The crisis in Gaza, provoked by the Palestinian extremist
organization Hamas to advance its radical agenda, is likely to
worsen in the coming days. After initially showing great restraint
after Hamas ended the six-month cease-fire (which it never fully
complied with anyway) on December 19 and escalated its rocket
bombardment of Israeli civilians, Israel has sought to lance a
festering boil. The situation had become intolerable, and Israel
took justifiable action to protect its civilian population. The
United States should stand by its beleaguered ally and seek to
resolve the situation in a way that yields a stable and sustainable
cease-fire, not a band-aid solution that allows Hamas to continue
its inhuman strategy of hiding among Palestinian civilians to
launch attacks on Israeli civilians.
The Growing Threat of Hamas
Rockets
Hamas had used the cease-fire to build up its stocks of rockets
and other arms, some of which were smuggled through a warren of
tunnels beneath the Egypt-Gaza border. Hamas--deemed by the U.S.,
Israel, and the European Union to be a terrorist
organization--seeks to duplicate Hezbollah's strategy during the
2006 war in southern Lebanon. It has built a network of underground
bunkers and elaborate fortifications in Gaza and hopes to lure the
Israeli army into a protracted and bloody campaign of urban
warfare. Hamas seeks to outlast, not to outfight, the Israeli army
by drawing it into an asymmetric war of attrition.
Hamas remains confident that it can withstand Israel's superior
military capabilities because it is willing to accept the deaths of
more Palestinians than it believes Israel is willing to accept.
Intoxicated by a fanatic ideology of hatred, Hamas seeks to exploit
Palestinian deaths caused by its own ruthless policies through a
media propaganda campaign that shamelessly puts all blame on
Israel.
The Gaza Strip, from which Israel unilaterally withdrew in 2005,
has posed a growing security threat to Israeli civilians. Over
10,000 rocket and mortar shells have been fired from Gaza since
2001, and the indiscriminate bombardment has escalated since Hamas
seized power in a violent coup in 2007. The increasing range and
capabilities of Hamas rockets have steadily escalated the threat.
Crude homemade Qassam rockets with a 10-kilometer range have been
supplemented by a growing number of Grad Katyusha-type
rockets with a range of 40 kilometers (approximately 24 miles).
These longer-range weapons--built with components supplied by Iran,
Syria, and a network of black market smugglers who move contraband
through cross-border tunnels into Gaza--have recently exploded in
the Israeli cities of Ashdod and Beersheba. Israeli police
authorities estimated on December 31 that these missiles now
threaten about 860,000 civilians, more than 12 percent of Israel's
population.
The Israeli government has understandably taken action to remedy
an intolerable situation. To stop the rocket terrorism and counter
the Hamas military buildup, Israel launched a devastating air
attack against the Hamas terrorist infrastructure. But rocket
barrages are difficult to stop with air power alone, as Israel's
2006 war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon demonstrated. Israel is
therefore poised to follow up with a ground attack by massing armor
along the border and mobilizing 6,500 army reservists.
The scale and operational objectives of Israel's imminent ground
offensive remain unknown. But it is likely to put a high priority
focus on northern Gaza to push back rocket launchers from
vulnerable border areas, and southern Gaza to destroy tunnel
networks that have facilitated the Hamas military buildup.
Jerusalem also seeks to restore its deterrent capacity--which was
undermined by the inconclusive nature of the 34-day war against
Hezbollah in 2006--and to loosen Hamas's grip on power. Although
the crisis will probably strengthen Palestinian political support
for Hamas in the short run, over time it could fuel resentment over
its harsh rule and its callous disregard for the interests of the
long-suffering Palestinian people, which it put at risk by ending
the cease-fire.
U.S. Policy and the Gaza Crisis
The Bush Administration (correctly) has strongly supported
Israel's right to defend itself and has denounced Hamas for
provoking the crisis. Hamas must be held accountable for its
murderous policies. Washington has also pressed Jerusalem to
minimize Palestinian civilian casualties, and Israel has taken care
to warn civilians to move away from targeted Hamas facilities.
President-elect Barack Obama has also remained silent, wisely, to
avoid complicating the situation. If Obama or his advisers make
statements that lead Hamas to conclude that his Administration will
take a softer line on terrorism, then it will be encouraged to
prolong the crisis to get a better deal from the incoming
Administration.
The goal of both Administrations should be to end the fighting
in a way that leads to a stable and sustainable cease-fire that
strengthens the security of civilians on both sides and undermines
the fanatical leadership of Hamas. As long as Hamas retains its
stranglehold on Gaza, no stable peace is possible, because it
remains committed to destroying Israel.
U.S. policy regarding the Gaza crisis should be guided by the
following principles:
- A cease-fire agreement must include an immediate and
permanent end of rocket attacks by Hamas and other extremist
Palestinian groups. A return to the status quo ante, in
which Hamas felt free to launch rockets at Israeli civilians while
hiding among Palestinian civilians, is unacceptable.
- Legitimizing the false moral equivalence between terrorist
attacks aimed at murdering civilians and counter-terrorist actions
taken by a democratic government to protect its citizens must be
avoided. Israel has taken precautions to minimize civilian
casualties by employing precision-guided weapons and warning
Palestinians to stay clear of targets. Talk about a "cycle of
violence" that conflates the actions of both adversaries only
clouds the situation and encourages Hamas and other terrorist
groups to continue their illegal and immoral attacks.
- The focus of international pressure should be put on Hamas,
which instigated the crisis, not on Israel. Hamas will seek to
prolong the fighting as long as possible to mobilize popular
support for its radical agenda in the Arab and Muslim worlds,
transform itself into the "victim" of Israeli "aggression," and
politically undermine moderate Arab governments that have supported
peace negotiations with Israel. Until Hamas has been defeated and
its radical ideology discredited, there is no hope for a genuine
peace in the Middle East.
Free Palestine--from Hamas
Hamas has tightened its barbaric grip on Gaza since its violent
2007 coup against the Palestinian Authority and now holds 1.5
million Palestinians hostage to its ruthless drive to destroy
Israel. The long-term goal of American policy should be to free
these hostages from the draconian rule and endless violence
promoted by Hamas. Therefore it is important that the current
crisis be resolved in a manner that undercuts the capacity of Hamas
to continue its cynical and destructive policies.
James Phillips is Senior Research
Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs in the Douglas and Sarah Allison
Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and
Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The
Heritage Foundation.