by Prof. Eyal Zisser
Israel, for its part, has repeatedly clarified to the terrorist organization that it will maintain its freedom to take action on the Palestinian side of the border and that it will respond not only to terrorist activity carried out by Hamas but also to preparations to carry out such activity.
As usual, Hamas wants
to have its cake and eat it too. On the one hand, it wants to keep its
cease-fire agreement with Israel so it can reinvigorate its political
status and build up its military strength. On the other hand, Hamas
wants to present itself as a resistance organization dedicated to the
armed struggle against Israel, as a group that allows terror activity
against Israel from its own operatives and from other organizations in
the Gaza Strip, such as Islamic Jihad.
The cease-fire is
important to Hamas because the 2 million Gazans that live under its rule
need the calm that a cease-fire would grant. They expect the Hamas
leadership to respect them and keep them safe, allowing them to live
their lives and to cope with the economic hardship that has become the
norm in the Gaza Strip. But Hamas does not always act in accordance with
the interests of Gaza residents. And in any case, the decision is not
necessarily in the hands of Hamas' political leadership, including
Ismail Haniyeh, who in a speech over the weekend also asked to have his
cake and eat it too. That is, to maintain calm and at the same time to
draw red lines for what the IDF can and cannot do along the Gaza border.
Past experience teaches
us that military decisions, including renewing rocket fire on Israel,
are often in the hands of Hamas' military leadership, led by Mohammed
Deif and having its own logic and considerations.
Hamas sees itself as
following the advice of its friends, the Iranians, and following in the
footsteps of Hezbollah in Lebanon. For example, Hamas made the effort to
set up a rocket system that covers large swathes of Israeli territory,
including central Israel, in order to achieve deterrent power against
Israel in the manner of Hezbollah. Now, Hamas is trying to establish the
rules of the game based on the Lebanese model, according to which
Israel would not have the authority to cross the border line and to
operate beyond it, even if the IDF identifies preparations for terrorist
activity, and even if it discovers terror tunnels that Hamas is digging
underneath Israeli sovereign territory.
Israel, for its part,
has repeatedly clarified to the terrorist organization that it will
maintain its freedom to take action on the Palestinian side of the
border and that it will respond not only to terrorist activity carried
out by Hamas but also to preparations to carry out such activity. Given
the unstable situation in the Gaza Strip and along its border with
Israel, the Israeli stance is logical and justified. After all, in the
last few weeks alone, the IDF discovered terror tunnels directed at
Israeli territory. Moreover, today's concession will become the starting
point for tomorrow's negotiations, and the situation may deteriorate to
that of the border with southern Lebanon, where Israel is limited in
its ability to proactively prevent Hezbollah's actions against it. This
is why Israel cannot let Hamas drag it into a limited war of attrition
along the border, with a price that would be paid by the citizens who
live in the Gaza border area communities.
Additionally, at the
Lebanon border, which Hamas sees as an ideal model, Israel anchored its
shaky cease-fire agreement with Hezbollah with a U.N. Security Council
resolution, with the deployment of the Lebanese military along the
border and with the presence of U.N. Peacekeepers. This does not address
Israel's basic security needs, but even this bare minimum cannot be
found in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas' willingness to
try to negotiate with Israel via exchanging fire and incidents along the
border is not necessarily a show of strength. The terrorist
organization is facing internal issues, and in light of the closure
imposed by Egypt,the situation is very fragile and likely to escalate.
It is possible that Hamas was encouraged by the fact that Israel decided
to leave it in control of the Gaza Strip. However, in a situation like
this, it is up to Hamas to consider the fact that if Israel reaches the
conclusion that Hamas is unwilling or incapable of keeping the peace
along the border, Israel will no longer do what it did during Operation
Protective Edge, when it kept Hamas in power and preferred it to other,
more radical groups that could have taken its place.
Prof. Eyal Zisser
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=16033
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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