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| Tyler Hicks/The New York Times |
For the first time since firing began last week, caused by the horrific murders of three Israeli teens by Palestinian extremists, and the revenge torture and murder of a young Palestinian by Israeli Jewish extremists, Israel carried out its first ground operation.
According to officials, Israeli commandos hit a rocket-launching site during a raid. Four Israeli soldiers were wounded during a gun fight with Palestinian fighters. In addition, the Israeli military issued a warning to Palestinians living in northern Gaza to evacuate ahead of heavier airstrikes. As a result, thousands of Palestinians fled south or those with dual nationalities fled completely.
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Israel and Hamas seemed to signal little public interest in international appeals for a cease-fire as they continued their barrages....
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| A Palestinian stone-thrower stands near a tire set ablaze during clashes with Israeli police in Shuafat, an Arab suburb of Jerusalem July 2, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner |
WASHINGTON POST
Aaron David Miller
Aaron David Miller, a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, has served as a Middle East adviser for Republican and Democratic secretaries of state. He is the author of the forthcoming “The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President.”
Several of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s coalition partners think the Israeli army should reoccupy Gaza and destroy Hamas. But most Israelis and Palestinians know that isn’t the answer; they’ve lived through two tragic prequels to this movie. For three weeks in 2008-2009 and one week in 2012, Israel and Hamas confronted each other. And each time, the aftermath was predictable: No Israel-Hamas problem can be solved through force of arms — only managed. In the first case, Israel declared a unilateral cease-fire; in the second, the Egyptians brokered one. Israel achieved a measure of deterrence that lasted until the next round; Hamas, beaten up badly, survived politically and restocked its arsenal of long-range weapons.
Israel isn’t prepared to pay the political, economic or psychological price that would come with occupying Gaza or launching a massive military intervention to destroy Hamas as an organization. Indeed, there are no solutions, only another outcome that may buy Israel a temporary quiet but won’t eliminate Hamas’s rockets.
The violence in the West Bank and Gaza clearly could escalate, particularly if civilian deaths in Gaza rise dramatically. And the fact that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been preternaturally quiet during the past several years makes the current violence seem more severe. But that doesn’t necessarily suggest, as some commentators have, that we’re facing another intifada. Or that it would be similar to the first, from 1987 to 1991, which was a broad popular uprising organized at the grass-roots level; or to the second, from 2000 to 2004, a suicide terror campaign led by Hamas, Fatah-affiliated groups and others that culminated in a sustained military confrontation with the Israel Defense Forces.
The Palestinian public suffered immensely from the latter, which produced nothing but political and economic disaster, and it doesn’t want to go through that again. Polls in early June indicated that Palestinians were far more focused on economic concerns than on launching a massive uprising. And unlike Yasser Arafat, who never really gave up the gun and died during the second intifada, President Abbas is neither willing nor able to direct a war against Israel. A sustained confrontation would also require serious cooperation between Hamas and Fatah, and neither side — despite their so-called unity agreement — seems interested in that.
Some believe that the Israeli prime minister’s antagonism toward Palestinians provoked the current crisis .... he remains the only Likud prime minister to cede territory in the West Bank. He has struck hard at Hamas previously, but his record is one of restraint when compared with predecessors such as Ehud Olmert and Ariel Sharon .
Today, Netanyahu is a man stuck in the middle: His advisers on the right want a more expansive military approach. His critics on the left believe he will always opt for military strength. But, from what I hear, Netanyahu does not want an escalation, even though he wants to deal Hamas a severe blow. So far, as terrible as the Israeli strikes on Hamas have been for Gazan civilians, this remains a limited operation, not the type of large-scale military sweep seen in Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon or 2009’s Operation. Long-range Hamas missiles directed at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem might still trigger a much broader conflict, but not because Netanyahu wants one.
BLOOMBERG BUSINESS WEEK
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| Israel's 'Iron Dome' defence system is activated to shoot down an incoming rocket fired by Palestinians militants, near the city of Ashdod |
Israel hardly feels like a place under assault from close range. Bars, restaurants, and the Mediterranean beaches are still busy. Businesses are open. Although traffic is lighter than normal, the roads are hardly abandoned. Incoming rockets that would ordinarily wreak havoc are being blown up in the air, causing nothing but a boom, a puff of white smoke, and falling debris. Iron Dome’s success rate hovers around 90 percent. No other system in the world is as effective in shooting down short-range and medium-range rockets.
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| Iron Dome: A missile is launched by an 'Iron Dome' battery, a missile defence system designed to intercept and destroy incoming short-range rockets and artillery shells, in the southern Israeli city of Ashdod Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2697019/ |
The health ministry in Gaza on Friday reported that Israeli airstrikes against targets in Gaza had killed more than 100 Palestinians, with more than 500 injured. By contrast, as the Jewish Sabbath was about to begin on Friday evening, just one Israeli had died from Hamas’s rocket attacks—an elderly woman in Haifa who had a heart attack while seeking shelter. (Eight others were injured, one seriously, when a rocket hit a gas station in Ashdod on Friday morning.)
As is usually the case in this asymmetrical war, the death toll is much higher in Gaza, where innocent women and children have died alongside Hamas operatives. The difference is that while Hamas is trying to kill civilians, Israel is trying to avoid harming them while it goes after combatants. Because Hamas hides its launchers, rocket factories, and stockpiles in densely populated areas, it’s impossible for Israel to avoid killing innocents.
The success of Iron Dome to date also creates painfully high expectations for continued success. The burden is felt most intensely by the operators of the seven (soon to be eight) batteries of Iron Dome interceptors, who are like overworked goalkeepers in the World Cup. The Iron Dome can be configured to operate automatically, but the Israeli air force has chosen to have human beings push the firing buttons. I spoke today with Lieutenant Colonel Assaf Librati, a spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces, who told me that the people who push the buttons are low-ranking officers, typically from 19 to 23 years old. The officers are authorized to fire extra interceptors if they feel an extra margin of safety is required or to overrule the Iron Dome targeting software if they think it might be mistakenly perceiving a harmless airplane as an incoming rocket. “They’re making sometimes very hard choices,” Librati said.
It will get harder for Iron Dome to live up to the high expectations for it. Hamas is constantly upgrading its arsenal with faster and longer-range rockets. The nightmare scenario for Israel would be a Hamas or other foe equipped with cruise missiles that can twist and turn in flight to evade interceptors. Or, perhaps sooner, a simultaneous launch of so many rockets that Iron Dome can’t shoot them all down. In a conference call with reporters this evening, Yair Ramati, the director of the Homa Administration within Israel’s defense ministry, said that Iron Dome has improved significantly since its first use in 2011, staying “one step ahead of the enemy.” But he said that Hamas is constantly probing the system for weaknesses.
For now, though, Iron Dome is more popular in Israel than hummus and falafel. And Hamas is still hunting for a way to damage its enemy.