The declaration today by President-elect Obama that the Palestinian issue would be his top foreign policy priority must have had Israeli strategists wondering just who is calling the shots in this current Middle East conflict. Consider the timing of events. The ceasefire comes to and end and neither side is interested in renewing it. Israeli politicians know that with an election looming any conciliatory gesture towards Hamas is political suicide. As for Hamas, the ceasefire delivered nothing but siege suffering. Both sides are feeling decidedly confrontational. Moreover, Israel know that the few weeks before Mr Obama’s inauguration might be their last chance to strike at Hamas with US support.
The question is, did Hamas start the conflict as a result of Israel pushing them to the absolute limits or did they have a longer-term strategy in mind? Three statements made today suggest the latter. Firstly, Mr Obama made a clear reference to ‘breaking the deadlock’ in the Middle East. Everyone knows that the only way the deadlock can be broken is if the US take a strong line with Israel and threaten to curtail military support. Whilst this has been unthinkable in the past, Israel have just provided Mr Obama with all the moral justification for taking that hard line. Who said all those Palestinian children died in vain? Secondly, the leader of Hamas declared today that all future negotiations were off. He even went as far as saying that even peace offers presented by fellow Arab leaders would not be considered. I suggest that he was addressing one man only – Mr Obama, and what he was really saying was unless the US bring Israel firmly to heal and offer substantive concessions, then peace talks would not begin. Given that he occupies the moral high ground and currently enjoys popular international support, he clearly feels entitled to adopt such a hard line stance. Thirdly, the Israeli’s announced today that their military objectives had almost been achieved and that they were entering the ‘end-game’. What utter nonsense! Killing 300 easily replaceable Hamas ‘fighters’ and twice as many civilians cannot be considered a military object of any worth whatsoever. Israel needed to capture a significant number (probably in the thousands) of rockets and the means with which to launch them, to be able to demonstrate to the voting Israeli public that the campaign has been worthwhile. I suspect the Israel are resigned to the fact that they are not going to get those rockets in sufficient numbers before Mr Obama takes office. I further suspect that Israel may even be realising that by prolonging the campaign, they are in fact digging their own grave. So did Hamas plan it this way? If they did they are pretty smart. If not, well things may well work out for them in the long run. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "World-thread" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/world-thread?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
