War and Non-War

"The extent to which we are going to be ready to co-operate with the efforts to have better access and movement in Gaza will deeply depend on the kind of arrangements that would secure our peace and security."
Yossi Kuperwasser, Strategic Affairs Ministry official, Israel

Israeli soldiers return from the Gaza Strip on August 05, 2014. (Photo credit: Dave Buimovitch/Flash90)

"We'd take the life of anyone who tries to take the weapons of resistance."
Izzat Rishq, senior Hamas official

"This is what we got, from Hamas and the Israelis alike. Your house will be destroyed against your will, against your will you will die. If they'd [Hamas agreeing to Egypt's initial cease-fire proposal] signed it, there would be 1,600 or 1,700 fewer people dead and none of this destruction."
Palestinian man surveying the rubble of his home

"You have raised here a generation full of anger and hate. Do you think this generation will be afraid after this war? After a missile chased them in the street? This is a generation that doesn't know what fear is."
Palestinian woman in Rafah in interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz

Palestinians salvage items from the rubble of destroyed buildings in part of Gaza City's al-Tufah neighbourhood as the fragile cease-fire in Gaza entered a second day on Aug. 6, 2014   

Photo by Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images

From the furious man who has lost his home and rages against the useless deaths of innocent civilians in Gaza, to another Palestinian who, asked who he holds to account for the carnage, and who responded: "Does Hamas have fighter jets? Can its rockets do this to a home?", [Yes] to the four-year-old child in Jabaliya refugee camp who shouts: "May God take vengeance upon Israel!", repeating his parents' curse, the struggle by Israel to halt Hamas's war of Israeli oblivion has achieved a questionable conclusion.

A poll commissioned in mid-June, well before the current outbreak of violence, by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, found 70% of Gazans of the opinion that Hamas "should maintain a cease-fire with Israel", while 88% felt the Palestinian Authority in welcoming Hamas into a unity government should undertake to "send officials and security officers to Gaza to take over the administration there." 

In addition, 57% felt Hamas should accept a Palestinian government recognizing Israel, renouncing violence.

Yet another assessment, this one based on data garnered by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found support for Hamas which had declined from 45% to 24% with Hamas's brutal takeover of Gaza in 2006, increased to 40% after Israel blockaded the Strip in reaction to Hamas's agenda, in 2007. Two analysts concluded from that data that, "If anything, Hamas appears to be stronger and have a broader base of support in Gaza than before the blockade."


The amount of popularity Hamas derives from the population it administers, "derives from Palestinian anger at Israeli policies."

If any brilliant international tactician who deplores the strength of Israel's responses to a terrorist group's assaults against its citizens, has been able to come up with a blueprint for response that would not enrage the people whom Hamas maintains as their shield, then uses their deaths to appeal for sympathy and donations from the international community, that wizardly strategist has not yet stepped forward.

Norway is one among quite a number of countries whose sympathies for Palestinian Gazans, and perhaps even for their overseers compels it to go to extraordinary lengths to be of assistance. It sees itself as purely humanitarian in its motivation, and is now busy organizing a donor conference to extract additional funding from the international community which has been financially supporting Palestinian 'refugees' (with little concrete to show for it) for almost 70 years.

The wealthy Middle East oil-states needn't trouble themselves overmuch over handing over reconstruction funds to the Palestinians, although they will likely, particularly Qatar and Mideast-Europe-straddling Turkey as well, both stalwart supporters of Hamas, proffer some funding. The bulk, however, will come from conscience-strained Westerners, Europeans in good abundance. The financial losses incurred by Israel, in defending itself, is a matter for Israel alone to compensate for.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas may hope to gain some control in Gaza as a result of the ceasefire and resulting ongoing attempts to turn its initial 72 hour cessation of violence into a longer-range strategy, but that is yet to be seen. Israel demands the demilitarization of Hamas, but even if Fatah's PA authority regains a strong foothold in administering the affairs of Gaza, Hamas, the internationally recognized terrorist group, will not surrender its weapons.

For Hamas, disarming is not an option for discussion, though the shared administration of Gaza may be. As well as Fatah 'guaranteeing' to oversee the Rafah crossing and the lifting of the blockade into Israel, will guarantee to Israel no comfort whatever as weapons will continue to infiltrate into Gaza because this is what Hamas is sworn to achieve, and this eternal pledge represents their honour, and honour of this metier is big in their world.