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 supporter 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.
(Originally Poseted) 19:45 on 6/8/14 (UK date).
No comments:
Post a Comment