Hitting a Mule In The Head To Gain Its Attention!

Leaning on Olmert, Israel begins withdrawing from Gaza. Olmert concludes Israel's objectives have been acheived. Hamas, in order to save face, a characteristic critically important in the Arab World, also claims victory.

Based on the devastation and billions being proffered by the EU, to rebuild Gaza, it is fairly evident to anyone, with normal eyesight, Hamas revisited more pain and suffering on its own people. If it helps Hamas assuage their angry stupidity to claim victory, so be it.

What is essential is that no more rockets reach Israel, no more weapons be supplied by Iran or any other nation and normalcy return to Israeli citizens as well as Palestinians. In the event that proves not to be the case and Hamas begins re-arming ,Israel should strike even harder.

Iran remains the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East. (See 1, 1a and 1b below.)

Could've, would've, should've - world politicians thought otherwise and so it goes. (See 2 below.)

A response from a dear friend and fellow memo reader to my previous memo entitled: The Palestinian State Conundrum. He cites a much earlier article by Daniel Pipes to support his own thinking that logic and fluidity suggest eventually Gazans should become part of Egypt and West Bank Palestinians should be administered over by Jordan as both Egypt and Jordan realize it is in their own best interest to accomplish these objectives.

Perhaps this will come to pass and certainly could if logic can overcome passion. Meanwhile, maybe Israel's recent attack on Hamas in Gaza will have the comparable effect of hitting a mule in the head in order to gain its attention.(See 3 and 3a below)

Commentary regarding whether the cease fire will hold and will Israel restart their attack on Hamas? (See 4 and 4a below.)


Dick


1) First Israeli forces leave Gaza after Hamas declares conditional ceasefire

Hamas leader Mussa Abu Marzuk in Damascus declared an immediate ceasefire on behalf of all the Palestinian organizations conditional on Israel's withdrawal from Gaza within a week. A few minutes later, two rockets exploded in two kibbutzim near the Gaza border, topping 15 fired earlier at Sderot, Ashkelon, Eshkol, Ashdod and Kiryat Gat. Military sources report that armed Hamas units are moving to take control of the Gaza Strip as Israeli forces withdraw.

The Israeli security cabinet in a special meeting Saturday night, Jan. 17, approved a unilateral halt in military operations in the Gaza Strip from 0200 hours while leaving Operation Cast Lead forces in Gaza to test Hamas' response.

Although prime minister Ehud Olmert assured the nation that all the Gaza operation's goals had been reached, Hamas promised to keep on fighting and shooting rockets, while neither Washington nor Cairo guaranteed action to end the flow of weapons to Gaza.

Sunday, a large group of European leaders from the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic descended on Jerusalem.

They came ostensibly to show the flag for Israel, but they were also on hand to ascertain that the Israeli military quit the Gaza Strip – even without the operation's goals being met – and also to lean hard on Israel to open the six Gaza crossings as demanded by Hamas. Earlier, they met Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak at Sharm e-Sheikh.

The plan the European leaders have developed with Egypt provides a $1.6 billion aid package for the Gaza Strip's reconstruction.

The millions of tons of cement and supplies will be shipped to Israeli ports and delivered through the Gaza crossings over a period of years. Israel, they believe, will not be able to refuse to reopen the crossings, thereby bringing its embargo of the Gaza Strip to an end.

1a)Iranian experts devise special containers for clandestine delivery of arms to Gaza

Israel relayed a warning to Hamas through Egypt that any more Iranian or Syrian attempts to smuggle rockets or other heavy weapons into Gaza by land or by sea would be deemed a breach of the ceasefire and generate Israeli military action to stop them.

Sources further disclose Iranian marine experts and engineers, after making a study of submerged Mediterranean currents, have designed special containers for the clandestine shipment of arms to Gaza by sea.

The containers are dropped from freighters out at sea, plummet to a calculated depth and carried by the undercurrent to a point close to the Gaza shore. A built-in mechanism then shoots them up to the surface, where Gazan fishermen pick up the bobbing containers. A marine expert on deck of these Iranian freighters guides the captain to the exact location for dropping the container.

This is only one of Tehran's covert tricks for shipping arms to Gaza. To beat them, the United States, Israel and Egypt will need to set a special military-marine intelligence outfit.

Iran's huge investment of money and brainpower in this task is a measure of the strategic importance it attaches to its ties with Hamas and through them its presence in Gaza.

1b) Haniyeh: Hamas won Gaza war, but was wise to declare truce
By Avi Issacharoff


Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said on Sunday, Israel's three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip was a failure and had not cowed the Palestinians, but praised his movement for deciding to declare a cease-fire.


"The enemy has failed to achieve its goals," Ismail Haniyeh, the top Hamas leader in the territory, said in a speech broadcast on Hamas television.
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Though he called the war, in which more than 1,300 Gazans and 13 Israelis died, a "popular victory" for Palestinians, Haniyeh said Hamas's decision to declare a truce on Sunday was "wise and responsible".

Hamas announced an immediate cease-fire by its militants and allied groups in Gaza on Sunday, giving Israel a week to pull out its troops from the coastal territory.

Israel, which mounted an offensive against Hamas three weeks ago to halt years of rocket attacks, agreed to silence its guns and ground its aircraft early Sunday.

"We the Palestinian resistance factions declare a cease-fire from our side in Gaza and we confirm our stance that the enemy's troops must withdraw from Gaza within a week," said Damascus-based Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk.

Ayman Taha, a Hamas official in Cairo for talks with Egypt on a truce deal,
demanded that Israel open all of Gaza'sw border crossings to allow in food and other goods to meet the "basic needs for our people."

The cease-fire came after 22 days of fighting that killed some 1,200 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, according to Palestinian and United Nations officials. Ten Israeli soldiers and three Israeli civilians were killed during the campaign.

Israel said earlier on Sunday that it will not consider a timetable for withdrawing all of its forces from the Gaza Strip until Hamas and other militants cease their fire.

A leader of the militant Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip on Sunday said his group had also agreed to stop attacks on Israelis for a period of one week, following Israel's declaration of the unilateral cease-fire.

Daoud Shihab, the Islamic Jihad official, said other smaller militant groups have also agreed to join the truce. There has been no immediate response from Israel.

Shihab told The Associated Press that the factions will jointly make a formal announcement later on Sunday.

Shihab also said a longer cease-fire would be conditional on Israel withdrawing from Gaza the troops it sent into the Strip two weeks ago.

The Hamas announcement came after Gaza militants on Sunday fired at least 17 rockets into Israel, lightly wounding one man. One of Israel's stated goals in the campaign, code-named Operation Cast Lead, was the cessation of cross-border rocket fire.

2) Israel begins pulling troops from Gaza; soldiers say 'could have done more'
By Hanan Greenberg

Infantrymen leaving Gaza pursuant to Saturday's cabinet decision think cessation of operation too hasty, say IDF could have and should have crushed Hamas will to shoot rockets at Israel.



Cleared for publication: The IDF began pulling some of its troops out of the Gaza Strip Sunday, following Israel's decision on a unilateral ceasefire. The troops redeployed to areas near the security fence.


Among many soldiers in the field, many of whom have been pulled out in the past several hours, Israel's declared truce appears to constitute a missed opportunity to crush Hamas' will to fire at Israeli civilians. Some reservists reported, though, that Hamas appeared weak.



"We could have done a lot more. There's a feeling the operation ended too early," one soldier told Ynet. He and his colleagues are staying alert in an attempt to block ceasefire violations – rocket fire – by Hamas or other Palestinian organizations.


These soldiers maintain that an operation such as Cast Lead should leave Hamas "devoid of desire" to continue aiming rockets at Israel. "We can continue without a problem, in urban Palestinian areas, in Gaza City or anywhere else. All they need to do is tell us to," soldiers said.


Moreover, many wonder why troop presence has been reduced without any sort of formal resolution. "I'm sure any reservist would be willing to give another month if he knew that, at the end, (kidnapped soldier) Gilad Shalit would be returned home," said one reservist.


Many reservists also said that they had expected a much fiercer enemy. "It's been pretty quiet. The regular troops did a good job here and, honestly, there were few incidents (of gun battle) during the week that we were there," said one reservist.


"The army used a lot of fire power to cover our backs," reservists said, noting the vast damage in urban Gaza. "Unfortunately, the ones paying the price are the Palestinian civilians, many of whom have been left without homes or infrastructure."


But regular soldiers framed the damage and the aerial backup in a different light. "The amount of booby-traps and roadside explosives in these areas was too enormous to risk operating (without such backup)," they said.

"Innocent-looking neighborhoods turned into Hamas neighborhoods. Every other house was booby-trapped or had a smuggling tunnel," a soldier from the Armored Corps explained.

3)EVERYONE needs to get off the horse of a Palestinian state. It is futile. If for one reason: They do not want a state to achieve the purposes of the state but to destroy Israel. Let the Egyptians rule Gaza and the Jordanians rule the West Bank (the negotiable part).Then: FINITO LA TRAGEDIA (on the expression of FINITO LA COMEDIA). Any other attempt is insane.This is more realistic than getting all those treacherous Jews to get off their lefty horses by blaming Israel all the time.

3a) Solving the "Palestinian Problem"
By Daniel Pipes

Israel's war against Hamas brings up the old quandary: What to do about the Palestinians? Western states, including Israel, need to set goals to figure out their policy toward the West Bank and Gaza.

Let's first review what we know does not and cannot work:

Israeli control. Neither side wishes to continue the situation that began in 1967, when the Israel Defense Forces took control of a population that is religiously, culturally, economically, and politically different and hostile.

A Palestinian state.

The 1993 Oslo Accords began this process but a toxic brew of anarchy, ideological extremism, anti-semitism, jihadism, and warlordism led to complete Palestinian failure.

A binational state: Given the two populations' mutual antipathy, the prospect of a combined Israel-Palestine (what Muammar al-Qaddafi calls "Israstine") is as absurd as it seems.

Excluding these three prospects leaves only one practical approach, that which worked tolerably well in the period 1948-67:

Shared Jordanian-Egyptian rule: Amman rules the West Bank and Cairo runs Gaza.
To be sure, this back-to-the-future approach inspires little enthusiasm. Not only was Jordanian-Egyptian rule undistinguished but resurrecting this arrangement will frustrate Palestinian impulses, be they nationalist or Islamist. Further, Cairo never wanted Gaza and has vehemently rejected its return. Accordingly, one academic analyst dismisses this idea "an elusive fantasy that can only obscure real and difficult choices."

It is not. The failures of Yasir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, of the Palestinian Authority and the "peace process," have prompted rethinking in Amman and Jerusalem. Indeed, the Christian Science Monitor's Ilene R. Prusher found already in 2007 that the idea of a West Bank-Jordan confederation "seems to be gaining traction on both sides of the Jordan River."

The Jordanian government, which enthusiastically annexed the West Bank in 1950 and abandoned its claims only under duress in 1988, shows signs of wanting to return. Dan Diker and Pinchas Inbari documented for the Middle East Quarterly in 2006 how the PA's "failure to assert control and become a politically viable entity has caused Amman to reconsider whether a hands-off strategy toward the West Bank is in its best interests." Israeli officialdom has also showed itself open to this idea, occasionally calling for Jordanian troops to enter the West Bank.

Despairing of self-rule, some Palestinians welcome the Jordanian option. An unnamed senior PA official told Diker and Inbari that a form of federation or confederation with Jordan offers "the only reasonable, stable, long-term solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict." Hanna Seniora opined that "The current weakened prospects for a two-state solution forces us to revisit the possibility of a confederation with Jordan." The New York Times' Hassan M. Fattah quotes a Palestinian in Jordan: "Everything has been ruined for us -­ we've been fighting for 60 years and nothing is left. It would be better if Jordan ran things in Palestine, if King Abdullah could take control of the West Bank."

Nor is this just talk: Diker and Inbari report that back-channel PA-Jordan negotiations in 2003-04 "resulted in an agreement in principle to send 30,000 Badr Force members," to the West Bank.

And while Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak announced a year ago that "Gaza is not part of Egypt, nor will it ever be," his is hardly the last word. First, Mubarak notwithstanding, Egyptians overwhelmingly want a strong tie to Gaza; Hamas concurs; and Israeli leaders sometimes agree. So the basis for an overhaul in policy exists.

Secondly, Gaza is arguably more a part of Egypt than of "Palestine." During most of the Islamic period, it was either controlled by Cairo or part of Egypt administratively. Gazan colloquial Arabic is identical to what Egyptians living in Sinai speak. Economically, Gaza has most connections to Egypt. Hamas itself derives from the Muslim Brethren, an Egyptian organization. Is it time to think of Gazans as Egyptians?

Thirdly, Jerusalem could out-maneuver Mubarak. Were it to announce a date when it ends the provisioning of all water, electricity, food, medicine, and other trade, plus accept enhanced Egyptian security in Gaza, Cairo would have to take responsibility for Gaza. Among other advantages, this would make it accountable for Gazan security, finally putting an end to the thousands of Hamas rocket and mortar assaults.

The Jordan-Egypt option quickens no pulse, but that may be its value. It offers a uniquely sober way to solve the "Palestinian problem."

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Jan. 7, 2009 update: The National Post cleverly dubs my plan (in its title to this article) the "back-to-the-future option," but I like best the name bestowed on it by blogger Mary P. Madigan: "the no-state solution." Perfect.

Jan. 8, 2009 update: Some readers interpret this column as an endorsement of Jordan-is-Palestine - the idea that Palestinians can have Jordan as their state. Two responses:

I argued at length against Jordan-is-Palestine back when that was a live issue. See my full-scale article on this issue from 1988 at "Is Jordan Palestine?" and a shorter one from two years later at "President Arafat? [and the Jordan-Is-Palestine Issue]." My views have not changed in the interim decades - I remain opposed to this gambit for all the reasons expressed there.

My idea in the above column is that Jordan - the Hashemites in particular - rule the Palestinians, not the reverse. And the same goes for Egypt, obviously. Call it, if you will, Palestine-is-Jordan.

Other readers have asked what implications the Jordan-Egypt scenario has for Israeilis living on the West Bank - specifically, does it mean their forced evacuation as happened to their counterparts in Gaza? No, and again two points:

The boundaries between Israel and the West Bank are more fluid than those between Israel and Gaza. I assume they would not return to those that existed in 1967.
My idea concerns the Israeli government not ruling the Palestinian population; it says nothing about control of territory.

Jan. 12, 2009 update: The Jordan-Egypt solution is emerging of its own accord, however unwelcome it may be, Michael Slackman implies in "Crisis in Gaza Imperils 2-State Plan." Some excerpts:

With every image of the dead in Gaza inflaming people across the Arab world, Egyptian and Jordanian officials are worried that they see a fundamental tenet of the Middle East peace process slipping away: the so-called two-state solution, an independent Palestinian state coexisting with Israel.

Egypt and Jordan fear that they will be pressed to absorb the Palestinian populations now living beyond their borders. If Israel does not assume responsibility for humanitarian aid in Gaza, for example, pressure could compel Egypt to fill the vacuum; Jordan, in turn, worries that Israel will try to push Palestinians from the West Bank into its territory.

In that case, both states fear, they could become responsible for policing the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel, undermining their peace treaties with Israel. …

In Egypt, where leaders have been castigated for refusing to keep open the Rafah crossing to Gaza, officials have argued that they are bound by the agreement on border security that followed Israel's withdrawal from Gaza. But there is an underlying subtext to their message: that Gaza is not Egypt's problem.

"Gaza is no longer Egypt's responsibility, and Egypt is determined not to take it back," said Abdel Raoud el-Reedy, a former ambassador to the United States who is the chairman of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs. …

According to Slackman, Jordanians, too, are anxious, but I do not believe their proclaimed lack of interest in returning to the West Bank.

"It is a real concern in Jordan," said Adnan Abu Odeh, who was an adviser to King Hussein. While the prospect of having to absorb the West Bank may be remote, Jordan does not want to have to do so, fearing it would destroy the fabric of society in the country, where about half the population is of Palestinian origin. "This kind of formula means a Palestinian loss of their land and a Jordanian loss of their identity," Mr. Odeh said.

4) Lull after the storm
By Amjad Atallah and Daniel Levy


Israel's declaration of a unilateral ceasefire is welcome but it still leaves open many crucial questions on the future of Gaza.

After exactly three weeks of Operation Cast Lead, an Israeli unilateral ceasefire declaration came into effect on Saturday night. While that is a very welcome development, particularly for the civilians of Gaza, it leaves open as many question as it answers. The steps taken by a series of actors, including the combatants and their neighbours and supporters, will determine whether or not this actually leads to a de-escalation and end to hostilities to what has been to a horrendously bloody start to 2009.

Can the ceasefire work?

The unilateral nature of the Israeli declaration is no coincidence. In Saturday's declaration of a ceasefire, Israel is hoping to send the message that Hamas is not a legitimate actor.

So who is the ceasefire actually with? It is, not coincidentally, consistent to some extent with the Egyptian-Turkish-Hamas negotiations which called for a ceasefire for 10 days during which the parties would agree to border crossing mechanisms, followed by an Israeli withdrawal, and an opening of the borders to humanitarian and economic aid.

However, by making the ceasefire a unilateral affair, accompanied only by an arrangement with the US (with whom Israel signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Friday regarding the prevention of weapons smuggling), Israel can continue its attempts to politically isolate and ostracise the Hamas government in Gaza.

That obviously serves the election campaign narrative of the Israeli governing coalition - yet if Hamas has no political stake in maintaining the ceasefire, it obviously will have little incentive to keep the peace. No one watching the news in the last weeks will have missed Hamas officials shuttling back and forth to Cairo and Doha for both the private and public relations component of preparing a ceasefire. There was a practical reason for the diplomatic activity that included them – they were the ones ruling Gaza.

The diplomatic challenge now will be to provide Hamas with its ladder to climb down –and the crucial ingredients of this are a short timetable for an IDF withdrawal from Gaza and guarantees regarding the opening of border crossings to Gaza in a predictable and ongoing fashion.

But there is also no third party mechanism on the ground to shepherd the two parties through this very dangerous period. A continued IDF presence in Gaza almost guarantees ongoing hostilities. Even if these are of a more sporadic nature then what we witnessed over the last three weeks, there will be a constant risk of escalation. There will be three necessary steps for securing the ceasefire:
(1) getting both sides to immediately cease hostilities,
(2) ensuring the IDF withdrawal and removing Israeli troops immediately from Palestinian population centres,
(3) putting the broader ceasefire package in place which involves amongst other things, opening Gaza and preventing weapons getting in. Beyond that, of course, the underlying issues of the conflict and of the occupation will have to be addressed.

What next for Gaza and a divided Palestinian polity?

The most immediate need is for a massive humanitarian effort to help the injured, the newly homeless and destitute, and to deal with the current health crisis. Many of the some 5,000 injured may very well die in the coming days without immediate medical intervention. The international community will need to make this a priority or risk having the death toll continue to rise even after an end to the bombing.

But very early on, the question will arise of what is the governing address in Gaza, including who is to act as the interface for aid and assistance provision. Aid distribution and assistance will be made much more difficult by the fact that most of the institutional and physical infrastructure of Palestinian governance in Gaza has actually been destroyed or very badly damaged (ministry buildings, police stations, jails, even schools and hospitals). Much, but not all of this, can be channeled through UNRWA and other UN agencies. Still, any effort in Gaza will have to deal in some way with Hamas.

Hamas has been widely recognised since it took power as having provided an effective and functioning central government address, albeit a controversial one. Hamas has largely restored law and order and effectively imposed discipline (and imposed a ceasefire while it was in fact being honoured) on both its own militia and that of other factions- the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees, and Fatah, although in the case of the latter this has taken the form of political suppression.

The question of acknowledging and dealing with the reality of Hamas versus attempting to forcibly remove it remains the same today as it has been since the Hamas election victory and its assumption of exclusive power in Gaza. The difference today is that this will now be played out against the backdrop of a devastated and enraged Gazan landscape, one in which the test-tube conditions now exist for al-Qaida-style jihadists to gain a stronger foothold.

If the West continues with its current policy then the temptation will be to use donor reconstruction assistance as a stealth instrument to achieve regime change. The Palestinian Authority's President Abbas and prime minister Salam Fayyad do have a role in rebuilding Gaza but that can either be done as part of a genuine effort at national reconciliation or the continuation of a policy that has failed dismally.

As the West considers how to assist Gaza in its moment of most need, it must belatedly heed the advice of the likes of Israel's former Mossad chief Ephraim HaLevy, former US secretary of state Colin Powell, former Middle East envoy General Anthony Zinni, Sir Jeremy Greenstock and many others, and find direct and indirect ways to engage Hamas and encourage putting the Palestinian Humpty Dumpty together again (It's worth noting also that there is a sense in certain European quarters of Gaza and West Bank reconstruction assistance being a Groundhog Day budget, a request that keeps getting repeated after every round of destruction).

In many ways, this might be a decisive moment on the internal Palestinian front. The current Fatah leadership has been weakened in many Palestinian eyes by appearing to be an irrelevant bystander during this crisis. Indeed, there have been prominent voices of dissent from within Fatah, such as Marwan Barghouthi confidant Kadura Fares and former security chief Jibril Rajoub. There was even a joint statement by all Palestinian parliamentary factions criticising the Palestinian Authority's handling of demonstrations and opposition in the West Bank and its suppression of "freedom of expression and democracy." Will Fatah try to use this moment to forge a new unity government or will its supporters see this as an opportunity to try to replace Hamas politically?

Hamas too has its own internal calculations to make. As a political movement it has been strengthened even as it has been militarily weakened. But hard questions will be asked within the movement regarding the extent to which they share responsibility for what has happened in Gaza. It will not be surprising if Hamas enters into a process of consultation, rethinks and potential leadership shifts over the coming months.

As Israel focuses during the next week on its internal politics, so too might the Palestinians, this being perhaps one of the last chances to forge some unity and pull division back from the brink of being irredeemable. The more independent groups, such as Mustafa Barghouthi and his Mubadara party, as well as the more independent voices within Fatah and Hamas, and NGO and civil society leaders will need to rise to the occasion and take a lead role in this. This might well determine whether a potential US-led effort to forge a broad Middle East peace will have the advantage of a relatively unified Palestinian polity or whether a resolution will need to be promoted without true Palestinian representation.

The impact on Israel: war and elections (or why the two shouldn't mix)

In the lead-up to the ceasefire declaration, the government PR machine in Israel was working overtime, telling its citizens what a success this has been. A series of reports appeared about Hamas collapsing, of its poor performance in the fighting and of the regional and international support for Israel's actions. The conduct of this war and the election campaign which formed its domestic political backdrop have never been far apart. That campaign, nominally suspended for the three weeks of fighting, will now be rejoined in full force as the outcomes of Operation Cast Lead are dissected.

An unusual challenge that faced Israel's leadership from the moment it launched this campaign was the need to emerge with not just one but two Israeli victory narratives and victory photos – one each for the defence minister and foreign minister Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni, who will lead their respective competing parties in the elections on February 10. That particular acrobatic feat was achieved when Livni could claim her supposed diplomatic victory and there being a ceasefire without Hamas alongside the more obvious and equally suspect claim of military victory for Barak.

Both, though, will share a message of this having been an effective campaign in downgrading Hamas, removing much of its missile threat, with minimal Israeli losses while sustaining strong support from Israel's allies and having the sound judgment to know when to call it a day and before resigning oneself to an indefinite reoccupation of Gaza.

Most of the push-back against that position will come from the right. They will argue that Israel did not go far enough, that the IDF was not allowed to finish the job and totally annihilate Hamas, that rockets were still being fired on the last day, that the hostage Gilad Shalit is still held captive, and of course, that this should all have been done a long time ago.

The Israeli left will offer a politically quieter, although morally more booming, critique that the war was unnecessary and its aims could have been achieved without fighting as they are the same that existed on December 19. Thus far, the Gaza war has significantly strengthened Barak and his Labour party but not enough to challenge the front-runners Netanyahu of Likud and Livni of Kadima with the former still maintaining a slight lead. Ultimately though, the world of political campaign rhetoric will look rather divorced from the real world implications for Israel of what has happened over the last three weeks. If one defines national security in an irresponsibly narrow way, then yes, Hamas does indeed now have fewer missiles overall and long-range missiles in particular, and a sense of deterrence, at least as far as the Palestinians are concerned, has been restored after the battles in Lebanon in 2006.

But at what costs?

Israel's allies have been weakened and a more hard-line, anti-Israel stance has found new resonance and new adherents. All this should matter to Israel's long-term security. Perhaps most disturbing has been the sense, amidst the civilian losses and suffering, of a deep absence of a moral compass, something that 41 years as an occupier can do to a country and that many feared would be the most harmful effect for Israel of this unresolved conflict. Israel's image internationally has not been at such a low point since Lebanon in 1982, and even Egypt's president excluded the Israeli leadership from its Sharm summit. The destruction has created new levels and new generations of hostility toward Israel.

The regional swing vote

While the Gaza crisis has been mostly about the local, immediate dimensions of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, it has fuelled region-wide tensions. While it is too reductionist to view this as a proxy war, it has certainly pitted two rival regional camps against each other. The two camps in the Arab and Muslim world have roughly divided into those who believe that Palestinian freedom can only be achieved through resistance, and those who believe that only diplomatic non-violent engagement will accomplish this aim. It may be a false choice in that neither has actually created a Palestinian state or created a peace agreement between Israel and her neighbours.

Nevertheless, those who have argued adamantly for a diplomatic approach have again been set back. The Arab world and its collective institutions, notable the Arab League, have been shown at their most dysfunctional. For three weeks, the Arab League failed to convene its leaders despite the events in Gaza dominating Arab media around the clock, and despite mass-street protests across the Arab world. America's government allies were caught between a rock and a hard place, being hostile to Hamas but unable to identify with Israel. They found themselves ever more alienated from their own public.

Even when key Arab leaders at the UN Security Council helped pass resolution 1860, little changed on the ground. Perhaps the most interesting aspect has been to follow what one might call the regional swing vote, actors that are not part of the Iran/Syria/Hamas/Hezbollah camp on the one hand or the Egypt/PA/Saudi/Jordanian camp on the other. The mood in the swing camp was summed up by Qatar hosting a consultative session of the Arab League on Friday in Doha with the Iranian and Syrian presidents and Hamas leader Khaled Mishaal in attendance, alongside Turkish, Lebanese, Algerian and Organization of Islamic conference senior representatives. This is indicative of where the popular mood has been with secular nationalists, reformists, and democrats siding with Islamists in their support for Hamas as the representative of the Palestinians in Gaza.

The US will be faced with the choice of either continuing this dichotomy, and the conflict which has so exacerbated regional tensions, or whether it will seek to shuffle the deck by addressing the conflict at its root while engaging region-wide to address the specific national interests of various parties consistent with its own national security interests.

The new Obama administration and the future of the peace process

While the Obama inauguration is probably not the only factor that determined the timing of this ceasefire, it is hard not to see a connection with Israel almost certainly not wanting an ongoing Gaza crisis to rain on Tuesday's parade and to force their conflict with the Palestinians any higher up the new administration's agenda than it already is. Nevertheless, solidifying the ceasefire and the aftermath of this conflict will exercise the Obama team from day one in office, forcing them to make early choices in how they will approach the Israel/Palestine issue. The Obama administration will likely have to ensure the full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, follow-up on US support for weapons smuggling efforts, while simultaneously taking a position on Gaza reconstruction efforts.

The backdrop will be whether US assistance will be used to build Palestinian internal reconciliation, to help with a broader effort to finally secure Israel's and America's security through a broad inclusive peace deal, or to continue the Bush policy of promoting divisions in the hope of continuing to help Israel manage the occupation at great cost to both American and Israeli national security interests.

This much seems clear: the Annapolis approach is badly in need of a rethink. Indeed, the Annapolis process has been one of the less innocent victims of Operation Cast Lead. Beyond this immediate crisis, the bigger Israeli/Palestinian conflict looms.

A post-Gaza peace effort may not come with the hugs and handshakes of past deals. It may look more like a begrudging separation with hard borders, international guarantees, and even Nato forces deployed, as well as strong incentive packages for both sides. Rather than the friendly peace imagined by Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn in 1993, the US may need to force a Kosovo or East Timor-style peace with reconciliation to come later. In either case, it will mean finally achieving de-occupation and Palestinian statehood along with a secure Israel and recognized borders. Crucially, it means moving beyond the neo-conservative dogma and the policy it represented that has so destabilised the Middle East for the last eight years.

4a) Thoughts On The Cease-Fire
By Noah Pollak

The Israeli cabinet met tonight and approved a unilateral cease-fire in Gaza set to take effect at 2AM, Israel time. Hamas is responding to the announcement with fresh barrages of rocket fire. Israel has recently been under immense international pressure to stop the offensive, including substantial pressure from the U.S. The unilateral nature of the cease-fire should be read in the context of Israel’s (and Egypt’s) desire to avoid direct Israeli negotiations with, and thereby the legitimization of, Hamas. By acting unilaterally, Israel affirms this policy of diplomatic isolation.

Opposition to the cease-fire has come principally from the IDF, which is furious at the politicians for stopping what has so far been a lopsided and successful operation that has seen far fewer IDF casualties than expected. The other source of dissent is public opinion, which remains overwhelmingly in favor of finishing the job, and especially against ceasing the operation without the recovery of Gilad Shalit. It is hard to see how Livni and Barak will benefit from all of this in the national elections scheduled for February 10th.

As has been reported elsewhere, when the cease-fire goes into effect the IDF will remain in Gaza and will return fire in response to any minor provocations. My sources say that if Hamas does anything beyond minor provocations — such as rocket attacks — the cease-fire will be voided and the IDF will go back into action.

Color me skeptical. Just as war creates its own momentum, so do cease-fires. It’s going to take tremendous political willpower for Israel to pause Cast Lead and then resume it again. If Hamas’ leaders have any capacity for strategic thinking, they will halt their attacks for a week and ensure an Israeli withdrawal — and then hold victory parades, resume firing rockets, and test whether Israel is prepared to commence Cast Lead II a week after its first iteration was dismantled. In this way, the Israeli rout of Hamas the world witnessed over the past three weeks can be quickly transformed into an exemplar of jihadist bravery and steadfastness. The humiliation of Israel will be complete.

An optimistic way of looking at the cease-fire is that it is an Israeli ploy designed to regain a favorable diplomatic position so that the war can be continued. If Hamas fires rockets at Israel after the cease-fire, Israel will be left with a compelling response to its detractors in Europe and America: No matter what we do, Hamas attacks us. They are forcing us to fight. Of course, world opinion will not be satisfied with a resumption of the operation, just as world opinion declared its dissatisfaction with the original operation approximately five minutes after it started. But the diplomats who administer international pressure might prove to be more understanding.

From here, the war hinges on one thing: whether Israel will make good on its promise to resume Cast Lead if Hamas continues firing rockets. It’s hard to imagine that Israel would consummate three weeks of military mastery with a display of abject capitulation in the face of new attacks. But given the presence of Livni and Barak, anything is possible.