Posted on 01/02/2009 10:09:23 AM PST by ScaniaBoy
George Orwell once quipped, "The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it."
Since Tuesday it has become clear that the Olmert-Livni-Barak government has decided to end the war with Iran's Hamas proxy army in Gaza as quickly as possible. That is, the government has decided to lose the war.
Most Israelis are unaware of this state of affairs. In an obvious attempt to bolster the popularity of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak ahead of the February 10 general elections, the local media have spent the six days since the government launched Operation Cast Lead praising the government's competence and wisdom, and declaring victory over Hamas after every IAF sortie in Gaza.
What the media have declined to notice is that the outcome of the war will not be determined by the number of Hamas buildings the IAF destroys. The outcome of this war - like the outcome of all wars - will be determined by one factor only: Which side will achieve the goals it set out for itself at the outset of the conflict and which side will concede its goals?
Depressingly, the current machinations of the Olmert-Livni-Barak government demonstrate that when the fighting is over, Hamas and not Israel will be able to declare that it accomplished its goals.
Hamas reinstated its attacks against southern Israel on December 19. It did so after a six-month hiatus that it used to restock its arsenals and strengthen its military forces. As it resumed its terror offensive against Israeli cities, Hamas announced that it will continue its current round of terror war until it wins full control over Gaza's land and sea borders.
Israel, for its part, has been less clear in stating its operational goals. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Livni and Barak have said that the goal of Operation Cast Lead is to compel Hamas to end its attacks against Israel, but they haven't said how they intend to affect that outcome. They have rejected Hamas's demand for control over Gaza's land and sea borders and in turn demanded that Hamas end its weapons smuggling operations across the Egyptian border.
Somewhat disconnectedly, the Olmert-Livni-Barak government has demanded that in the event it reaches some sort of mediated accord with Hamas, an international monitoring force must be deployed to Gaza to enforce its terms. Since Wednesday, this appears to have become Israel's main demand in relation to any mediated cease-fire talks with Hamas.
As for cease-fire talks, as the IAF finds fewer and fewer targets to hit, those hypothetical talks have become the government's new focus. On Monday and Tuesday, Turkey, Egypt and the EU all began offering various truce arrangements between Israel and Hamas. On Tuesday, Israel opted to pursue the European track. On Thursday, Livni travelled to Paris to discuss it with French President Nicolas Sarkozy ahead of his trip to the region on Monday.
Apparently the government's decision to go with Europe is based on aesthetics. The Europeans have been more polite to Israel than Turkey or Egypt have. But the fact is that there is little substantive difference between any of the cease-fire offers now being bandied about.
Hamas, for its part, has accepted all of the proposals on the table, and this makes sense. The Europeans, the Egyptians and the Turks have all adopted Hamas's demand for control of its land and sea borders as a starting point. None has included any demands for Hamas to disarm, end its weapons trafficking or commit itself to a permanent cease-fire.
In an apparent bow to Israel, the EU's draft that Livni is now negotiating also speaks of the EU's willingness to deploy monitoring forces to Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt, and presumably to its coast. The EU foresees the deployment of monitors following the model developed by the EU monitors who were deployed at the Rafah terminal two months after Israel withdrew from the zone in September 2005, and who fled in June 2007 after Hamas took over Gaza.
According to its draft cease-fire proposal, the EU has agreed to return European monitors to Rafah, and is "willing to examine the possibility of extending its assistance to other crossing points."
BEFORE THE Olmert-Livni-Barak government accepts the EU cease-fire, it is worth noting three strategic problems with what they are doing. Taken together and separately, all three will lead Israel to defeat in this confrontation with Hamas.
The first problem with the EU proposal is that it takes for granted that all of Hamas's demands must be met in full. That is, Israel is beginning these negotiations from a point of weakness whereby it has already effectively accepted Hamas's demands and conceded its own.
The second problem with the decision to accept EU mediation is that by doing so, the government is compelled to ignore and indeed justify the EU's underlying and deep-seated hostility toward Israel. The very fact that the EU accepted Hamas's demands from the outset demonstrates clearly that the EU cannot be an honest broker between the warring factions.
Here it is important to recall just what Hamas is. Hamas is an illegal terrorist organization and an Iranian proxy that is conducting an illegal terror war against Israel. The EU is arguably committing a war crime by accepting Hamas as a legitimate side to a dispute. In turn, by accepting the EU as a legitimate interlocutor, Israel itself gives credence to the view that Hamas is a legitimate actor.
On a practical level, by accepting the EU's authority to mediate under these conditions, Israel has effectively foregone from the outset any chance of achieving its own cease-fire demands. After all, to reach a cease-fire with Hamas that includes Israel's demands that Hamas end its weapons smuggling operations, forgo control over international borders and end its missile offensive against Israel, the EU would have to throw out the draft it just voted to accept. And it would have to reverse its political direction and abandon Hamas in favor of Israel. The chance that this will happen is quite close to zero.
The third strategic failure inherent in Israel's decision to negotiate a truce is Israel's demand for an international monitoring force to verify compliance with the cease-fire agreement. This demand is self-defeating because such a force will only harm Israel's national interests. This is the clear lesson of both the EU's past monitoring mission at the Rafah terminal and of UNIFIL forces in southern Lebanon.
In the case of the EU monitors at Rafah, as The Jerusalem Post recalled in an editorial on Wednesday, during the period when they were deployed at the terminal, the EU monitors turned a blind eye to the very terror traffic they were supposed to be preventing. At the same time, they condemned Israel for taking any action to defend itself and downplayed the threat Hamas constitutes for Israel. In short, the EU monitors sided with Hamas against Israel at every turn.
In the case of UNIFIL forces in Lebanon, the situation is little different. UNIFIL routinely condemns the IAF for carrying out reconnaissance flights over Lebanon aimed at keeping tabs on Hizbullah arms smuggling operations that UNIFIL does nothing to prevent. They also demand that Israel surrender the town of Ghajar to Lebanon despite the fact that it is part of sovereign Israel. Beyond that, UNIFIL forces have sat back and allowed Hizbullah to rearm and reassert control over some 130 villages along the Israeli border. Far from enforcing the UN-mediated cease-fire, UNIFIL acts as a shield behind which Hizbullah prepares for its next round of war against Israel.
IN LIGHT of all of this, it is apparent that today the Olmert-Livni-Barak government is conducting cease-fire negotiations from a position of great weakness. It has accepted the mediation of a hostile interlocutor. And its primary demand in those negotiations is antithetical to the national interest.
The fact of the matter is that negotiating with Hamas is a fool's game. There are only two ways for a state to impact its enemy's behavior. It can take away its desire to attack, or it can deny its enemy the ability to attack it.
In the case at hand, Livni, Barak and Olmert claim that the IAF strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza have been so successful that the Islamist group is now compelled to reassess its desire to attack Israel, and that this is why it makes sense to negotiate a cease-fire today. But the facts on the ground do not back this assertion.
By maintaining its demand for control over the borders, Hamas has made clear that it has not changed its calculations of its interests. And this makes sense. Israel's air attacks have not degraded Hamas's ability to maintain control over Gaza in any significant way. IAF attacks have only destroyed between five and 10 percent of Hamas's smuggling tunnels, and so Hamas can still restock its arsenals. The IAF has caused no significant damage to Hamas's 20,000-man army, which went to ground before the operation began. Hamas's military and political leaders are also all safely in hiding.
Moreover, Israel's willingness to begin negotiations based on a draft that favors Hamas shows Hamas that far from losing this war, it is winning. So why would it reconsider its desire to attack Israel?
In truth, given Hamas's commitment to Israel's destruction at all costs and its indifference to the lives of its Palestinian subjects, there is only one way for Israel to secure its territory from Hamas attack. It must destroy Hamas's ability to wage war. The only way Israel can achieve its aim is by conquering Gaza, overthrowing Hamas's regime and destroying its military forces. Since the Olmert-Livni-Barak government has already stated that it will not launch such an attack, it is obvious that Hamas will end this war with its ability to attack Israel more or less intact.
All of this leads us to a very nasty conclusion. The Olmert-Livni-Barak government now leading Israel in its war against Hamas is no different from the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government that led Israel in the 2006 war against Hizbullah. Our leaders have learned nothing from their prior failure. Indeed they are reenacting it in Gaza today.
The only thing the public can hope for, and indeed demand at this stage, is for Olmert, Livni and Barak to forego any ground operation in Gaza. There is no reason for our soldiers to place their lives in jeopardy in a campaign that the government that has already decided to lose.
Depressing analysis but the fact that Olmert after declining the French cease-fire plan said that Israel had not definitely said no to a cease-fire shows the general intent of the government. Also, it was noted in the news stories that one of the demands from Israel that the EU couldn't meet was an international monitoring force.
The reason the EU had for not accepting this was that the "Palestinians" are divided.
The EU commission that will travel to the MidEast this Sunday will meet with Abbas and probably try to force him to accept an EU /Hamas run monitoring force.
We know how well a similar force worked before - ran off with the tail between its legs in 2007.
The ONE thing that may stop the idiots Livni/Olmert/Barak to agree to this national suicide is the fact that they would aslo commit electoral harikiri.
Ping to your lists!
I can’t wait until the Olmert gang his thrown out of office and Israel puts leaders interested in their survival back at helm.
If there's any of Hamas left to declare anything.
Here's hoping Israel kills them all
Let us hope so. But I’m afraid the operation will be over sometime middle of next week with the Israeli government agreeing to some kind of Euroweenie cease-fire.
Pray that I am wrong.
I hate to rain on the party, but this is what I thought from the start. This was nothing but an election ploy, pure and simple.
Hamas has been raining rockets on Israel ever since Sharon and his misbegotten Kadima Party gave Gaza to the terrorists. They have done virtually nothing, aside from using the IDF against Jewish settlers.
Now they are putting on a show before the election, and regretably the Conservative opposition is playing the McCain reach-across-the-aisle game. So Livni will be elected, and will go back to business as usual—atacking the settlers and the religious Jews while cozying up to the Palestinian terrorists. And Obama will be delighted to help her.
I'm not so sure about that. The one who has initially gained in the polls is Barak, although he and Labor started from a very low point. In the latest poll (JPost) Livni lost 4 and Likud gained 2 mandates giving Likud a lead by 6 and the Likud/Nationalist camp a lead by 8 votes (64 to 56).
As the rocket attacks spread across southern israel, including major cities, it will be more and more difficult for Kadima/Labor to both give up in front of international pressure and win the election. Unless Kadima can come up with something that really looks like a win against Hamas I expect (hope, pray?) that they will lose heavily.
I agree. Olmert and his gang have been a disaster at every turn, but lets hope this time the Israeli’s aren’t fooled.
These recent statements by by Livni tend to refute some of these assessments:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1051909.html
I am also skeptical of any international peacekeepers being deployed there. As the author correctly observed, the peacekeepers in practice serve to be a one-way permeable membrane that serves to protect terrorists while at the same time allowing them to continue perpetrating violence.
Thanks. I read that after I posted the article, but it only slightly relieved my feelings of doom. Let us look at what she said:
“Livni told her French counterpart Bernard Kouchner that Hamas must not be given the opportunity to gain any sort of legitimacy within a renewal of a truce. Under the current offensive, she said, Hamas understand that Israels will not tolerate Gaza rocket fire without response.”
OK, see it from the point of the French and the other meddlesome politicians.
1) Giving Hamas no legitimacy only means that either PA (ie Abbas) or Egypt will act as proxies for Hamas in any negotiations. (That’s why the EU was so disturbed by the fact that Fatah and Hamas at the moment does not even talk with each other. However, I assume there will be a lot of pressure on Abbas when he meets with the EU delegation.)
2) “No rockets” is something the EU/UN/StateDept/etc etc can sign on to, but in reality no response is allowed after one rocket, and if you can disregard one, then two rockets is just one more, and so on.....
(Basically, seen from the EU/UN etc etc side it will always be Israel that breaks a cease-fire even though they didn’t fire the first rocket.)
So, although, it appears at first glance that Livni by these statements scuppered any risk of a cease-fire where Hamas still holds on to power in Gaza, it may be that she is painting herself and Israel into a corner.
What she should have said is “Thanks, but no thanks”. We are not interested in any mediation. We are fighting for our lives and we are going to win. And when we have won we will be able to talk to our adversaries without any middlemen.”
But that would be the day.....
The one with the most bombs wins. :)
Hamas can spin it anyway they like. They are being decimated.
HAMAS has roughly 15,000 members in the Gaza Strip.
Current Palestinian death toll is little over 300.
Decimated? Really? I would view decimation as a death toll of 13-14,000... not 300.
Members can include families of HAMAS militants, women and children. Do you want to kill women and children? Does your revenge go that far? Sad if true.
Killing several hundred HAMAS is decimation when you get their top men and it will take years for them to recover.
In any war once you get the guys at the top you’ve won. You don’t have to target their wives and children unless you’re an animal. Just like once Hitler killed himself World War Two was essentially over in Europe.
you have the cart before the horse. The war was over for all practical purposes and THEN Hitler killed himself rather than be executed by the victors.
“In any war once you get the guys at the top you’ve won. “
No, you win when you destroy te enemies will to fight. This is not about the wives and kids, this is about the fact that Hamas continues to function if Israel stops now. Hamas still has the will to fight Israel. That’s why the Glick analysis is unfortunately correct.
This war looks like a repeat of the 2006 Lebanon War. Israel wins the battles but loses the war. It has to do with the Israeli govt’s unwillingness to take the war to its final logical conclusion. In this case, they have escalated to a point where in order to achieve their goals, they need to invade, capture/kill/destroy the entire Hamas infrastructure, and withdraw only with a promise of no hostile actions from Gaza to Israel. they are constrained by international approbation that doesnt mind a few israelis getting killed once in a while in preference to ending Hamas.
The Arabs have always been skillful about saying one thing to the world and doing another in secret, maybe the Israelis have finally learned this delicate art from them.
Livni has sounded tough lately. Unbelievably so. Proves one should never listen to what is said, but instead examine what has been done. Netanyahu must point that out.
15,000 is the number of armed ‘militants’.
The fact that you automatically assume HAMAS is like a country club, with free membership of a husband’s wife and children ... is the main reason why Islamic terrorism will continue. For you cannot even recognize the enemy until he is at your throat.
Sounds like numbers pulled out of your hat, or Hamas propaganda.
Of course I recognize the enemy and it’s NOT women and children. If you want to kill them because you think they are your enemy go over and join the Israeli army and start killing Palestinian women and children.
Otherwise armchair boasts are just empty rhetoric. There is a way to victory over Hamas that does NOT include targeting women and children, who are as much victims of Hamas as the Israelis are.
Then why do you insist that (currently) 400~ HAMAS dead is a decimation? Why do you insist that, when I state there are (by HAMAS's count) 15,000 militants... you trot out women and children as part of that number? Why do you recoil from killing the militants?
Why are you so deadset against harming HAMAS?
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