The capture of Galid Shalit by Hamas' armed wing (25 June) accelerated political developments in Gaza City. The armed groups opposed to Hamas' ceasefire with Israel terminated their conflict with Hamas and agreed to support the government in the event of an Israeli invasion. The groups agreed they would require—:in exchange for Shalit—the release of women and minors held in Israeli jails. (al-J) On the night of the 27th, the IDF destroyed the GS's only electric power station and stormed into the densely populated area. At the same time, Israeli Air Force sent planes into Syrian airspace; IDF troops invade the West Bank and seize Hamas members of parliament (about a third of the PA legislature). Then, by the 1st of July, the IAF began bombing virtually anything associated with the civil society: the interior ministry, the prime minister's Gaza office, and numerous ministries. These air attacks have continued with few interruptions.

It is somewhat peculiar that al-Aqsa (Fatah) was the entity launching the Qassam rockets, since it was at the time involved in a shooting war with Hamas (the putatively harder-line party), and was supposedly the comparatively moderate party that was supposed to have implemented some major peace plan. Please note that, all the while, the Israeli foreign ministry and the Quartet were conniving with Pres. Mahmoud Abbas to keep Hamas out of power. When the IDF stormed into the West Bank and seized 64 legislators, they were Hamas legislators , not Fatah ones. Part of the reason was that Abbas had issued a deadline to the Hamas leadership to accept the "Prisoner's Document" (2nd draft) or, alternatively, a referendum on accepting it. A "yes" vote would implicitly recognize Israel's right to its 1949 borders. On the eve of Operation Summer Rains, Hamas signed the agreement with Fatah, ending their struggle for control of the GS. Hamas claims its agreement does not imply any such thing, however. Instead, it seems (in Hamas' eyes) to merely put the kibosh on any plan of Fatah's to have a referendum.

On the 21st, IDF forces finally withdraw from the GS, having failed to rescue Mr. Shalit; Hamas was firing Qassam rockets as fast as possible, while Israeli shelling was proving remarkably ineffective at suppressing the rocket fire (probably because the Qassams are launched from urban areas, and the moment they are launched the Hamas crews can leave the area). The moral to be drawn here is that the Israeli cabinet sought to divide the two parties Hamas and Fatah by ignoring the latter's use of rockets against Israeli civilians, hence violating its principle of avenging attacks on civilians; but having failed to cripple Hamas politically, it then resorted to a primal scream (invading the Strip to find a needle in a haystack), which was immoral precisely because it was doomed to fail. There was no moral justification possible for Operation Spring Rain because it could never have accomplished a single one of the objectives for which it was launched, so all who suffered, died, or lost their homes, did so in vain. Likewise, the use of the Qassam rockets was immoral because there was never a possibility that they could have caused the Israelis to quit Palestine entirely, or even a part of it. The sole outcome possible was outrage and retaliation.

At the back of the Hamas strategy (or that of hardline dissidents of Hamas) is the master plan of Che Guevarra, to start an uprising in a remote place that would drag the main adversary into a quagmire. The quagmire would engulf the adversary and destroy it. Hence, Guevarra surmised that his insurgency in Bolivia would spiral into a Vietnam-style conflict throughout Latin America, forcing the USA to eventually fight to exhaustion. Guevarra was indifferent to the fact that, had his plan materialized, millions of Latin Americans would have died in such a war. He liked the idea of a revolutionary "hardness," in which societies would be radical Spartas filled with seething killers. Granted, he would probably counter that no alternative existed. But his own brushfire war plan was doomed in vitro; international embarrassment is no deterrent for a people fighting for their lives.

As always, the war erupted long after the main opportunities to avoid it were squandered. The concept of unilateral disengagement might have seemed to Western backers of Israel, as well as many Israelis, as a stupendous concession to the Palestinians: it occurred in the wake of an intifada being successfully squelched by overwhelming Israeli measures. Despite massive condemnation from EU member state populations, EU member governments continued (for the most part) to support Israel. The USA, of course, had seemed to tilt even more to a pro-Likud foreign policy than ever before. Now Israel was graciously granting the Palestinians control over the largest territory ceded yet, the entire Strip with its 1.4 million residents. The Gazans were unimpressed: the object was clearly to cut them and their Occupation-imposed squalor off from the picture, allowing future Likud cabinets to slice crowded enclaves of Palestinians off into irrelevance. It was the worst-case scenario for Palestinian liberation: a collection of sovereign refugee camps.

Hence, from a strategic perspective, disengagement of this kind was doomed to stimulate an intensified war against Israel; without a comprehensive agreement, the disengaged area was to become an enlarged space for the struggle against Israel.

(Part 3)

ADDITIONAL READING: Christopher Allbritten (Back 2 Iraq 3.0)

• "Hizbullah and Iran in Lebanon" (in SF Chron; 3 July)


• "War in the south" (12 July)


• "Scorpions in a Bottle" (13 July)


• "Plus Ça Change etc...." (14 July)


• "Beirut under Fire" (15 July)


• "Plight of the Displaced" (16 July)


• "War Traps New Yorkers" (17 July)


• "Left Behind..." (18 July)


• "Surviving - and Leaving - Beirut" (20 July)