The Cost of War
By admin • Mar 1st, 2009Damage from the indecisive outcome of the 2006 conflict with Hezbollah had been swept away. Hamas now knows Israel “will respond wildly” if they fire rockets, she said, reflecting a widespread consensus that Israel had chosen the right response. If anything, after Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire on Jan. 17, the only significant domestic criticism came from conservative politicians who charged that the offensive had not gone far enough towards crushing Hamas.
However, only time will tell whether Hamas, which also declared victory and kept firing rockets a day after Israel’s ceasefire declaration, would really abstain. It also remained unclear to what extent, if any, a key Hamas demand would be met: the opening of Gaza’s border crossings to end a blockade on the movement of goods into and out of the Gaza Strip.
Next door. In the West Bank, Palestinian security forces kept a tight lid on protests, preventing direct confrontations with Israeli troops and arresting anyone who raised Hamas banners at rallies. However, analysts said support for Hamas rose in the West Bank as residents there identified with Gaza’s suffering. “There is great sympathy with Hamas,” said Hani Masri, a columnist for the al-Ayyam newspaper that tends to support Abbas. “The authority prevents the expression of this sympathy. It does not want it to be visible.”
“Hamas has become weaker militarily but stronger politically,” Masri says. “The idea of resistance has been strengthened during this war.” However, he adds that the war could produce an outcome in which Hamas behaves like Lebanon’s Hezbollah - espousing and symbolizing resistance but adhering to a ceasefire for the time being. He suggests that the focus on resistance to Israel could now shift to the West Bank.
Leaders in Abbas’ Fatah movement, which was ousted by Hamas in a violent takeover of Gaza in June 2006, are now hoping they will be able to ride post-war introspection by Gazans back to power in the slim strip of territory.”We might see a lot of questions raised among people in the Gaza Strip,” says Ziyad Abu Ain, the PA’s deputy minister for prisoner affairs. “People will ask, ‘why did we pay such a heavy price in Palestinian blood for nothing in the end?’ Not only the Israelis will be accused, but also Hamas,” he explains.
But Abbas - the consummate moderate of Middle East politics - is in a difficult position. He’s caught between the public anger over Gaza and the impending Israeli election, which polls show is likely to bring Likud party hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu to power. “People have been angry, but unfortunately he hasn’t been able to do much,” says Walid Awad, an official with Abbas’ Fatah party.
He recalls Netanyahu’s virtual freezing of the Oslo peace process after his election in 1996, and warns that barring the intervention of the Obama administration, his return to power will mean the end of the already troubled Annapolis negotiating track launched more than a year ago. That would leave Abbas - who has long been on the defensive for failing to get substantive concessions from Israel during negotiations - in the cold.
