ANALYSIS / Gaza raids met by loud silence from the Arab world

An analysis from Haaretz by Zvi Bar'el.

As the death toll in Israel Defense Forces raids against miltiants firing rockets from Gaza climbed to more than 60 on Saturday, Palestinian Information Minister Riad al-Malki responded by saying: "Hamas gave Israel an excuse to start a war in Gaza." Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also responded along these lines by saying that the "operation in Gaza is not just a reaction to the rocket barrage." Both comments can be interpreted as Palestinian backing of the Israel Defense Forces ground incursion in the Strip.

Reactions from Egypt and Al Jazeera are also mild or nonexistent according to Mr. Bar'el. Mr. Rar'el comments on Hamas' objectives.

Meshal's ultimate goal is to pull elements within Fatah and other Palestinian organizations to the armed struggle, even at the cost of starting a third intifada. So far, Meshal was unsuccessful in his attempts to garner pan-Palestinian support for Hamas' repeated use of Qassam rockets against Israel. Senior Palestinian and Arab officials voiced serious doubts concerning the rockets' efficacy, including several officials who condemned the use of Qassams as detrimental to the Palestinian cause.

The question become, as always, why? Why the absence of Arab reaction?

From Egypt's perspective, it is obvious. The breach of the Egyptian border with Gaza in January disrupted Egypt's territorial integrity, allowed thousand's of Gazan to enter Egyptian terrority, allowed many Al Qaeda elements into Gaza, and caused Egypt to mass troops in the area, especially at the Rafah crossing. Egypt, for its part, acted like Israel usually does in these circumstances. It re-established the border to contain the Palestinians, or more to the point to contain Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood which Egypt is trying to quell in its own territory.

Israel, for its part, played with the idea of carving out part of the Negev Desert to give to the Palestinians and let Egypt supply Gaza from that point forward, completely ending any semblance of an occupied Gaza. The Egyptian government balked at this idea. Israel in effect, called Egypt's bluf.

Jordon, Syria, and Lebanon are silent as they do not want trouble in their own countries among the Palestinians living their in refugee camps.

Most importantly, all are silent because having been given their own territory, Hamas is still making trouble and not leading its people. Instead of establishing its own economy to help its own people, it just keeps up the struggle, it keeps firing rockets into civilian areas of Israel.

Just as Al Qaeda in Iraq is causing "intellectual turbulence" among muslims, Hamas is causing intellectual turbulence among Arab nations. Hamas has been given their own territory, and yet they continue to struggle. Fatah has been given a lot of control over the West Bank and is doing well. It is gaining more control everyday as it shows it can keep order. The economy of the West Bank is flourishing as a result.

Now that Palestinians are split, Arab countries have two examples of leadership. Fatah is doing rather well while Hamas continues to blame all its troubles on Israel. At this point, Arab nations are wondering why Hamas is still struggling when it has its own territory. In effect, Hamas is showing it cannot lead politically and can only struggle militarily.

This point gets back to the "intellectual turbulence" that is moving jihad from an external struggle back to an internal struggle. Fatah is undergoing an internal struggle as it tries to govern a people. Hamas is stuck in an external struggle even though it now commands its own territory.

All governments in the region do not want this crisis to begin a general war in the Middle East. Iraq appears to growing quieter. Lebanon is in crisis, but calm. The last thing Arab governments want is Hamas to cause increased crises in Lebanon and Iraq. For these reasons, they are all quiet.

Gaza Exodus Threatening Repercussions on Egypt's Future

From David Eshel at Defense Update.

These are moments of glory for Hamas. It conducted its campaign brilliantly last week, and as it seems, so far, with complete success. At no stage did Israel have sufficient response to counter the initiatives of Hamas: Its excellent intelligence community, normally capable of pinpointing Hamas leaders for targeted killings, failed to alert on the organization's preparations along Philadelphi border line separating the Gaza strip from Egypt. But in fact, not intelligence gathering, nor experts, just plain common sense was the only thing needed to realize, that breaking the barrier between besieged Palestinian Rafah and free Egyptian Rafah, was only a matter of time. It was also an impressive engineering feat. To plan, plant, implement and execute simultaneous explosions, creating a domino effect, toppling such a strongly built infrastructure, required high level professionalism. Analysts doubt that Hamas, alone could not have done this, without professional outside help. Intelligence sources suspect, that Iranian demolition experts arrived in Gaza, mingling with the pilgrims from Hajj in Saudi Arabia three weeks ago, when Egypt allowed them, reluctantly to return, without sufficient security checks.

Egypt's response:

An interesting development which already seems to emerge is, that on President Mubarak direct orders, the Egyptian border police redeployed to a new line, covering El Arish, Bir Lahfan and Abu Agheila. This step would effectively hand over to the control of Hamas-led Palestinian terrorist organizations a Northern Sinai void of roughly 855 sq, km., almost twice the area of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

For a full read, click here.

'Dear Palestinian Brothers . . . Please Return to Gaza'

From The Washington Post.

Throngs of Palestinians fought off Egyptian security forces trying to drive them back behind the breached border walls of the Gaza Strip on Friday, thwarting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's efforts to end the Palestinian exodus from Gaza as protests on their behalf grew across the Arab world. The standoff threatened to bring the armed Hamas movement that governs Gaza into open confrontation with Mubarak's administration. Hamas officials supported the Palestinians' refusal to be forced back into Gaza, a cramped slice of coast inhabited by 1.5 million people.

The article continues with,

Violence broke out in the late afternoon, when police were due to close the border. Palestinian witnesses said Egyptian security forces fired tear gas and unleashed attack dogs. Palestinians abruptly turned on the Egyptians, pummeling them.

Egypt has to tread carefully in dealing with the Palestinians in Gaza.

Mubarak risks stirring up domestic dissent, particularly among Islamic groups, if he acts too roughly in returning the Palestinians to Gaza, where the Israeli restrictions remain in force. Islamic political movements in Egypt and Jordan led mass protests Friday against the restrictions, which the Israeli government says have reduced the number of rocket attacks from Gaza.

From a fellow Palestinian,

"To be honest, what the Israelis did with blocking the borders gave a boost to Hamas," said Walid Awad, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a leader of the rival Fatah party that governs the West Bank. "It was a strategic mistake."

This carefully planned Hamas operation was a watershed for Hamas and a strategic misstep for Israel. Hamas now has relatively unhindered access to Egypt from which it can smuggle in rocket parts and other weapons which it can use to further terrorize Israel. It won a significant propaganda victory for its organization which will help it maintain control of Gaza. Israel lost its ability to blockade Palestinians in Gaza into submission. Finally Hamas has opened up a front from which it can now seek to further weaken and bring down Mubarak's government and increase the strength of the Muslim Brotherhood.

At this point Israel only has two bad options. First, it can completely pull all support from Gaza causing the Palestinian leadership in this region to begin to negotiate with Egypt for supplies. Second, it can move into Gaza to re-establish the border. Both will bring the international condemnation on Israel.

However, the first choice, if done smartly, will allow this international condemnation to be spread between Israel and Egypt. Secondly, it will force Hamas to refocus its efforts to keep the popular support it just gained in Gaza. The refocusing of effort will be from continuing to terrorize Israel to now providing basic services for its people. These basic services must come from Egypt, who can now use these needs as leverage against Hamas, should they seek to destabilize Mubarak's government or increase Muslim Brotherhood support in Egypt.

I would argue for completely severing all links between Gaza and Israel and declaring Gaza an independent Palestinian state. Yes, a humanitarian crisis would result which the UN would ease, but out of this crisis, Hamas would have to provide for Gazans. If it fires rockets into Israel, Israel can then claim it has been attacked by an independent state and is only protecting its citizens. Retalitory attacks by Israel; however, must be focused not the Palestinian people nor on projects which will increase basic services for Gazans, but on specific Hamas targets, much like the recent attack on a Hamas commander.

Hamas will have to focus its efforts on providing services, which Egypt would mainly provide. Hamas would have to become an administrative government instead of allowing it to focus on terror since all services are now provided by Israel. By having to negotiate with Egypt, Mubarak would maintain a tool to keep Hamas in line. Israel would retain its ability to strike Hamas if it chose to continue rocket attacks.

Geopolitics of Gaza

From The Terror Wonk.

The Terror Wonk provides a different perspective on the "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza brought about by the Israeli blockade and subsequent destruction of the border wall with Egypt.

In the coverage of the breach of the Gaza border, the focus has been on the increased threat to Israel. While there is little question that terrorists will acquire new capabilities and use them against Israel, their gaze may turn to a nearby but softer target. In his memoirs Knights under the Prophet’s Banner: Meditations on the Jihadist Movement, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri observed: The problem of finding a secure base for jihad activity in Egypt used to occupy me a lot, in view of the [activity against us] by the security forces and because of Egypt’s flat terrain, which made government control easy, for the River Nile runs in its narrow valley between two deserts that have no vegetation or water. Such a terrain made guerilla warfare in Egypt impossible…

Many folks see the destruction of the border wall between Egypt and Gaza as a response to the recent Israeli blockade. However, this is an incorrect inference. The wall was cut with torches and then explosive charges were strategically set along the wall which resulted in almost two-thirds of a 12km section coming down.

As shown in this photo, provided by Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty, this was a large, synchronized, deliberately planned operation by Hamas, not something that could have been done in a few days. Instead, a better inference would be that the current crisis was a manufactured by Hamas. For its part, Hamas played Israel perfectly in this crisis and won unhindered access to Egypt as a result.

Hamas used Israel's targeting on militants as stepping stone to start the crisis. Hamas begin to bombard Israel with a multitude of rocket. Israel in turn started a blockade. Knowing Israel's response, Hamas sought international sympathy by playing up a "humanitarian crisis" happening in Gaza as a result of the blockade. At the height of the Israeli blockake, Hamas brought the wall down, not only effectively ending the blockade, but also opening a new, porous border with Egypt as shown in the photo below (courtesy of the BBC).

The Terror Wonk provides the reasoning for Hamas' action.

However, a new base of operations against Egypt could have vast geopolitical implications. Egypt has a fragile economy, frustrated populace with a large Islamist movement, and an aging leadership. There have already been terror attacks in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula with Gaza links. Even if the regime is not overthrown, HISH [Hezbollah-Iran-Syria-Hamas] will acquire substantial leverage over Egypt, and further the penetration of radical Islam into the largest Arab state, while acquiring a staging ground into the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa, and beyond.

For a full read, click here.