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Truce or Bloodbath
Ignoring its own people's wishes in attacking Gaza, Israel
leaves Hamas no choice but to fight back
By Azzam Tamimi
03/03/08 "The
Guardian" -- - -A recent poll published in the
Israeli daily Ha'aretz suggested that 64% of Israelis favoured a
negotiated truce with Hamas. But in the past few days, a
military onslaught that has so far claimed more than a hundred
Palestinian lives, mostly women and children, has made it clear
that the Israeli leadership is not interested in any peaceful
exit from the current predicament.
The Ha'aretz poll may point to a lack of confidence in the
government's ability to settle its problem with Gaza through the
use of force, and vindicate those within the military and
intelligence community who have been advising the Israeli prime
minister, Ehud Olmert to talk to Hamas. A truce as once proposed
by Giora Eiland, who served as national security adviser to the
former prime minister Ariel Sharon, would entail a reasonable
exchange of prisoners and a lifting of sanctions in exchange for
a cessation of all hostilities between the two sides. Hamas
would, in principle, have agreed to negotiate a truce along
these terms. But it seems that Olmert's cabinet has not given up
on the idea of bringing Hamas to its knees or finishing it off
altogether.
The attack on Gaza comes at a time when all previous means of
inciting the Strip's population against Hamas have failed. The
sanctions imposed globally on Hamas and the siege that almost
suffocates Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants have neither forced
Hamas to accept the three conditions set out by the Quartet (the
US, the UN, Russia and the EU) nor convinced the Palestinian
population to rise against it.
The enormous resources dedicated to empowering an influential
group within Fatah to effect a coup against the legitimate
government backfired and finally uprooted that group from the
Palestinian political scene. Starving Gaza while the
Ramallah-based West Bank authority receives financial and
political backing from Israel and its allies in the west has
failed to shift Palestinian opinion in favour of President
Mahmud Abbas and his prime minister, Salam Fayyad. So, rather
than heed the advice of the experts and fulfil the wish of his
own public, Olmert has decided to go to war with the Gaza Strip.
Once again Olmert is taking a gamble. He might have been
encouraged by the fact that, unlike Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hamas
has no immediate regional backers and is less capable of
confronting his troops. The rockets fired from Gaza are nothing
compared with the missiles Hizbullah used in July 2006.
This is perhaps what encourages senior Israelis officials to
threaten the Palestinians with a "shoah" if they continue to
defy Israel. It is not clear whether the Israeli deputy defence
minister meant to use the Hebrew word for Holocaust when he
warned the Palestinians of Gaza. What really matters is that the
message has been delivered; this Israeli administration, which
has failed to force capitulation on the Palestinians, is willing
to use its war machine to burn them alive.
The Israeli establishment is incapable of learning a single
lesson from past experience. Hamas, like Hizbullah, and the
Palestinians, like the Lebanese, have no choice but to fight
back until the Israelis are forced to retreat. Few people
thought that Hizbullah could defeat Israel in 2006. Fewer people
may think today that Hamas is capable of something similar. They
might be surprised. The number of casualties among the
Palestinians will, undoubtedly be much higher, but Israelis will
die and suffer too. The only way to avoid a bloodbath is for the
Israeli army to withdraw immediately from Gaza and negotiate a
truce before it is too late.
Dr Azzam Tamimi, the director of the London-based Institute
of Islamic Political Thought, is the author of Hamas: Unwritten
Chapters - info@ii-pt.com
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