by Elliott Abrams
The current battles between Israel and Hamas were provoked by Hamas. Why?
When increased levels
of rocket fire began about a week ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu responded with restraint. He sent clear messages to Hamas in
public statements, and via Turkey, Jordan, and Egypt, that he wanted no
war, and no incursion into Gaza; if the rocket attacks ended, this
confrontation would be over.
But Hamas chose to increase the pace of firing, guaranteeing an Israeli response.
The question is why, and there are several answers.
First, consider Hamas'
situation a week ago. The economic situation in Gaza is dire, due both
the reduced Iranian support and to the closure of the border with Egypt
by the Egyptian Army. Gazans are unhappy with Hamas, due to the
repression and corruption they see in its rule in Gaza, and to the
economic situation. When Mohammed Morsi was elected president of Egypt
two years ago, Hamas thought its situation would change: It is part of
the Muslim Brotherhood, and now Egypt had a Brotherhood president. But
even in his year in office, Morsi could not deliver for Hamas; the army
blocked him. And then he was overthrown by a military coup, replaced
now by a president who commanded that army and is deeply hostile to
Hamas and the Brotherhood. The sense of growing power and perhaps
inevitable victory for the Brotherhood is gone now.
So Hamas needed a way
out of its increasingly difficult situation. U.S. Secretary of State
John Kerry's peace negotiations might have delivered some shake-up in
the overall Israeli-Palestinian situation, but they failed. Hamas then
tried a political maneuver: a deal with Fatah and the Palestinian
Authority to form a nonparty government in Ramallah that held the
promise of bringing Hamas into the Palestinian Authority and Palestine
Liberation Organization after elections later this year. But that
maneuver was getting Hamas little benefit and few Palestinians believed
an election would actually happen.
Meanwhile, most
attention in the region was directed to the Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant, Iran, Iraq, and Syria; Hamas, and the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict more broadly, were no longer news.
Finally, the
arrangement Hamas had reached with Israel -- no rocket attacks out of
Gaza, no Israeli attacks into Gaza -- was becoming increasingly tough
for Hamas to maintain. Teenage boys and young men do not join Hamas to
police Gaza's borders and prevent Islamic Jihad from attacking Israel;
they join to attack Israel. Hamas was risking the charge from other
terrorists that it was an auxiliary police force for Israel, and
risking that young men would drift away to those other terrorist
groups.
So, the Hamas leadership decided it had to shake things up.
This new battle with
Israel has several benefits for Hamas. To say that Turkey, Jordan, and
Egypt are passing messages from the Israelis about mutual restraint,
and are urging Hamas to back off, is to say that these governments are
now in daily contact with Hamas leaders. Statements from Hamas are now,
once again, front page news; Hamas is no longer irrelevant. Hamas is
now in its eyes and those, it hopes, of many Arabs, back in the front
line of the struggle against Israel. It will also, it must believe, be
seen as the heroic victim of Israeli attacks, worthy of solidarity and
support -- both political and financial. And this episode in its long
struggle with Israel allows Hamas to show its capabilities: longer
range missiles that attack Tel Aviv and further north, sea-based
attacks by swimmers who enter Israel from the beaches, tunnels that
would enable the kidnapping of more hostages to exchange or permit
heavily armed men to reach Israeli communities and exact a high price in
lives, and a high volume of rockets to overwhelm Israel's high-tech
defenses like Iron Dome. Finally, Hamas must believe that Israel
desires to damage it and restore deterrence, but not to destroy Hamas
and its rule in Gaza. Believing that chaos and anarchy or rule by
Islamic Jihad would be even worse for Israel than rule by Hamas, the
organization may believe that it will emerge from this round of warfare
bloodied but still in place.
It is a very big gamble
for Hamas, and the size of the gamble is the measure of Hamas'
desperation. For so far, Hamas has not done much damage to Israel. The
swimmers were killed the minute they came out of the water. The tunnels
have been discovered and bombed. The missiles are causing Israelis to
flee to bomb shelters, but thank God (and Iron Dome) they have so far
not caused much property damage and no loss of life. Meanwhile Israel
targets Hamas' missiles and especially its missile launchers,
headquarters, arsenals and warehouses, and leaders. There is not much
Hamas can call a victory except proving the range of its rockets.
All this can change in
an instant: A rocket can land in a hospital or school, in Gaza or in
Israel -- and much more likely in Israel, because the Hamas rockets are
unguided. Significant loss of life in Israel would be viewed as a
"victory" by Hamas, and enough of these "victories" could lead it to
seek an end to this round and a return to calm. But Hamas wants more
than calm: It has demands. It wants the men who were freed in exchange
for Gilad Schalit, and recently rearrested, to be freed again by
Israel, and even has demands of Egypt -- to open the border with Sinai
far wider.
Hamas may have reached
the conclusion that it must soon abandon those demands and agree to a
truce, but be unwilling to stop until it can point to some
"achievement" like hitting a major tower in downtown Tel Aviv or
killing a large group of Israelis. But if there are no such "victories"
and the Israeli assaults continue, that will change. This appears to
be Israel's assessment: keep increasing the pressure until Hamas, which
started this war because it saw too many threats to its survival and
dominance in Gaza, comes to see continued war as the key threat. Those
who want the violence to end must realize that the larger is the Israeli
effort now, the sooner Hamas will conclude this round must be ended.
Elliot Abrams is a
senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign
Relations. This piece is reprinted with permission and can be found on
Abrams' blog "Pressure Points."
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=9061
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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