Israel Will Lose This Round

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Sound judgment seems entirely absent from the Zionist government’s moves, particularly the latest one — cutting off fuel to Gaza and closing the crossings. Israel is taking steps that may be well received domestically, but are hard to accept at the global level, even among states friendly to it. It appears Israeli calculations have entered an era of improvisation and poorly calculated gambling.

To begin with, I judge that Israel is escalating against the Gaza Strip for two reasons:

1. It is racing against events in order to free itself up for the northern front, where tension and preparation for war prevail, or wariness of the other side’s intentions. The northern front is extremely dangerous, threatening Israel’s very existence over the long term, and Israel must expend great effort and long time thinking and working to remove this danger. It sees that the Gaza Strip occupies it to some degree, occupying a large part of its population and its security thinking, and it believes that if it can silence and contain Gaza, it might be able to free itself up for the north.

2. Hamas’s takeover of the Gaza Strip cut off the political nourishment of the negotiating project Israel hopes will emerge with it having achieved its goals of normalization with the Arabs and the taming of the Palestinians. The Americans and Israelis are concerned with restoring the Strip to the Palestinian presidency, so that the negotiating process remains healthy, not exposed to collapse because of two contradictory political leadership cultures in the West Bank and the Strip.

For Israel, the matter admits no delay, and harsh actions must be taken to bring down Gaza’s government, particularly through people’s grief and pain. If military force does not work, mounting popular suffering might lead to rebellion against Hamas and confrontation with it. It carried out mass killing, closed the crossings, and prevented pilgrims from returning, but this achieved nothing, so it decided to take its latest step.

This latest step will not succeed, for the following reasons:

a. My assessment is that Hamas has learned lessons over the preceding months, and must have worked to build up a quantitative stockpile of supplies enabling it to hold out for a period long enough to allow pressuring factors against Israel to emerge.

b. Betting on the people turning against the government is a losing bet. Had the pressure come about through internal factors, it might have been possible for some people to turn and begin pressuring Hamas, but this pressure is coming from a brutal enemy, whose actions are bound to unite people rather than divide them. Israel has previously pursued a policy of targeting civilians to achieve political ends in Lebanon and Palestine, but reaped nothing but disappointment.

c. What Israel is doing constitutes a breach of universal moral values that cannot be a matter of legitimate dispute. At the global level, there will be those who hold the Palestinian factions and their rockets responsible, but no one can justify starving people and killing the sick. Global voices will rise, at the level of politicians, human rights organizations, the United Nations, and the Red Cross, against this siege, and the media will play a prominent role in commenting on the morality of Israeli policy. It is true Israel gives limited weight to ethics, but the tide will be overwhelming. Can Israel bear the sight of children in hospitals broadcast on global television screens, or the sight of women weeping over their children, or the elderly falling sick and dying from the bitter cold?

d. Israeli policy places great embarrassment on the Arab states allied with, or normalized with, Israel. There are cries and media pressure pushing toward Arab measures against this siege, and Arab rulers will find themselves facing a siege on a million and a half Palestinians, not on Hamas. The Zionist siege on the Strip has shifted the conflict — instead of it being directed against Hamas and accepted by many Arab parties, it has become a conflict against children and women that no one can openly support. And the modest demonstrations that will erupt in Arab cities will bring comfort neither to the Arab regimes nor to Israel, which is keen on the stability of those regimes.

e. It is hard to bet on Hamas’s collapse. Hamas will not stand surrendering or raising the white flag — it will hold firm. Despite the harshness of the event, Israel’s measure reinforces Hamas’s standing before people, who will tell themselves that were it not for Hamas’s fidelity to the cause, Israel would never have practiced such cruelty. Hamas is now a spearhead receiving encouragement and support from every Islamic and nationalist force, and it understands that these forces abandoning it would be devastating for the movement, and would negatively affect the Muslim Brotherhood movement.

f. The people of Gaza are hardened, possessing broad experience with hardship, the narrowness of life, the cruelty of enemies, and the treachery of friends. They will hold firm, more bitter than bitterness itself and more patient than patience. The scene will not be free of people weeping and collapsing, but Gaza will remain a banner of Palestinian steadfastness.

Olmert and those with him are no statesmen. They entangled themselves in Lebanon, and now here they are, falling into the consequences of their poor judgment and their actions in Gaza, and they will be forced to lift the siege. People will suffer harsh days, but they will not be long ones.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “إسرائيل ستخسر الجولة” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.