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1 Operation Cast Lead
NEWS ANALYSIS
Who Won?
Did Israel win the war against Hamas?
Leslie Susser
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jerusalem
W
ith a cease-fire in place,
Israelis are asking whether the
22-day war against Hamas in
Gaza achieved its aims.
The government argues that the over-
whelming victory in the field will advance
what was Operation Cast Lead's primary
goal: bringing a long period of quiet to
civilians in southern Israel, freeing them
from the tyranny of cross-border rocket
attacks from Gaza.
Critics on the right, however, say the
government did not go far enough. They
maintain that by stopping the fighting too
soon, the government let slip by a golden
opportunity to topple the Hamas regime.
Right-wingers are skeptical, too, about
whether Egypt and other members of the
international community will be able to
keep their commitments to prevent the
rearmament of Hamas in Gaza.
Meanwhile, critics on the left say the
fighting went on too long, that its relatively
modest goals could have been achieved
much earlier and that the large number of
Palestinian civilian casualties, deplorable
in and of itself, will hurt Israel's interna-
tional standing and breed a new genera-
tion of Palestinian fanatics unwilling to
make peace on any terms.
Jerusalem hoped to achieve its goal of
quiet for southern Israel by destroying as
much of Hamas' military infrastructure as
possible, preventing it from being replaced
and creating a new deterrent equation to
make Hamas think twice before again pro-
voking Israel.
Judged by these standards, the war
seems to have been an outstanding suc-
cess.
The Israel Defense Forces achieved both
strategic and tactical surprise. Hamas did
not expect anything like the ferocity of
the Israeli onslaught; it was caught on the
first day unprepared for war, and it was
surprised again later when the army was
able to jam remote-control devices meant
to detonate scores of booby-trapped build-
ings on advancing Israeli soldiers.
During the fighting, the military said
that more than 500 militiamen were killed
and the vast majority of Hamas weapons'
stores and rocket manufacturing work-
A14
January 22 2009
JN
Israeli Chief of Staff Gabi Askenazi, left, visited wounded soldiers on Jan. 18.
shops were destroyed — including dozens
of medium-range Grad rockets supplied
by Iran.
Israeli military intelligence says the
IDF's performance in the war, its firepower,
relatively low human losses, accurate intel-
ligence and pinpoint coordination between
air, ground and naval forces has gone a
long way toward restoring Israeli deter-
rence — not only with regard to Hamas,
but in the Middle East as a whole.
This sends a two-fold message: To the
radical Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas axis,
it warns not to take Israel lightly; to the
moderate, pro-Western Egypt-Jordan-Saudi
Arabia camp, the message is to be bolder in
confronting extremist rejectionists.
The war also leaves Hamas facing a huge
dilemma: whether to spend the meager
resources it has on acquiring new weap-
ons, how to smuggle them into Gaza if it
decides to buy them and whether to risk
another massive Israeli retaliation if it uses
them.
"I don't think they will do it again soon,
and if they do they will be hit hard again,"
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said.
The Israeli government is also confi-
dent that a string of new agreements with
Egypt, the Europeans and the United States
on blocking arms traffic into Gaza will
prove effective.
Officials say there is a new seriousness
to do so by Egypt, which has both regional
and domestic reasons for wanting to keep
Hamas weak. The Egyptians have no desire
to see the long arm of their bitter regional
foe Iran being strengthened on their door-
step, nor do they want to see further show-
downs between Israel and Hamas.
Such confrontations inflame Egyptian
public opinion and strengthen domestic
Islamic opposition led by the Egyptian
branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, of
which Hamas is an ideological offshoot
and ally.
Until now, the Egyptians have failed
to stop local Bedouins and others from
conducting lucrative arms trades through
the Sinai Desert and in tunnels under the
Egypt-Gaza border.
As they approached Gaza, the Bedouin,
who were paid enormous sums by Hamas,
often would bribe Egyptian border
guards to let them through. The question
is whether the government in Cairo will
find ways to arrest this deeply embedded
practice.
The Americans and the Germans have
offered Egypt state-of-the art equipment
to detect smuggling tunnels and pick up
would-be smugglers. The United States
and some of the European countries —
notably Britain, France, Germany and Italy
— want to cut off the arms even before
they reach Egypt.
They are offering to patrol the high seas
to intercept any potential arms shipments
from Iran to Egypt or directly to Gaza.
In Washington last week, Livni signed
a new memorandum of understanding
with the United States on arms smuggling.
A secret appendix talks about close intel-
ligence cooperation on Iranian maritime
movements.
The memorandum also specifically gives
Israel the go-ahead to attack smuggling
tunnels along the border if all other efforts
to stop the flow of arms from Egypt into
Gaza fail.
Six key European leaders — from
Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and
the Czech Republic — came to Jerusalem
on Sunday in a remarkable show of sup-
port for Israel. Their backing for the Jewish
state was at least partly a public statement
of their recognition of the fact that they
and Israel are on the same side when it
comes to fighting Iranian-inspired Islamic
terror.
This despite the fact that, in most cases,
the media and the public in their home
countries have been strongly critical of the
widespread destruction and heavy civilian
casualty rate in Gaza caused by Israel in
the war.
Egypt, which hosted the six leaders
earlier in the day, has emerged as the main
regional victor in the crisis. It brokered
the new Hamas-Israel cease-fire, is taking
on a major role against arms smuggling
and is pressing Hamas and the more
moderate Fatah organization, which runs
the Palestinian Authority, to establish a
national unity government to rebuild Gaza
and talk peace with Israel.
Answering
Israel's Critics
The Charge
The mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks, Osama bin Laden,
called last week for "jihad" to stop the
enemies (Israel) in Gaza by enlisting
youth into jihad brigades.
The Answer
Bin Laden is a mass murderer and Al
Qaida is a threat to democracy and tol-
erant societies. His war against the Jews
and other "infidels" aligns him with
other Middle East terrorists now fight-
ing Israel — Hamas and Hezbollah.
- Allan Gale
Jewish Community Relations Council
of Metropolitan Detroit
C. , ) Jewish Renaissance Media, Jan. 22, 2009