The State of Gaza

"I hate the idea that we will have to enter by land into Gaza.  It is a highly populated area.  The manoeuvrability of ground forces is greatly limited under those conditions.

"Such an operation might cause on our side many more casualties than would be caused by rocket attacks and, in addition, there is no doubt it would cost many more lives on the Palestinian side.  I think a ground operation is needless, unless there is a deterioration."
Gen. Danny Yatom, former head of Mossad.

Well, then, General Yatom's prescription is solid enough.  Israel's previous response through Operation Cast Lead to Hamas's provocations and countless earlier rocket launches into Israel proved just how costly in human lives a ground invasion could be.  Palestinians failed then and continue to fail now, to understand that Israel is responding just as any country would to the constant violent threats and assaults against its own.

The leaders of Hamas are well aware of the dangers they place the population they rule in Gaza within by bombarding Israelis with rockets, causing the targeted population to be traumatized by their deliberate acts of war.  They fully understand that Israel will eventually react, for it has little other choice.  It cannot reason with Hamas, it cannot hope to bargain for peace, all it can hope for is temporary ceasefires.  Until such time as Hamas and others like Islamic Jihad become restive.  Again.  And again.

The original invitation to Israel in 2006 to bring the IDF into a swift and deadly war with Hamas resulted from the raid from an underground tunnel that succeeded in killing two IDF soldiers and the abduction of another; Cpl. Gilad Shalit.  Operation Cast Lead did not succeed in releasing Cpl. Shalit from Hamas custody, but time and the release of over one thousand Palestinians charged with criminal offences, including terrorism and murder bought his freedom.

This time the target was a military vehicle causing IDF military casualties.  Every time Israel's game plan of the "power of deterrence" wanes once there have been sufficient arms smuggled into Gaza through the Egypt/Gaza tunnels, and the terror groups have become sufficiently bored with inaction, their game plan of meeting the IDF in a struggle each to defeat the other, ensues.  

Public opinion from the international community on 'proportionality' brings Israel's actions to a stuttering halt.

Public opinion does not weigh heavily on Hamas, nor does it on the other terror militias happy to be engaged in doing what they best enjoy; warfare.  They are held to a different standard.  Less is expected of them, and they revel in that realization that because Israel is called to attention and they are not, this passes for an oblique favouring on their behalf.

The precision targeting of the Hamas strongman Ahmed al-Jabari, commander of its military wing sent a defined message.  This is the man who accompanied Cpl. Shalit in his release back into Israeli custody after five years of captivity under Mr. Jabari's command.  When, later during a jubilant interview, Mr. Jabari boasted that of the initial 400 Palestinians released from jail, a greater number of Israelis had met their deaths at the hands of the released, the man placed one more nail into his own coffin.

The Palestinians who live under the rule of Hamas are the very same Palestinians who voted for Hamas in favour of Fatah, the party now governing as the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.  Although it is true that Hamas unilaterally chose to leave the West Bank to Fatah and take the Gaza Strip for themselves in a brief struggle that ousted Fatah, they remain the choice for most Gazans.  

Who, rather incredibly, overlook the obvious fact that it is Hamas's charter provision of destruction of Israel that keeps them living a blockaded existence.  

They live in crowded conditions, roughly 1.6 million Palestinians.  Gaza's population doubles every twenty-five years; Palestinians are obviously devoted to their large families.  If living conditions are as tough as the international community likes to believe they are, it's hard to imagine people having large families when it is difficult to shelter, provide adequate nutrition and clothing, let alone attention to health needs.  

"The problem of the Israelis is that they look at Gaza only from the angle of security and military", the PLO's Sufian Abu Zaydeh of their negotiating team observes.  "The problem of Gaza is political, it's humanitarian and it's economic.  I always say to Israelis, 'If you are not allowing people in Gaza to live a normal life, don't ask them to think and behave in a normal way".  Entirely rational.  But those to whom he should be addressing his concerns would be Hamas.

It is Hamas that creates the conditions in which Gazans live.  It is Hamas that decides to create conflict instead of co-operation, clings to its promise to obliterate Israel and re-possess 'Palestine' in its entireity, setting the stage on an ongoing, obdurate manner for conflict to flare and to continue to make a misery of the people whose interests they claim to be representing.  

This is their ultimate moral bankruptcy.