BICOM

Key Points

• The key actors upon which the outcome of the Gaza crisis ultimately depends are Hamas, Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority.
• Diplomatic moves are vital in order to bring an end to the violence, but the complex web of interests at play among the key actors – and the pressures upon them – makes it very difficult to reach a more comprehensive political solution.
• The regional stakes of current developments are high. Moderate countries of the Arab world that are concerned about Iranian hegemony are keen for Hamas to be hit hard in Gaza. They want to avoid any outcome which bolsters radical Islamist elements in the region.

Introduction

On Saturday, 3 January, a week after Israel launched an aerial operation against Hamas infrastructure in Gaza, IDF ground troops entered the next phase of their mission to break the Hamas resistance and change the security situation in southern Israel.   Military operations followed Hamas’s decision not to extend the June 2008 Egyptian-brokered ceasefire and instead escalate the scale and intensity of its rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli towns and cities.

Diplomatic endeavours are vital now, but finding a real political solution to the current crisis is fraught with difficulties.  The three critical parties upon whom any outcome is contingent are Israel, Egypt and the Palestinians, who are themselves geopolitically split into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.  These actors’ interests are also intimately tied in with the broader regional power struggle between rejectionist Islamists led by Iran on the one hand and the more moderate Sunni Arab governments on the other.  This is the landscape in which Hamas is diplomatically isolated.  What interests are really at stake within the Israeli-Palestinian-Egyptian triangle, what pressures on it must the international community be sensitive to and what are the possible outcomes of the current crisis?

A web of overlapping interests

The objectives of Israel’s ongoing military operations in Gaza, as stated by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, are “to improve the security situation in the southern part of the country” and, as Defence Minister Ehud Barak specified, to “ensure that there will be no more fire … coming from the Gaza Strip.”  To that end, Israel’s ground campaign to take control of rocket launching sites is consistent with the aerial operations to substantially reduce Hamas’s military capabilities and ease of rearming through tunnel smuggling.  After withdrawing unilaterally from Gaza in 2005, Israel does not want to reoccupy the Strip.  Israel wants to reach a situation in which Hamas is sufficiently deterred from using rocket attacks to try to meet their political goals, which compete with the interests of its neighbours in Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority.

Hamas’s immediate goal is self-preservation: its mere survival intact will constitute a victory in Islamist eyes.  Damascus-based Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal warns that a “black destiny” awaits Israel in Gaza.[i]  If Hamas fighters severely injure or kill even a small number of IDF troops or manage to kidnap more soldiers like Gilad Shalit, who Hamas has held captive since June 2006, this would have a deep psychological impact on Israel.

In terms of an end-game, Hamas is trying to keep the focus on its justifications for undermining and finally abandoning altogether the June 2008 ceasefire.  As Meshaal stated over the weekend, “Our demand is clear that the aggression stops immediately, that all crossings [with Israel and Egypt] reopen and the blockade is lifted.”[ii]  But Hamas’s underlying interest is in retaining its political grip on Gaza, which it forged out of its victory in legislative council elections in January 2006 and coup against Fatah rivals in June 2007.  It also has its sights set on extending its popularity in the West Bank ahead of Palestinian elections in January 2010.  Hamas starkly demonstrated its narrow political agenda when it rejected Cairo-sponsored national reconciliation talks with Fatah in November, which damaged Egyptian pride.

Egypt shares Israel and the PA’s interest in a weakened Hamas, which is being reflected by current developments.  Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and PA President Mahmoud Abbas blame Hamas for instigating the present crisis with rocket fire, despite knowing this would cause a backlash against them on the Arab street.  A core Egyptian objective at present, as stressed by Mubarak and his foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, is to ensure that any reopening of the Egyptian-controlled Rafah border crossing is consistent with the 2005 Israel-PA crossings agreement, which includes international monitoring.  Egypt itself is not a signatory, but Cairo is keen to prevent a repeat of scenes witnessed last January, when hundreds of thousands of Gazans spilled into Sinai.  Like Israel, it wants to avoid implicitly recognising Hamas’s rule, consecrating the Gaza-West Bank split, or undermining the PA’s legitimacy.  As Haaretz commentator Zvi Barel states, “The ongoing closure of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt has become a symbol of Cairo’s policy.”[iii]

Finally, Egypt has interlocking domestic and strategic interests in seeing Hamas contained.  In particular, Hamas is a worrisome inspiration to domestic extremists at an uncertain time for Mubarak’s regime.  In the context of the Gaza fighting, Arab media widely reported Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Muhammad Mahdi Akef’s expression of solidarity with Iran, and endorsement of Shi’ite expansion in the Arab and Muslim world.[iv]  This is significant because Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab leaderships perceive Hamas as part of the Iran-Hezbollah radical bloc seeking to turn the regional balance of power in Tehran’s favour.

Pressures and difficulties

Israel’s military operations are doing serious damage to Hamas.  Whilst rocket fire from Gaza continues, levels have dropped to about half the numbers being fired last week, totalling around 30-40 a day at present.  Of course, no sovereign state regards even one rocket attack as acceptable, but Israel reads the fall in numbers as evidence that Hamas is being weakened.  As of the early hours of Monday morning, 512 casualties had been reported in Gaza, the majority of them combatants.[v]  Two top Hamas commanders, Sheikh Nizar Ghayan and Abu Zakaria al-Jamal, were killed since New Year’s Day, in addition to at least five others reported dead in the last ten days.  Hundreds of military installations, training facilities and smuggling tunnels have been destroyed.

But even despite the enormous strain the IDF is putting on Hamas, Israel knows the ground assault is risky.  One soldier was killed on Sunday and two were severely injured in a mortar attack.  Israelis are very conscious of having withdrawn unilaterally from Gaza in 2005 and cannot bear to think of soldiers having to re-enter the Strip.  Leaders, senior IDF commanders and some journalists have been trying to prepare people for the harsh reality of warfare in which there is an unavoidable price to be paid in soldiers’ lives in the name of a mission, but Israeli society finds it extremely difficult to absorb the loss of many soldiers.  Israelis unenthusiastically accept the need to curb the Hamas threat militarily, following a series of diplomatic failings and Hamas’s choice to escalate the conflict.  But Israel also knows that there are limits to a military campaign of this nature.  All these factors mean that Israel would be amenable to a workable diplomatic solution.

The problem is that finding a solution is not easy in light of the competing interests at stake.  Clearly, any answer needs to include assurances not only of a return to calm but also that Hamas will not be able to rearm and drag Israel into another conflagration in the near future.

There is also the ongoing issue of arrangements at Gaza’s crossings with Israel and Egypt.  750 trucks a day were passing imports and exports between Israel and Gaza before Hamas took control and orchestrated terror attacks at the terminals (to target Israelis and force closures as a way of illustrating ‘siege’).  During the ceasefire, Israel supplied electricity and fuel to Gaza, and permitted more goods to enter; Egypt restricted use of the Rafah border to Gazans needing medical care.  But in a telling comment about Hamas’s attitude toward its own civilians following Egypt’s offer of medical support last week, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum rejected the idea that only Palestinian ‘corpses’ should be allowed to leave.[vi]

Even still, Egypt may find it difficult to stave off pressure within the Arab world to revise its position vis-à-vis Rafah.  Mubarak is accused of complicity with Israel, after being televised with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni the day before aerial operations began.  Hezbollah’s Sheik Hassan Nasrallah tried to incite Egyptian protesters to smash the Rafah border themselves.  Syria rejected an Egyptian proposal to Arab foreign ministers in Cairo last Wednesday that Hamas transfer control of the Rafah border to the PA.  Although Cairo will take care to avoid any sense in which it has accepted responsibility for the Strip as a whole,[vii] Egypt’s border would be more manageable than that between Israel and Gaza, where neither Hamas nor Israel formally recognise one another.

Possible outcomes

A number of different ways of resolving the crisis are currently being discussed.  The main one is working towards an internationally brokered ceasefire arrangement which contains new stipulations.  This could be on the basis of understandings reached by alternative mediators from within the Arab world or perhaps through significant modifications to the previous ceasefire.  Whatever happens, Egypt will be of vital importance to the success of any agreement, given that its own interests are at stake.[viii]

Another possible outcome is that a UN Security Council Resolution will be passed after unilateral ceasefires are declared by each side.  This would not require an agreement as such, but therefore would be open to interpretation and potentially less stable.  The establishment of monitoring mechanisms or use of an international force to keep the border in check have also been suggested, though they remain unlikely at present.

Given the overall present situation, it seems that the Israeli government would be satisfied with an outcome to the current crisis which forced Hamas to abide by a relatively long-term, more robust ceasefire arrangement than the tahdiyeh (lull) which Egypt brokered last June.  By conducting this military campaign at this time, Israel has raised the bar for itself in terms of the quality of any outcome which emerges.  It will judge whatever happens next primarily by the extent to which it can restore calm to the south of the country.

Conclusion

The outcome of the present situation in Gaza will be determined by the calculations, actions and strategic errors of Hamas, Israel and Egypt more than those of any other actor.  But the stakes are high because the outcome in Gaza has regional magnitude.  Israel’s actions may substantially weaken Hamas but ceasefire talks and any prospective truce would bolster radical elements if they are perceived to confer legitimacy on an Islamist statelet.  It is deeply significant that Egypt, the PA and other moderate countries of the Arab world who are troubled by Iran have made so clear their desire to see Israel deal a harsh blow to Hamas.  None of these players are under any illusion that for as long as Hamas remains in power in Gaza, the propensity for conflict will be greater and constructive ideas much more difficult to establish or implement.

---

[i] ‘Hamas chief warns of ‘black destiny’ for Israel’, AFP, 2 January 2009.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Zvi Barel, ‘Key Arab states hope for weakened Hamas’, Haaretz, 29 December 2008; Zvi Barel, ‘Hamas racks up its first diplomatic victory in Gaza campaign’, Haaretz, 31 December 2008.

[iv] Jonathan Spyer, ‘Analysis: While Israel fights in Gaza, Egypt and Saudi Arabia take on Iran’, The Jerusalem Post, 31 December 2008.

[v] Latest IDF figures show that 88% of those killed are militants.  The UN puts the number of civilian casualties at one in four.

[vi] Jonathan Spyer, op. cit.

[vii] Khaled Abu Toameh, “Egypt: Rafah closed until Shalit freed,” The Jerusalem Post, 14 August 2008.

[viii] Shlomo Brom, ‘The Fighting in Gaza” Where is it Going?’, INSS Insight No. 85, 31 December 2008.