Gaza – When is “Mission Accomplished”?

Unlike the 2006 battle between Iran-supported Hezbollah and Israel in southern Lebanon, where the Israeli troops did not walk away with a clear triumph, the battle in Gaza is being implemented by not just air power but by massive forces on the ground commanded from the battle lines themselves. The battle in the world press does not appear to going well for this small Jewish state, particularly following the January 6^th bombing of a United Nations school in northern Gaza where as many as 40 refugees (including children), fleeing from the attacks, appear to have been killed. Hamas is well-known for storing munitions in and launching artillery and rocket attacks from schools, mosques and hospitals – the “human shield” approach to warfare.

But what is the Israel’s goal in this conflict? With seemingly unlimited support from Iran, the core of the Hamas leadership remains intent on attacking and destroying Israel. Does Israel systematically track down and kill or capture any member of Hamas? What do they do with the captives? What kind of government remains to run the country, and how will they be selected? How does Israel control the backlash from the civilians, decimated by Israeli military efforts, from recreating the very scenario that gave rise to the rocket attacks? Who pays to repair the damage?

If toppling Hamas is not the goal – Israel has claimed at least once that it is not – exactly what kind of cease-fire can be achieved? How long will such a truce hold? Is there really any hope for any sustainable agreement that will prevent random attacks against Israel from Gaza? A joint Egyptian-French effort is pressing hard for a cease-fire, and Israel temporarily suspended its Gaza operations to permit humanitarian aid, but it resume the attack when the agreed time passed. However, Israel’s longer-term objectives appear elusive, aside from the obvious – Israel wants assurances that the Hamas will not rearm and that the rocket fire will stop, a pledge that seems exceptionally hard to guarantee.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, himself under a cloud from a criminal investigation, has stated only modest goals for the current incursion, but the vast consequences of the Israeli attacks cry out for vastly more fundamental, longer-term answers. Is the key to embrace a reluctant Egypt, with money and support from the West (including the United States), to moderate? Do Gazans actually trust this less-than-democratic state with that mission?

With an Israeli election looming, the political solution is very much up in the air. The January 7^th New York Times: “Israel has so far failed to decide what its ultimate goals are for this conflict, said Giora Eiland, a former army general and a former head of Israel’s weak National Security Council. ‘Either we want to achieve a sustainable arrangement, with a lasting cease-fire and a stop to arms smuggling from Egypt, or we want to bring about a collapse of the Hamas government,’ he said. ‘These lead to very different actions on all fronts, but the answer is not very clear. There is disagreement at the moment in the troika’ — Mr. Olmert, Mr. [Ehud] Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.”

Ehud Barak, Defense Minister, and Livni would like to succeed Olmert, but front-runner, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, has also been anything but clear as to his vision for the aftermath of this military action. With an untested new American President, mired in an economic calamity of unprecedented proportions, and seen in Israel as less-supportive than the Bush administration, the role of the U.S. in bringing some relative stability to this crisis has yet to be determined. Obama and his new Secretary of State will build their reputations and credibility on the global political stage based on how they navigate between these two seemingly irreconcilable regional forces. The most difficult job on earth at the most difficult time in recent history just got a lot harder.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I approve this message.