The Viral Culture of Death

"I am satisfied because it means no more children will be killed.  It has strengthened Hamas and wakened the Palestinian Authority.  Hamas has more popular support and more international legitimacy."
Sami Abu Salem, Palestinian journalist

The Palestinian Authority, while still not entirely accepting the premise that they find outrageous, that Israel is a Jewish state, at the same time that they see nothing amiss that an independent Palestine will be an Arab state, just like the other countries of the Middle East save Iran, has formally more or less given up on violence to achieve its end.  Although it is side-stepping direct negotiations with Israel by going directly to the United Nations for agreement within the General Assembly on observer status, it insists it will return to the negotiating table.

The West Bank, as parlous as its financial status is, is nowhere near as financially friable as is Gaza, although both are heavily reliant on international largesse to enable them to function.  The simple fact is that the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas, ruling in Gaza have spent much of their energy in their dysfunctional relationship with one another, and in their shared antagonism toward Israel; for the latter on more of a diplomatic footing, for the former, in direct violent assaults.

Feed a population a strategy heavily reliant on dissembling, outright slander of another country to portray them as mortal enemies requiring constant vigilance and the occasional lapse into suicide missions, and that population will view the neighbouring country as a threat to their future, and their very existence.  The result is that Hamas, whose mission statement is founded on the destruction of Israel, and whose confrontations with the IDF have made them wildly popular, has the support of Palestinians at the expense of the Palestinian Authority.

Now that an uneasy ceasefire, brokered by Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is in effect, Palestinians are beside themselves with ecstasy, with the jubilation of those whose 'resistance' to their oppressive 'occupiers' has succeeded with victory for them.  It is a strange kind of victory, to be sure.  Gaza, where Hamas institutions have been levelled, and where launching sites for rockets located within civilian populated areas resulted in those areas being bombed, will require major reconstruction.

The funding promised to the Hamas leadership at much celebrated visit to Gaza City by the emir of Qatar to the tune of some $400-million will come in handy for that purpose alone.  Palestinians were the victims to the Hamas victory.  Hamas claiming that Israel did not dare to mount a ground invasion for fear of clashing with Hamas gunmen, a far superior force, as they would have it, than the IDF.  And the propaganda belching forth from an ever-bellicose Hamas leadership is absorbed by their adoring public.

In the West Bank, Palestinians are handing out candy, revelling, shooting guns into the air, and generally having a good time of it.  In Gaza, Palestinians there did the same thing.  Perhaps it will take a little longer for them to engage in a little introspection to begin to wonder at their sacrifice and what it accomplished, in the long run.  But who are they to question the military vision and wisdom of Hamas?  If indeed they do bother to question themselves internally, privately.

As for Israelis, particularly those living in Sderot, Ashdod, Ashkelon and Beersheba - let alone Tel Aviv and Jerusalem - there is much introspection.  And no little amount of disappointment.  That their agony is likely to continue.  Perhaps not right away, but as always happens, little by little there will be a pick-up of activity, with a few rockets shot over the border, then an increasing number, and they will be back in hell.  Life filled with fear and apprehension, children traumatized, the quality of life stolen.

A poll reported on Channel Two television in Israel found 70% of the residents of southern Israel opposed to the ceasefire.  Two thirds of the respondents felt the ceasefire would not last; a quarter of those surveyed thought it would not hold at all.  They would much rather have preferred an Israeli response to Hamas that would have disabled them completely from any further attacks across the border.

"We need to see if it is sustainable or not - it's too soon to see whether Hamas is capable of restraining all of the other actors", said Uzi Eilam, a security expert at the Tel Aviv-based INSS think-tank.  Hamas is incapable of restraining itself from conflict with Israel; it has no intention in engaging in a sustained cease-fire; only until such time as it feels prepared and sufficiently re-stocked with arms to give it another go.

There are times when wishful thinking grows hoary and reality must impinge.  Hamas has made a pact with its very particular devil; it imagines itself having conquered death by no longer fearing it but welcoming it as a final submission to Islam in absolute conscription to jihad.  And jihad forbids peace with Israel.  Those among them having no wish personally to expire before their due date like Khaled Meshal, have no problem dispatching others to death.