Meryl observes the diplomatic activity and Israel’s leaders’ apparently considering the proposals for a ceasefire.
But Khaled Abu Toameh writes that Hamas is having trouble functioning.
Until two weeks ago, Zahar, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Interior Minister Said Siam – the three top Hamas leaders – were still sleeping in their homes and moving around freely and fearlessly. Until then, they were also frequent guests on various talk shows in the Arab media – especially Al-Jazeera, which is being accused by some Palestinians as serving as a mouthpiece for Hamas.
This is not a time for a ceasefire. If Hamas wants one, it will have to pay a steep price for one.
Caroline Glick maps out two positive scenarios. (h/t Daled Amos)
There are four possible outcomes for Israel’s current campaign — two would be positive and two would be negative. The best outcome would be for Israel to overthrow Hamas’s regime and destroy its capacity to wage war against Israel or threaten Israel in any significant way. To achieve this goal, Israel would have to reassert control over Gaza. Since the Israeli government has already stated that Israel will not reassert control over Gaza, and since reasserting control would be extremely embarrassing for the current leadership, which led Israel out of Gaza with promises of peace three and a half years ago, it is fairly clear that this outcome will not be forthcoming.
The next best outcome would be something analogous to the end of the 1991 Gulf War. Although the U.S. left Saddam Hussein in power after that war, it asserted control over the no-fly zones and set up a clear sanctions regime that by and large prevented Iraq from rearming and apparently prevented Iraq from reconstituting its weapons of mass destruction programs.
Here too, chances that this outcome will prevail are not great because the Israeli government has already stated that it is unwilling to reassert control over Gaza’s border with Egypt which is where most of Hamas’s weapons are imported from.
If the disarray is real, pressure for a ceasefire will give Haniyeh and company time to regroup. That’s unacceptable.
Long term, Bret Stephens writes in An Endgame for Israel:
A long-term policy aimed squarely at killing or capturing Hamas’s leaders, destroying arms caches and rocket factories, and cutting off supply and escape routes will not by itself destroy the group. But it can drive it out of government and cripple its ability to function as a fighting force. And this, in turn, could mean the return of Fatah, the closest thing Gaza has to a “legitimate” government.
All this will be said to amount to another occupation, never mind that there are no settlers in this picture, and never mind, too, that Israel was widely denounced for carrying out an “effective occupation” of the Strip after it imposed an economic blockade on Hamas. (By this logic, the U.S. is currently “occupying” Cuba.) If Israel is going to achieve a strategic victory in this war, it will have to stand firm against this global wave of hypocrisy and cant.
Israel will also have to practice a more consistent policy of deterrence than it has so far done. One option: For every single rocket that falls randomly on Israeli soil, an Israeli missile will hit a carefully selected target in Gaza. Focusing the minds of Hamas on this type of “proportionality” is just the endgame that Israel needs.
If Hamas wants a ceasefire, in the words of Instapundit, “… don’t give ’em one.”
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
