Israel may end up reaching its tactical, limited goal as Operation Pillar of Defense nears a close — but Hamas remains on its feet and, indeed, seems strengthened.
As Israel and Hamas neared a cease-fire agreement last night, both sides accelerated their military attacks, attempting to etch a victorious image for the world to see. A direct hit on an apartment building in Rishon Letzion, south of Tel Aviv, was followed by heavy aerial bombardment across the Gaza Strip.
But if the weeklong battle diminishes soon, as many predict, who will have won?
The Israel Defense Force’s superb intelligence and the near-miraculous technology behind the anti-missile Iron Dome system achieved a nearly flawless Israeli military victory.
Hamas was caught by surprise. It lost its brightest military strategist, Ahmed al-Jaabari, in the first minutes of the operation. The arsenal of its most strategically threatening rocket, the Iranian-made Fajr-5, is thought to be almost completely depleted.
Most significant, Iron Dome proved a game-changer: For nearly a quarter-century, rockets aimed at civilian population centers were believed an almost perfect poor man’s terrorist weapon. Iron Dome changes the equation, allowing the country to survive a barrage of missiles and emerge largely unscathed.
“I’m very pleased that the Iron Dome has performed so well,” said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as she arrived in Jerusalem late last night for a midnight meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
So yes, Hamas was dealt a very painful lesson. “They’re going to think more than seven times before launching a missile in the future,” IDF commanders told Israeli interviewers.
Well, maybe.
This, after all, is the Middle East, where win-lose calculations are very different than in most other regions. In a week of fighting, Gazans and other Arabs who tuned to Hamas-controlled broadcasts heard only of heroic victories.
At times citing imaginary Israeli media, those Gaza-manufactured “reports” created an alternate reality in which the Knesset was bombarded by Hamas missiles; an American-made IDF F-16 fighter jet was downed and its Israeli pilot taken hostage, and several Israeli drones were intercepted.
Everyrocketlaunched from Gaza, regardless of whether it hit or missed, was celebrated as a huge victory over the hated Zionists.
Hamas can also boast of real political success. Mostly, Hamas’ top rival for Palestinian leadership, the West-recognized Palestinian Authority, and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, have been — at least for now — marginalized. The zealous Islamists of Hamas emerge from this war as the true representatives of the people.
Hamas’ “victories” — sure to be celebrated (and feared) across the region — were made possible because the IDF’s original goals were so limited. As Israel’s Jan. 22 elections neared, Netanyahu was faced with a dilemma: For more than a month, a drip-drip of rocket attacks on southern Israel from Gaza turned into a major flood.
At some point, Netanyahu had no choice but to respond.
However, as his most hawkish cabinet member, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, said yesterday in a Ynetnews interview, such an attack, on election eve, must be limited in scope. Lieberman still believes in regime change in Gaza but says unseating Hamas is a task for the future.
Remember, Israel is much more sensitive to outside pressures than most. As fear grows that an off-target attack could exact a large Palestinian civilian death toll, Westerners, including America, have pressured Israel to call it a day quickly.
The current goal, Lieberman said, was to gain “five or six years” of calm in southern Israel. And as Defense Minister Ehud Barak put it years ago, “In our region, what’s so bad about two years of calm?”
That’d be especially true if during that period Israel and America go after the manufacturer of the Fajr-5 missile, Iran, which also happens to menace the rest of the world with its nuclear program.