sees the people of Gaza as expendable soldiers in its endless campaign to kill as many Israelis as it can. And an enemy that does not care what happens to the people it rules is a hard foe to force to the negotiating table. The risks Israel is incurring are enormous. The 2006 campaign against Hamas's allies in aggression, the Lebanon-based Hezbollah organisation, demonstrated how conventional armies find it hard to deal with terrorists who hide among non combatants. And given the way people are packed into Gaza, civilian casualties are almost inevitable. An area of 360sqkm with a population of 1.4 million is no place for battle tanks and artillery. And while Hamas will do little more than snipe at Israeli soldiers, the Lebanon campaign demonstrated that the Israeli electorate has no stomach for body bags.
Given all this, it is obviously easy to argue that Israel is wilfully putting too many people, particularly Palestinians, at risk in a campaign that will not solve anything. Easy but incorrect. If the Israelis have learned anything from the 2006 campaign to stop Hezbollah's rocket attacks in the north, it is that military force makes a contribution to peace when it is applied carefully, as part of a broader strategy. The Winograd Commission, which was created by Israel to discover lessons from the Lebanon war, concluded in 2007 that short of full-scale fighting, it makes more sense to use the military as one among other weapons in the diplomatic arsenal. This is what it appears the Israeli Government is doing in Gaza. Short of putting a permanent presence back into the enclave, unlikely given that it is less than four years since Israel decided that garrisoning Gaza was pointless, it is likely that this will be a relatively short-term incursion with limited objectives. On the weekend, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barack defined the operation's objectives as being to stop Hamas firing rockets into Israel. There is no talk of destroying Hamas, or even of removing it as the government of Gaza. Compared to Hamas's rhetoric about ending Israel as a Jewish state, this is less restrained than benign. And if the Israelis go home as soon as they decide they can do no more, it will demonstrate to the people of Gaza that the best way to ensure the Israeli army leaves them alone is for Hamas to stop firing rockets into Israel.
For all Hamas's hypocrisy that Israel's attack is unprovoked aggression, yesterday's incursion is more like diplomacy with deadly force than an all-out war to the knife. This is not to underestimate the more than miserable situation of ordinary Gazans. At the best of times, they live lives of despair and deprivation. Gaza is subject to an Israeli blockade designed to stop Hamas bringing weaponry in, but one that also stops everything from consumer goods to medical supplies. And a shooting war undoubtedly makes their circumstances even worse. But Israel's objective is not to punish the people of Gaza: it is to send a message to the world that it will not permit attacks that harass and kill its citizens. That means stopping Hamas's military by killing its commanders. And it means making sure that Iran and Syria - the paymasters of many, if not most, of the Middle East's terrorists - understands that Israel will always defend itself. Given that both states have nuclear ambitions, it is a message Israel needs them to hear.
Israel's many enemies argue that none of these reasons justify attacking Gaza, that the existence of the Jewish state, certainly outside its pre-1967 borders, is the catalyst for Hamas's attacks. They say that the attacks come ahead of an election in Israel where ministers are playing politics with Palestinian lives. But arguing about the rights and wrongs of Israel's origins is a waste of time. Islamist ideologues can dream of Israel disappearing, but short of a second holocaust this will not happen. And to argue that Israel's Government is motivated by politics is to criticise ministers for doing what democratically elected leaders always do - protect their people. The challenge for Hamas is to make the best deal it can right now. Instead of fighting for the end of Israel, it should agree to stop the rockets. In return, the Israelis should undertake to improve the rate at which food and fuel, medicines and consumer goods flow into Gaza. Certainly such an arrangement would be grossly inferior to a permanent peace. But for the people of Gaza and the Israeli towns in the range of Hamas rockets, anything that stops the shooting is an improvement on what they are enduring today.
