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Gaza: Truce Without Hope
It’s rare in the history of national conflicts that you see truces that are doomed before they are even announced. Truces where both sides denounce each other and practically predict its demise. So this truce follows the miserable history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A truce painstakingly negotiated between Israel and Hamas with Egypt as mediator. A truce which could bring peace to Sderot and Gaza. A truce which could open the border crossings and relieve the suffocation of Gaza. A truce which could free Gilad Shalit. That’s what it COULD do. What is will ACTUALLY do is probably something else entirely.
Here is retired IDF general Shlomo Brom and a Palestinian analyst uniting in their lament for the late, lamented truce that’s only just begun:
“It is a strange agreement,” said Khaled Abdel Shafi, an economist in Gaza. “Both sides are threatening each other. There is no sign of good intentions.”
In Israel, some officials suggested that the main purpose of the agreement was to give legitimacy to a future military offensive, so that Israeli leaders could claim that they had exhausted all other possibilities first.
“It could be the start of a new era, but it won’t be,” said Shlomo Brom, a retired general at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv who has long called for a dialogue with Hamas.
“Listen to their declarations,” he said. “Self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Kershner’s observation above is unfortunately right on the money. Within a month or perhaps sooner, the IDF will be rolling into Gaza to “flush out” insurgents and deal a “fatal blow” to Hamas terror. Equally unfortunate will be the disingenuous Israeli claim that they exhausted every option before resorting to force. In truth, they never gave the diplomatic option a reasonable chance and the military option is DOA. A real diplomatic initiative would have included Gilad Shalit’s release, opening of the Gaza crossings, the freeing of Palestinian prisoners, and the inclusion of the West Bank in the ceasefire. The Israelis were not prepared for a comprehensive ceasefire, which in turn dooms this one to the ash heap of the history of previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.
ellen said:
“In Israel, some officials suggested that the main purpose of the agreement was to give legitimacy to a future military offensive, so that Israeli leaders could claim that they had exhausted all other possibilities first.”
Exactly true.
I have come to dread “cease-fires” because they inevitably wind up with worse conditions for Gazans.
Peter D said:
An interesting article about a moderate Hamas spokesman being optimistic about the truce:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/994774.html
One very important point he mentions:
“Israel mustn’t pass up such an agreement with Hamas - otherwise an ideology more extreme than Hamas will be the result. Israel has to understand that nowadays, Hamas is a factor that balances the radical and out-of-control voices in both the Arab and the Muslim world.” ”
It end with a somewhat ominous twist: the Fatah people openly expressing their hope that the truce will collapse:
“But the Fatah member nonetheless remained optimistic when asked whether the cease-fire would weaken his organization. In his view, the truce is too fragile to last and to have an impact on reality. “Today, you can’t really say that Hamas has total control over the Gaza Strip; it’s quite likely that the small organizations will violate the cease-fire,” he says. “On the other hand, I’m sure that Israel won’t abide by the cease-fire either. Besides, for now at least, it looks like the Rafah border crossing will remain closed. If it doesn’t open, the truce won’t last very long.”
It is a twist, because in the past one could usually count on an “alliance” of Hamas and Israel to sabotage any cease fire between Israel and Palestinians.