http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/world/middleeast/17assess.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
JERUSALEM – Israel hoped that by pulling its settlers and troops from Gaza in 2005, it would also leave behind responsibility for the Gazans. With help from the West and some Arab nations, Israelis thought, the Palestinian Authority could begin to create a prosperous state, as if the continuing Israeli occupation of the West Bank were somehow irrelevant.
It was a case of wishful thinking. As rockets continue to fall on Israeli towns and Israeli politicians call for harsh retaliation, the country faces an acute quandary in Gaza. Israel is trying to contain a new form of polity: a nonsovereign, semioccupied semistate controlled by Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union and is officially committed to the destruction of the country obligated to provide it with fuel, electricity, water and food.
Israeli politicians are demanding the assassination of Hamas leaders and a major military incursion to stop the rockets. Yet Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have been preaching patience.
But now, with the Winograd report into the failures of Mr. Olmert’s war against Hezbollah safely behind him, a government information campaign is trying to justify a major military operation in Gaza. Israeli officials argue that Hamas is becoming Hezbollah, a sophisticated military organization threatening regional stability.
Since June, when Hamas forces routed Fatah in Gaza, the territory has become “Hamastan,” said Haim Ramon, a vice prime minister and a close ally of Mr. Olmert.
“This is not a terrorist group hiding in a state,” Mr. Ramon said. “They are the state, and they are a terrorist organization that refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist.”
Gaza, however, is not a state, but part of an occupied Palestinian entity, which is Israel’s problem.
Mr. Ramon supports peace talks with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and a simultaneous “war against Hamastan,” as he put it. “No society in the world provides fuel and electricity to a country rocketing it,” he said, although Israeli cuts in supplies to Gaza have already brought fierce criticism from the United Nations and human rights groups about “collective punishment” of civilians and even cautions from Washington.
The foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, took diplomats to the Gaza border on Wednesday and warned them that “the situation in the region is unbearable, and the threat of terror from Gaza is growing larger from year to year.” The problem is not simply the rockets, she said, “but also the strengthening of the terror organizations.” She added, “Israel must act to reduce these threats.”
Fine, but how, exactly? Shlomo Brom, a retired general at the Institute for National Security Studies, says that none of the military options are especially attractive. To stop rockets, as the army learned in Lebanon, Israel must occupy the launching zones.
But the range of the rockets is improving. “That means seizing most of Gaza,” Mr. Brom said, “and no one in Israel other than the fringe right has the appetite to reoccupy the Gaza Strip.” The Israeli Army would win easily, Mr. Brom said, “but it takes a long time, and for what? To regain rule over 1.5 million Palestinians? What’s the exit strategy?”
Such an operation could make it impossible for Mr. Abbas, of Fatah, to continue peace talks with Israel, no matter how much he would like to see Hamas weakened or removed from power in Gaza.
Other military options include intensifying current operations against Hamas, but that would not stop the rockets. Ground operations with limited goals – making sure Ashkelon is out of range, for example – could mean retaking northern Gaza and a wide swath next to the Gaza-Egypt border to diminish weapons smuggling.
Killing Hamas leaders could also deter attacks, but might have unexpected consequences, like a new campaign of suicide bombings.
Amos Oz, Israel’s most famous writer, warned, “Israel must not fall into the trap that Hamas is laying for us and march into Gaza.” He added: “The occupying force will not have a single quiet day. Nor will Sderot,” an Israeli town that is often the target of Palestinian rockets.
There is another option, he noted, which would be to negotiate the cease-fire with Hamas that its leaders have been proposing. Diplomats say that Egypt, stung by the border crisis, is working on an ambitious package – an exchange of prisoners, including Cpl. Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured in Gaza in June 2006, and possibly the jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti; a long-term cease-fire in Gaza; and reopening the Gaza-Egypt border.
Israel is likely to be cautious. Completing a deal with Hamas would further undermine Mr. Abbas, when Israeli and Western policy is to strengthen him and weaken Hamas.
A long-term cease-fire might bring quiet to Sderot, but it would also allow Hamas to regroup, rearm, continue to improve its military capacities and strengthen its political and security hold over Gaza.
Still, as Bernard Avishai, author of “The Hebrew Republic,” points out, Israel has a cease-fire with Hezbollah, just as rejectionist as Hamas, coupled with a disengagement of forces. “You have to stop the cycle of violence,” he said. “Israel can’t win a war in Gaza, but it can’t lose a Gazan peace.”
A former national security adviser, Giora Eiland, wants to use the threat of harsh military and economic sanctions not to defeat Hamas, but to persuade it to stop the rocket fire – or else. Mr. Eiland proposes a deal: cease-fire, prisoner exchange, normal fuel and electricity supplies, and a reopened, monitored Egyptian border.
If Hamas refuses, he proposes a very hard stick: the bombing of Gaza’s ministries, police stations and infrastructure; a halt in the supply of goods, fuel and electricity; and the economic separation of Gaza from the West Bank.
It is an unlikely solution, given the international outcry that would follow. A better answer might be a rapid peace treaty creating a Palestinian state, supported by the Arab League and isolating Hamas, with international troops helping to patrol the borders.
But because Israel and Hamas have little interest in a final settlement now, that seems like more wishful thinking.