Gaza: Disastrous leadership failures

An Israeli soldier and 10 Palestinian civilians were reportedly among the external pageestimated 36 killedcall_made by sundown Sunday in the wake of an ill-considered overnight Israeli push into the territory.

Disturbingly, few lessons appear to have been learned from past raids on Gaza, with aerial and artillery strikes on the homes of Hamas officials, offices and mosques in urban neighborhoods clearly instigated with little or no concern for the safety of the surrounding civilian population or even for the strategic impact of the attacks themselves.

external pageUNRWA confirmedcall_made Wednesday that up to a quarter of those killed in the operation up until that point had been civilians, with international human rights groups investigating a number of attacks that appeared to violate the international laws of war.

No clear operational plan has yet emerged from the Israeli offensive, which appears to suffer from a clear lack of achievable goals. Ultimately, for Israel there can be no military victory over Hamas - a fact that even advocates of the current operation in the Israeli government and military admitted in advance.

The attack is a boon for hard-line elements in Hamas and serves to strengthen the impression amongst Gazans that Israel and not Hamas is responsible for their economic and security woes.

The current violence has strengthened the hand of Hamas hardliners whose rejection of the commitment of some elements of the movement to the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the legitimate vehicle for realizing both Palestinian national aspirations and movement goals has been severely undermined since Hamas' shock 2006 election victory.

While the decision to precipitate a full confrontation lies with Israel, Hamas does bear significant responsibility for the current crisis through deciding on a resumption of hostilities and allowing a major surge in the firing of rockets and mortars into Israel in preceding days.

The six months of the tahadiyeh showed that Hamas is capable of imposing a virtual cessation of rocket attacks and border raids when it chooses to do so.

While imperfect, the truce did lead to a major drop in violent episodes. It could have constituted a crucial first step in forging moves toward Palestinian reconciliation and the staged acceptance by Hamas of a two-state peace solution based on the 1967 borders - which some movement leaders have already stated their acceptance of.

While it retains its ideological commitment to the conquest of historical Palestine, Hamas' priorities lie elsewhere: in gradually wresting control of the West Bank from Fatah and in the establishment of the group's political and economic preeminence over an independent Palestinian polity.

The key to demilitarizing this Palestinian struggle for power and for encouraging a gradual transition within Hamas that fosters an eventual open dialogue with Israel - crucial to the prospects for any future Palestinian state - is the re-establishment of a Palestinian unity government. Hamas must also be integrated into the PLO and reconstituted PA governance and security structures.

Sadly, neither Fatah nor Hamas have shown a genuine commitment to this. Each is continuing its crackdown on the other in their areas of control, carved out in the wake of Hamas' Gaza conquest and the US- and Israeli-backed usurpation of the democratically elected Ismail Haniyeh government.

The current domination of hard-liners within Hamas was underlined by the movement's disastrous decision to pull out of Egyptian-mediated unity talks in November.

There appears to be a lack of understanding in western capitals that popular polls showing Fatah winning support through Hamas' violent suppression of dissent in the Gaza Strip belie the effective disintegration of the veteran secular movement since the establishment of the PA, which is likely terminal.

Any durable popular legitimacy for the rump Fatah leadership relies on the progressive severing of clientalist relations with the US and Israel, strengthened in recent months, and the ability to win tangible irreversible gains in peace negotiations with the Israeli government. A chance for the latter was squandered by both sides in 2008.

Israel's refusal to keep to its end of the ceasefire bargain, through allowing the opening of Gaza border posts and considering the extension of the temporary calm to the West Bank, was the effective coup de grâce for the truce.

Meanwhile, the effective disintegration of the Ehud Olmert government and onset of electoral campaigning has cast a pall over Israeli decision-making processes.

With the Gaza ceasefire unraveling, the electoral contest made the proposition of peaceful alternatives to the long-held military plan for a major operation in Gaza impolitic for the three prime ministerial contenders. Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni have all struck bellicose poses.

While Israel will likely move to accept an internationally mediated truce or withdrawal agreement in coming days or weeks, the military operation has also led to significant diplomatic damage.

Livni rather foolishly met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak the day before the first aerial strikes, allowing his administration to be seen as complicit in the subsequent deaths of Palestinian civilians. She then publicly snubbed European mediation efforts in a subsequent trip to Paris. On Saturday, France was forced into a denunciation of the Israeli ground attack only two days before President Nicolas Sarkozy's arrival on a ceasefire mission.

With Netanyahu enjoying the strong position usually afforded the right by the early stages of large-scale military operations, Barak, as defense minister, has also benefited with at least one external pagepollcall_made showing a subsequent spike in support for his previously moribund Labor slate.

This jingoistic political contest bears no relation to events on the ground and undermines desperately needed moves to promote calm and disengagement.

Security for the Israeli residents of the south and Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip can only come with the imposition of a firm and lasting ceasefire arrangement, whether internationally monitored or otherwise, in which both sides adhere to a total cessation of violence.

A humanitarian disaster, the current Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip is utterly pointless.

The likely result, a negotiated truce in which Israel commits to the gradual opening of Gaza crossings, is exactly the arrangement that could and should have been achieved without a shot being fired. Now it will be built on the needless deaths of hundreds.