Barry Rubin in Liar, Liar, pants on ceasefire on reasons why it was a mistake for Hamas to end the ceasefire:
The first is that they ending the ceasefire while George W. Bush is president. Certainly Israel feels freer to hit back at Hamas now than after Barrack Obama is inaugurated simply because the new administration would want to avoid a crisis before it consolidates its plans and team. Also, the United States is likely to prefer quiet as it begins withdrawing from Iraq.
Second, the ceasefire is being suspended on the eve of a major Palestinian crisis as Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas announces a self-extension of his term in office. One might think Hamas would prefer to keep the Israel front Israel quiet for a while to focus on battling Fatah and the PA.
Finally, there’s the Israeli election campaign. While this doesn’t make large-scale Israeli retaliation inevitable, such a move would make the current government more popular with the electorate.
Of course mitigating against those is:
[Hamas] knows suffering can be blamed on Israel. Western pragmatists reason: obviously the Palestinians must prefer peace, prosperity, and statehood. Rejectionism must then be due to desperation and the lack of a good offer or faith in the West. In fact, though, the situation is not due to our mistakes but to their deliberate choices.
Thus, Hamas can well conclude that the best way to put pressure on Israel and–in its own mind at least–gain Western help–is to be more radical, not more moderate.
To cite one example, what is considered America’s leading newspaper recently reported that both sides violate the ceasefire: Hamas fires rockets at Israel; Israel retaliates by closing the border. By this definition, the fact that Hamas and its allies fire rockets at Israeli civilians doesn’t allow any Israeli response, military or otherwise. This is the kind of thinking Hamas seeks to promote.
and:
In addition, macho militancy in the Middle East does bring popularity, both domestic and international. The last quarter-century has also shown that Western sympathy can be manipulated by increasing violence and blocking solutions to the conflict in a way that will be blamed on Israel.
May I suggest another reason why Hamas ceased the pretense of a ceasefire? Because it achieved what it set out to. Judeopundit noticed in a Al-Jazeera report:
Palestinian group Hamas has declared that the six-month ceasefire between Israel and the Gaza Strip is over.
The ceasefire officially ended at daybreak in Gaza on Friday and came after armed Palestinian groups admitted that they had been using the truce to train and better arm themselves.
And indeed, This Ongoing War linked to an earlier post of mine that cited a report after one month of the “ceasefire.”
The cessation of the IDF’s operational activity in the Gaza Strip, as stipulated in the lull arrangement, is being used by Hamas and other terrorist organizations to advance their military buildup and increase their readiness for a likely scenario of a future confrontation with the IDF. Since the beginning of the lull, weapons and ammunition have been smuggled into the Gaza Strip on a similar scale to the pre-lull times, despite an improvement in the Egyptian activity against the smugglers. Furthermore, Hamas has significantly accelerated its training activity and its military buildup, publicly announcing it on Palestinian and Arab media.
This is why it’s frustrating when a newspaper, like the New York Times – and much of the MSM – characterize the ceasefire strictly in terms of whether either side is firing. If Hamas is building a tunnel to attack Israel and Israel attacks, well Israel broke the ceasefire. More generally, Barry Rubin describes it like this:
To cite one example, what is considered America’s leading newspaper recently reported that both sides violate the ceasefire: Hamas fires rockets at Israel; Israel retaliates by closing the border. By this definition, the fact that Hamas and its allies fire rockets at Israeli civilians doesn’t allow any Israeli response, military or otherwise. This is the kind of thinking Hamas seeks to promote.
Israel is hamstrung if it plays by these rules and the media portrays this as being even-handed. Does it make a difference how Hamas utilized the ceasefire? It certainly makes a good talking point, but the truth doesn’t seem to have sunk in.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
My understanding of ceasefires is that unless they specifically state a stop to all conflict related activity re-arming and preparing for future hostilities is accepted? So Hamas undoubtably used the time to both re-arm and neutralise its domestic opponents, as well as dig tunnels etc and get ready for another round of fighting. Just as the Israeli state didn’t stop its normal processes of re-arming, replacing spent munitions, improving its defenses and intelligence networks and so on.
And indeed would never agree to such a ceasefire stopping the above as it would be quite silly to give that concession to what is a relatively minor threat compared to the hostile nations in the region?
Any assessment of the ceasefire should surely be one of what did the sides gain? Israel got less bombs lobbed at it but in return has to contend with a strengthened Hamas threat. Without holding to any ceasefire per say all it did was carry out reduced retaliatory strikes on Gaza. A bonus for it was less criticism about its activities, in addition to the media focus anyway being more on Iraq and Afghanistan, though how much criticism affects it from most of the world now is debatable.
Hamas got to look like it was 60% in charge of Gaza and more importantly got to fight other Palestinian groups to consolidate its power. This is undoubtably good for it, but also might be good for anyone wishing to talk to it. One down side of Israeli strategy has been the fragmentation of Palestinian opposition, which while it makes the overall threat level less it also makes knowing who to talk to harder (and gives diminishing returns to any future military actions).
Your understanding of a cease fire is one between nation states, which Hamas is not. It is a terrorist group that does not recognize either the rule of law, or the Geneva Conventions. Gilad Shalit has not been seen by the Red Cross or anyone. Hamas continues to rocket civilian areas, deliberately scheduling their attacks for the times when Israeli children are walking to school.
Your “relatively minor threat” can reach a wider area of Israel thanks to the cease fire and, gee, by the way, why, exactly, is Hamas rocketing Israel? There are no more Israelis in the Gaza Strip, which is the reason they used to send rockets in prior to 2005. Now the reason is what, again? Oh, that’s right. They want to rule all of “Palestine.”
There is no talking to Hamas. What part of “we will never recognize Israel” do you think they’re lying about? Because if you ask me, when a group says over and over again that their goal is the elimination of Israel, and that they will never accept the existence of an Israeli state in “Palestine,” I tend to believe them. Just as I believe Ahmadinejad when he tells me Iran wants to wipe Israel from the map.