You may remember that on June 11th 2014 (11/6/14) things were relatively stable in both Israel and Palestine. Sure long term problems such as illegal Israeli settlements and the right to return had not been resolved but nobody was shooting at each other and Hamas and Fatah were working together to unify Gaza and the West Bank which is a vital first step in getting Israel to recognise a Palestinian state. Then on June 12th (12/6/14) three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and all hell broke loose.
Yesterday (5/8/14) the Israeli State Prosecutors Office submitted paperwork to the High Court of Justice seeking the forfeiture of property belonging to Hussam Qawasmeh who is related to one of the two main suspects in the kidnapping. Buried deep in that paperwork it emerged that Hussam Qawasmeh had been arrested on July 11th (11/7/14) whilst trying to flee into Jordan. Under questioning by the Shin Bet Hussam Qawasmeh confessed to ordering Marwan Qawasmeh and Abu Aisheh to carry out the kidnapping and had supplied them with weapons to do so. Crucially Hussam Qawasmeh also claimed that the funding to carry out the kidnapping had come from Hamas who had given the crime their full blessing.
The obviously proves the Israeli government's narrative that Hamas had been responsible for the kidnapping. However I should point out that facing a lengthy prison sentence and with the Israelis prepared to not just seize all of Hussam Qawasmeh's property but also all property belonging to the entire Qawasmeh family Hussam obviously has a massive incentive to tell the Israelis exactly what they want to hear while shifting the blame from his family onto Hamas. That said the reason why I initially didn't think that Hamas had ordered the kidnapping is because up to that point they hadn't displayed an interest in such nihilistic tactics. However since then Hamas has shown time and time again that it is most certainly capable of such nihilism both through their efforts to maximise the number of civilian casualties and by their repeated attempts to kidnap Israeli soldiers and civilians including the effort to kidnap Hadar Goldin. As a result I am now more inclined to believe that Hamas did in fact order the kidnapping although for the life of me I cannot begin to think of a reason why.
Despite this revelation Israel has still sent a delegation to Egypt to negotiate with the Palestinian factions. Obviously these closed negotiations are highly complex and I for one am mainly interested on the progress of items that aren't officially on the agenda. However the rumours coming out of the talks are that Israel is in a particularly giving mood. The Palestinians have apparently made seven key demands three of which - the opening of a Gaza airport, the opening of a Gaza seaport and guaranteeing the free movement of Palestinians from Gaza into Israel - are simply ridiculous because they will be used by Hamas to re-arm themselves and then launch attacks into Israel. However Israel have apparently agreed to the Palestinians four other demands - ending the military operation in Gaza, lifting the blockade on goods flowing into Gaza from Israel, allowing Gazan fishermen up to 12 nautical miles out to sea and releasing the Palestinians taken prisoner in the aftermath of June's kidnapping.
Obviously I've always had my suspicions that Israel has been keen to loosen the blockade in order to weaken Hamas by flooding Gaza with cheap imports whilst starving them of the tax revenues that are vital to produce a functioning state. In fact I'm pretty sure that was the argument that Tony Blair used to get the Israelis to loosen the blockade following Operation Cast Lead in 2008/9. On the prisoner release and the rather benign fishing rights issues I am though worried that Israel is in danger of being too soft on Hamas. Although I think that Israeli was on course to loosen the blockade (of which fishing rights is an element) anyway on June 11th (the prisoner issue didn't exist at that point) doing so now is likely to be seen by Hamas and their supporters as a victory which in turn acts as an endorsement of their tactics and their nihilistic direction of the past three to four years.
These worries are exacerbated by the way that the actual fighting in Gaza has been brought to an end. Although it is officially being described as a cease-fire I don't think there is any doubt that Israel unilaterally withdraw their ground forces from Gaza on Tuesday having achieved all their objectives securing a clear victory over Hamas. As part of that victory Israel has destroyed all 32 known attack tunnels into Israel, killed over 700 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters, destroyed close to 1000 Hamas command and control centres while destroying around 75-80% of Hamas stocks of rockets. The problem is that Hamas' mentality is very much that if they have one fighter and one weapon left when the Israelis decide to stop shooting at them they will somehow find a way to convince themselves that they have scored a massive victory. That is only likely to be compounded if Israel now start giving Hamas what it has been demanding throughout the conflict.
As a result rather then offering Hamas concessions I think that Israel would be better served pressing home their advantage by continuing a limited air operation to destroy the remaining 20-25% of Hamas' weapons. That's because you can argue that Israel would be doing everyone a favour by utterly humiliating Hamas while stopping short of completely destroying them.
I know this might sound strange coming from me. After all if it wasn't a criminal offence here in the UK I might even go so far as to describe myself as a Hamas supporter. However I support the Hamas that responded to the Israeli blockade by setting up a thriving internal economy based on smuggled goods. I also support the Hamas that responded to the destruction of Cast Lead by quickly finding a way of turning the rubble of destroyed buildings into the concrete blocks needed to build new buildings. I am not a supporter of the Hamas that places the killing of Jews above all else nor am I a support of the Hamas that will provoke a needless war in the hope that enough Palestinian civilians will be killed to increase international pressure on Israel.
As such I think this defeat provides Hamas with an opportunity to decide what type of organisation it wants to be in the future. In short Hamas can chose to build more tunnels or it can choose to build bridges. One may lead to a functioning Palestinian state while the other will surely only lead to more violence, more death and more destruction.
19:45 on 6/8/14 (UK date).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment