After three weeks of bloodshed in the Gaza Strip a ceasefire is finally forthcoming, yet there is little to celebrate. Over 1,000 Palestinians have died as a result of the bombardment of densely populated urban areas. Much of Gaza’s infrastructure, already depleted after six months of crippling economic blockade, is demolished or non-functioning. And this ceasefire contains nothing that ensures that the violence will not resume in the immediate future. For, despite international efforts to impose a bilateral ceasefire on Hamas and Israel, little progress was made. Instead Israel has decided to halt its assault under what it terms a “unilateral ceasefire”, but the move amounts to little more than a face-saving measure.
It had been hypothesised that Israel’s invasion would end before the inauguration of Barack Obama on Tuesday to avoid alienating its staunchest ally, the United States, but few realised just how cynically Israel would adhere to that deadline. It was always thought that the attempts to cripple Hamas amounted to little more than a public-relations campaign ahead of the parliamentary elections in February, and the triumphalist rhetoric of the Kadima leadership illustrates the accuracy of that belief. The party, which suffered a severe blow to its credibility with the disastrous conclusion of the 2006 war in Lebanon, has enjoyed a resurgence in support for its actions in Gaza. Tzipi Livni, Kadima’s main prime ministerial candidate, has been eager to capitalise on the invasion to improve her standing against her chief opponent, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Yet all of this would be unimportant if the killing of Palestinians were to end. Unfortunately, Israel has left the door open to resume hostilities, and penned a ceasefire with fewer teeth than even its previous agreement with Hamas, which both sides violated at will. In a recent interview on Israel’s Army Radio, Ms Livni said of the ceasefire: “If Hamas shoots, we’ll have to continue. And if it shoots later on, we’ll have to embark on another campaign.” Given that Hamas’s exiled leadership has already said it will not acknowledge Israel’s unilateral truce, this ceasefire does not stand much chance of success.
While Israel deserves most of the condemnation since it has done the majority of the killing, the senior leadership of Hamas cannot escape criticism. While the leadership in Gaza has shown more amenability to a ceasefire, understandably so since they are the ones watching their Palestinian charges hunted and killed, its exiled senior members led by Khaled Meshaal have called for the violence to be intensified. That Mr Meshaal has called for a widening of the conflict and for Palestinians to continue dying until Hamas’s demands are met demonstrates the moral bankruptcy of the organisation. If they cannot have peace on their terms, they desire none at all.
The emergency Arab summit recently concluded in Doha provided a forum for more of Mr Meshaal’s war mongering. His diatribes were backed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Bashir al Assad of Syria, who both advised that the Arab Peace Initiative be discarded, as if derailing the most practicable route to peace and statehood were in the Palestinians’ best interest. The tone of the summit has only inflamed the debate to the detriment of more effective diplomatic efforts spear-headed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE. Peace can no more be achieved through Hamas’s impotent arms than it can through the might of Israel’s military machine. Neither Israel nor Hamas and its allies understands this, and until they do, the Palestinians will continue to die.