The Gaza Strip
Saving Hamastan for Abu Mazen
By David Eshel
Defense Update, January 2008
Edited by Andy Ross
President George W. Bush's visit to the Holy Land last week was seven
years too late.
While the mutual shoulder-slapping in Jerusalem's
plush five-star hotel was feted by all the dignitaries present, salvoes
of Qassam rockets and mortar shells slammed into Shderot. But these
painful events near the Gaza border did nothing to deter the American
president, who continued spelling out his "vision" of a peaceful
Palestinian state, "living side by side with Israel".
Unconfirmed
reports from Jerusalem indicate that President Bush gave Israel an
all-clear for its long-delayed military operation against Hamas in Gaza.
It is now common knowledge that a similar wink was given Olmert on the
eve of his botched Lebanon Two adventure.
A military foray into
the Gaza Strip will not be a walk in the park for the IDF. Hamas has
learnt a lot from Israel's deplorable conduct during the Second Lebanon
War, as well as its past actions in Gaza and the West Bank. Its rocket
offensive into Israel is a direct copy of Hezbollah tactics. An army of
some 10,000 soldiers has been equipped and trained by Hezbollah and
Iranian instructors.
IDF Southern Command chief Major General
Yoav Gallant warned that Hamas could bolster its forces to include
anti-tank units and special forces. Advanced weapons systems could pose
great danger to IDF freedom of operations in the Gaza Strip, the general
said. Yuval Diskin, the head of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security
service, said Palestinian terrorists have smuggled more than 112 tons of
explosives into Gaza since Israeli occupation forces withdrew from the
strip in 2005. Brigadier General Moshe (Chico) Tamir, commander of the
IDF Gaza Division, told reporters in Jerusalem that Hamas is secretly
building a Hezbollah-like bunker system in Gaza.
Hamastan in Gaza
is certainly a great catastrophe for Abu Mazen. Half of his Palestinian
people are not under his authority and there is near zero chance that he
can regain control over Hamastan, which was taken from his security
forces last June. Even in the West Bank, Abu Mazen is really in control
of not much more than his immediate surroundings of the Mukatta fortress
in Ramallah. Only the IDF and Israel's Shin Bet have prevented Hamas
from routing the Palestine Authority (PA) security in the West Bank.
Hamas reaped a small and easy victory over a weak opponent last
June, but Hamas has brought about Israel's declaration of Hamastan as
enemy territory, with all its inevitable repercussions in future
actions. The occupied Gaza Strip is fenced off from Israel and Egypt,
their two only exits. They are surrounded by a strong Israeli army and
cut off from their homeland in the West Bank. They are even regarded
with suspicion by the majority in the Arab world.
Eliminating
Hamas for Abu Mazen's benefit would prove a grave mistake. The Israeli
army could perhaps push back the Qassam missile launching sites from the
border region, but the IDF will certainly refrain from capturing the
main cities. These will therefore remain ideal launching sites for
rockets, shielded by dense population centers, which Israel will
hesitate to attack from the air. Occupying only the sparsely populated
areas will only render temporary respite to the continued bombardment of
Shderot. Moreover, after clearing captured areas of Palestinian
terrorists, the Israeli army would probably be forced to pull out and
hand the "cleansed" territory to the forces of Palestinian Authority.
Adoption of such a controversial idea will no doubt stir
considerable outrage within the Israeli political community and
certainly in the IDF establishment. The very idea of Israel’s national
army being pressed into service to capture a territory on behalf of a
foreign entity, and that of an openly declared hostile one, will be
regarded as abhorrent.
But should the Israeli military succeed in
pulling Abu Mazen's "chestnuts out of the fire" in Gaza, it is common
knowledge that once inside the strip, Palestine Authority security
forces will quickly disintegrate once again, only to be swallowed up by
the far more resolute Hamas. In fact, the Bush-Olmert policy, of placing
all their bets for a Middle East breakthrough on the inept Mahmoud
Abbas, condemns any plan of theirs to certain failure.
But Israel
is on the horns of a most difficult dilemma. With more Qassam rockets
flying out from Gaza, some with longer range, more Israeli towns and
cities are now coming under fire. This was correctly predicted even
before Israel retreated from the Gaza Strip two years ago. Defense
Minister Ehud Barak has been saying for months that with every day that
passes, Israel draws closer to a large operation in Gaza in face of the
incessant rocket attacks and the unprecedented Hamas military buildup.
Assuming the IDF eventually does go into Gaza, what are its chances
of success? In focused actions, it is easy for the army to maintain
Israel's technological superiority, but the deployment of large scale
forces deeper into the Strip for an extended period would involve much
more costly contact. Merely "softening up" the opposition inside the
urban areas, prior to the introduction of forces, will require massive
artillery fire and air support that is almost guaranteed to cause scores
of civilian casualties as well. Moreover, fighting in the closed, dense
and highly populated Gaza refugee camps will quickly force the infantry
and armor into costly urban combat, in which Hamas will be able to
operate with substantial skill and motivation.
Israel cannot
allow its army to suffer another fiasco after the second Lebanon war of
2006. IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi solemnly declared that under his
leadership the IDF will not suffer another such defeat. The army chief’s
desire to prompt the prime minister and his government to allow him and
the IDF to embark on a large-scale Gaza operation may be understandable.
Even if Israel is able to reoccupy the Strip without suffering too
many losses, which is disputed within and outside the army, and even if
the IDF kills or detains Hamas and Jihad leaders, commanders and
activists, the IDF will not be able to eliminate the resistance.
Moreover, a new occupation of the Gaza Strip will result in bloody
guerilla warfare, inflaming the Palestinians not only in the Gaza Strip,
but also spilling over into the West Bank.
Retired Brigadier
General Shlomo Brom of the Institute for National Security Studies
(INSS) said recently there is a negative mood among the Israeli public
and the lack of confidence in the government is unprecedented. The chief
lesson from the war is the need to weigh carefully whether decisions on
military operations are compatible with the ability of these operations
to achieve realistic military objectives that will realize Israel’s
strategic goals. According to General Brom, Israel would do well to be
cautious.
The time has come to disengage the Israel-Palestinian
process from wishful thinking and concentrate on more realistic
solutions.
Gazans rush to buy food, fuel made scarce by Israeli blockade
By Barak Ravid et al.
Haaretz, January 23, 2008
Edited by Andy Ross
Some 200,000 Palestinians poured out of Gaza and into Egypt early
Wednesday, after masked gunmen blew dozens of holes in the wall
delineating the border.
The Gazans rushed to purchase food, fuel,
and other supplies made scarce by Israel's blockade of the Strip, after
militants detonated 17 bombs in the early morning hours, destroying some
two-thirds of the metal wall separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt. Hamas
did not take responsibility for knocking the border wall down, but Hamas
militants quickly took control of the frontier, as Egyptian border
guards took no action.
Israel imposed a full closure on the Gaza
Strip last Thursday in response to massive barrages of Qassam rocket
fire on southern Israel. Defense Minister Ehud Barak allowed limited
transfers of fuel Tuesday for the power plant in the Strip and medical
supplies for hospitals. Security sources said Israel intends to keep the
crossings into the Gaza Strip permanently closed except when it is
necessary to provide for emergency humanitarian needs.
Alarm for Egypt as Gaza crisis crosses the border
By Ian Black
The Guardian, January 23, 2008
Edited by Andy Ross
Egypt is watching with mounting alarm as the crisis in the Gaza Strip
spills over onto its own territory — part of a nightmare Middle Eastern
scenario in which the ever-volatile Israeli-Palestinian conflict gets
dangerously out of hand.
Israel threatens to unleash 'holocaust' in Gaza
Edited by Andy Ross
An Israeli minister warned yesterday that the Gaza faces a "holocaust" if Islamist
militants there do not end their daily barrages of home-made Qassam
rockets, and their increasing use of Iranian-built Grad missiles.
"The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer
range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust because we
will use all our might to defend ourselves," Matan Vilnai, the Deputy
Defence Minister said.
The use of the term "holocaust" is usually
restricted to descriptions of the Nazi genocide of the Jews in Europe in
the Second World War. Mr Vilnai's spokesman issued a clarification: "The
minister used the Hebrew term 'shoah' which means 'catastrophe' and in
this context does not refer to the Shoah — the Holocaust."
Israeli blitz could derail peace talks
Sydney Morning Herald, March 2, 2008
Edited by Andy Ross
Israeli forces killed 60 Palestinians in a land and air blitz in the
Hamas-held Gaza Strip today.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb
Erakat said the Middle East peace talks formally revived in November at
a US conference had been "buried" under the rubble of the Israeli
incursion.
Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak said: "Hamas
bears full responsibility and will pay the price. We are not happy that
civilians have been victims but the responsibility is on Hamas and its
firing of rockets at Israel."
The urban battlefields were
littered with debris as frightened Gazans hid inside their homes and
imams read Koranic verses over mosque loudspeakers.
Israel to be uprooted: Ahmadinejad
Sydney Morning Herald, March 2, 2008
Edited by Andy Ross
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad predicted that Israel would be
"uprooted" and its leaders put on trial as he condemned deadly Israeli
strikes in the Gaza Strip. "I already said last year that the real
Holocaust was in Palestine," Ahmadinejad told state television in an
interview. He said the Jewish state was facing a looming confrontation:
"Gaza is the beginning, the real issue is elsewhere. They should know
that both in the prelude and in the real thing they face a defeat and
this time they will be uprooted."
Olmert: Gaza ops will go on, world should stop preaching
Edited by Andy Ross
After a night in which the IAF pounded targets in the Gaza Strip,
including the office building of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh,
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stressed that military operations to stop
rocket attacks on southern Israel would go on:
"It must be clear.
The state of Israel has no intention of halting counter-terrorism
actions even for a second. If somebody thinks that by extending the
rockets' range, he will succeed in deterring us from our activity, he is
gravely mistaken. We will act in accordance with the outline that the
government will decide on, with the means that we decide on, at the time
we decide, with the strength we decide on, without respite in order to
strike at the terrorist organizations - Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the
others, including their leaders, those who dispatch them, those who
provide their weapons, those who allow them into act in given places,
according to the outline that we will choose."
Regarding
across-the-board condemnation, including from the UN Security Council,
of the IDF operations that have reportedly killed some 80 Palestinians
since Wednesday, the prime minister urged the world to stop preaching:
"The State of Israel defends its residents in the South and, with
all due respect, nothing will deter us from continuing to defend our
residents. Nobody has the right to preach morality to the State of
Israel for taking basic action to defend itself and prevent hundreds of
thousands of residents of the South from continuing to be exposed to
incessant firing that disrupts their lives."
AR November 2012: Here we go again.
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