bitterlemons-international.org
Middle East Roundtable /
Edition 7/2008
A Palestinian View:
Three scenarios
by Ghassan Khatib
There are enough reasons to believe that the current
escalation between Israel and Hamas in Gaza will continue. There are also
reasons to believe that the two sides are pursuing both short- and long-term
political objectives for such an escalation.
Separating Gaza from the West Bank, both de facto and de jure, is one
component of the unilateral Israeli strategy that started with the
withdrawal from Gaza. Israel hopes thereby, among other things, to undermine
Palestinian aspirations to establish a state in all the occupied Palestinian
territory that includes the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
This plan, however, was interrupted by Hamas' victory in parliamentary
elections in 2006 and then further by the movement's military takeover of
Gaza in 2007. Israel could not allow Gaza under Hamas control to be opened
to the world through Egypt, because that would not only increase Hamas'
chances of survival but also allow the Islamist movement to grow in both
political and military strength. Hence, Israel modified its strategy and
decided to impose a full closure on the impoverished strip to suffocate
Hamas as well as the people of Gaza.
It was a very shortsighted tactic. Instead of prompting resistance to Hamas
control, Israel's draconian closure on Gaza only prompted greater sympathy
for the movement and Gazans in general from the Arab public and
internationally. The pressure it created on life in Gaza finally culminated
in the very public breach of the Gaza-Egypt border in January that was seen
in most quarters as a clear victory for Hamas. This in turn has now forced
another Israeli rethink, hence Israel is now escalating the situation in
Gaza in preparation for implementing a military solution to its problem of
Hamas control there.
But Hamas, in turn, also cannot live with the status quo created by Israel
and the international community under which it has been confined to Gaza and
has not been able to live up to the basic expectations its people have of it
and of any Palestinian leadership. The January 23 breach of the border with
Egypt was an attempt by the movement to relieve the pressure on it and Gaza
in general.
This too was a short-term victory. Egypt could not accept that one of its
sovereign borders was forced open and insisted that the border be resealed
and only opened again under the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access
between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Having succeeded only for a
short while to open the border, Hamas then decided that a military
escalation, by responding strongly to Israeli attacks, would provide a
reasonable way out of the impasse.
With both sides pursuing escalation, a major confrontation seems all but
inevitable. There is much speculation about the exact scope and nature of
such a confrontation and the level of resistance it will be met with, but a
major Israeli incursion and possibly an attempt at fully re-occupying the
Gaza Strip would seem likely.
Israeli objectives for the current escalation range from crushing Hamas and
ending its control over the Gaza Strip to deterring any further rocket
strikes across the border. Hamas too has a range of objectives. First, the
movement seeks to be perceived as the main Palestinian force fighting the
Israeli occupation and this way to establish itself as the counterpart to
Israel on the Palestinian side. This is also an important domestic objective
in light of the fact that Palestinians have been fighting this illegal
Israeli occupation for the past 41 years, whatever the nature of their
leadership.
But another Hamas objective is to avoid a major confrontation by convincing
Israel that getting rid of the movement is impossible no matter how much
force Israel uses. Hence, for Israel to end the rocket attacks it has to
reach an understanding with Hamas. Hamas has consistently called for a
ceasefire as an alternative to the ongoing escalation. Its ceasefire
proposal, when looked at carefully, is not very different from the interim
arrangements that the PLO leadership has been trying to reach with Israel.
Hamas is proposing ending hostilities between the two sides in return for an
end to Israeli control over the West Bank and Gaza and an end to all
settlement expansions. The only difference is that Hamas does not want this
to be an official agreement but rather an understanding. Furthermore, Hamas
does not want to pursue an end-of-all-claims agreement but rather a
ceasefire for a limited but significant period of time that, depending on
which version one reads, ranges betwe! en 15 and 30 years.
Hamas has been inspired by Hizballah. Hizballah has been able to reach some
kind of military balance with Israel that convinced Israel to leave the
movement alone in return for an end to the katyusha attacks. Hamas is trying
to reach a similar balance of deterrence, and while there is a huge military
difference in the comparative strengths of Hizballah and Hamas, one factor
stands out: If Israel wants to crush Hamas, the price will include a full
and comprehensive re-occupation of the Gaza Strip, of which Israel already
has very long and bitter experience.
The only alternative to these two scenarios--a full confrontation or a
ceasefire--is if Israel decides to return to deal with the Palestinians as
one central body and territory. This will require ending the international
and Israeli opposition to the resumption of the intra-Palestinian dialogue
that could be mediated by Arab governments, including Egypt and Saudi
Arabia, to bring back an arrangement similar to that of the 2007 Mecca
agreement . The Mecca agreement installed a national unity government that
was rapidly moving toward accepting the relevant stipulations of
international legality and the pursuit of a final agreement to the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict.- Published 18/2/2008 © bitterlemons.org
Ghassan Khatib is coeditor of the bitterlemons.org family of internet
publications. He is vice-president of Birzeit University and a former
Palestinian Authority minister of planning. He holds a PhD in Middle East
politics from the University of Durham.
Bitterlemons-international.org is an internet
forum for an array of world perspectives on the Middle East and its
specific concerns. It aspires to engender greater understanding about
the Middle East region and open a new common space for world thinkers
and political leaders to present their viewpoints and initiatives on the
region. Editors Ghassan Khatib and Yossi Alpher can be reached at
ghassan@bitterlemons-international.org
and
yossi@bitterlemons-international.org, respectively.
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19-02-2008 |