Palestinians walk in the rubble following an Israeli airstrike Wednesday in Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo by Khaled Omar, The Associated Press.

Why did Israel start this War?
by Amr al-Azm, Brigham Young University

There are several answers to this question depending on which angle you look at it from.

The facts on the ground (Time Line) run as follows:

June 19 – An Egyptian brokered truce begins between Hamas and Israel. It calls for Hamas to stop cross-border rocket fire and for Israel to gradually ease its embargo on Gaza.

July 27: Israel kills Shihab al-Natsheh, a senior Hamas fighter, in his house in the West Bank city of Al-Khalil. Hamas protests action and Israel claims that the West Bank is not covered by the ceasefire.

November 5: Israel raids supposed smuggling tunnels in the Hamas-controlled region. Six Palestinians killed in the attack. Hamas responds by firing several dozen rockets and mortar shells at western Negev in Israel in retaliation. No casualties or property damage is caused, but three women are treated for shock.

November 8: Hamas accuses Israel of violating the ongoing truce as its tanks and bulldozers cross the southern border of the Gaza Strip.

November 14: Hamas fires a barrage of homemade rockets at the city of Ashkelon. Four rockets are also fired into western Negev after Israeli air strikes wounded two people in Gaza.

November 15: Israeli air strike kills two Palestinians in the town of Beit Hanoun in Gaza.

November 18: Israeli tanks backed by a bulldozer and a military jeep roll half a kilometre into Gaza. The Israeli army claims the incursion is “a routine operation to uncover explosive devices near the border fence in the southern Gaza Strip.”

November 20: An Israeli tank fires shells, killing a Hamas fighter east of Gaza City.

November 23: The Israeli army wounds two Palestinian residents while shelling suspected targets.

November 28: Israeli forces backed by tanks enter the southern parts of the coastal region and kill two Palestinians.

November 29: Missiles fired from the Gaza Strip wound several Israeli soldiers in an army base in the town of Nahal Uz.

December 02: The Israeli army launches air strikes into southern Gaza and kills at least two civilians and wounding four others.

December 14 – Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal says the group will not renew a six-month-old truce with Israel because it failed to ease the embargo imposed by Israel

December 17: Five Qassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip injure two Israelis in the southern town of Sderot.

December 18: A Palestinian man is killed in Jabaliya as Israeli aircraft target metal workshops in the towns of Jabaliya and Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military claims the targets are used to manufacture rockets.

December 19 – Hamas declares the end of the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire launching a couple of rockets at Israel to mark the event.

December 20: Israel responds by launching air strikes on the town of Beit Lahiya in north Gaza, killing one Palestinian and wounding two others.

December 21: Palestinian fighters fire rockets into Sderot and Negev and one Israeli is wounded.

December 22: A twenty-four hour truce is declared between Israel and armed Palestinian factions at the request of Egyptian mediators.

December 23: The twenty-four hour truce expires. Clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance fighters leave three members of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades dead along the border fence in northern Gaza.
Six Qassam rockets are fired into western Negev. The rocket attacks do not hit any targets in Israel.

December 24 – Gaza Palestinian militants ratchet up rocket fire towards Israel. An Israeli air raid kills a Palestinian and wounds two others in southern Gaza.
December 27 – Israel launches massive air strikes on Gaza in response to the intensified rocket and mortar fire killing at least 229 Palestinians. Hamas responds with rocket fire from Gaza and kills one Israeli in the southern town of Netivot.

Now a number of questions arise from this timeline most pertinent being why would Hamas abandon the ceasefire knowing full well that it is very likely that Israel would use it as a pretext to launch its long awaited offensive into Gaza. Likewise if Israel were truly interested in containing Hamas and merely stopping rocket fire (which the ceasefire had managed to do so until the Israeli attack in November); and more importantly serious about a peace deal with Syria then why create a situation through constant provocation which would push Hamas to unleash the latest orgy of violence with an Israeli counter response represented in a thousand fold orgy of counter violence. Since surely such an attack would kill any Israel/Syria peace initiative dead in its tracks fro the foreseeable future and more than likely antagonise an erstwhile ally, Turkey that had worked tirelessly the last 12 months to bring this about.

Here are some possible scenarios:

From an Israeli perspective 3 points need to be considered.

1- The US administration was in lame duck mode, ie no one was really in charge. Whilst Israel could guarantee Carte Blanche from a Bush administration that was not so likely from an incoming Obama one. So a small window of opportunity was available and needed to be seized if there was to be a Gaza offensive. In support of this point, it is worthwhile noting that the war ended as abruptly as it started with the inauguration of Barak Obama as the 44th president of the USA. It would not be in Israel’s best interest for Obama’s first words to his country’s staunchest ally to be calling for a ceasefire or a withdrawal. Furthermore in the words of senior Israeli official commenting on the timing of the end of Israeli hostilities: everyone in the US will be too occupied with Obama’s inauguration to notice the carnage (my words here) we have left behind now that Western journalists are finally allowed to go into Gaza and report.
2- Israeli administration was in lame duck mode too with an outgoing (disgraced) prime minister and the new Kadima party leader Livni trailing in the polls behind their Likud rivals. A short sharp offensive against Hamas at this moment would have been ideal to help flagging political fortunes. In fact polling figures in the first couple of weeks of the offensive as reported by the Israeli Haaretz newspaper showed marked increase in popularity for the Israeli leaders prosecuting the war particularly Ehud Barak, Minister of defence and leader of the Labour party (considered by many pundits to be in the realm of the politically walking dead)
3- Finally there is that small matter of peace with Syria. For over a year Syria and Israel have been holding indirect talk mediated by the Turkish government. December 18 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declares that President Bashar Al-Assad of Syria “is more ripe than ever for a peace deal with Syria”.
While the Syrian President responds publicly on Dec 22 that he is more than ready for direct face-to-face talks and that peace would surely follow. This is shortly followed by a response from the Likud leader Netenyahu stating that if he wins the elections in February he would not be interested in any peace deal with Syria that entails the return of the Golan. Within a couple of days all mayhem breaks loose and the Syrian president shortly afterwards declares that Israel has demonstrated that it is not serious about peace. Words reiterated today in an interview with Al-Manar TV in Lebanon. It is clear therefore on the Syria peace front that those opposed to the return of the Golan as part of a peace deal with Syria would stand to gain much from this current round of violence in Gaza.

The Hamas perspective is equally interesting:

The burning question must be that surely Hamas must have know that a confrontational and belligerent stance is more than likely to bring about a long awaited invasion of Gaza by Israel for the reasons outlined above which have not been lost on the Hamas leadership. So if they knew that this could be a possible outcome to path they were walking down on why did they pursue it with such determination?

The most likely answer is that like Israel Hamas was coming up to an election and it needed to demonstrate to its supporters that their sacrifices had not been for nothing. One of Hamas’ promises to the people of Gaza was that they would end the siege. The ceasefire which had been brokered by Egypt in June had not let to an easing up of the siege in spite of it holding so Hamas needed to escalate in order to maintain its credibility amongst its popular base. Furthermore Hamas has consistently distinguished itself (from its main rival headed by Mahmoud Abbas) by being willing to respond to Israeli aggression with immediate counter aggression.

More interestingly the strongest voices for a non-renewal of the ceasefire and an escalation came from the Damascus based wing of Hamas under Khaled Mashaal. It is worthwhile to note that one of the first casualties of an Israeli/Syrian peace deal would be the closure of the Hamas offices and the shutting down of their activities in Damascus. So Hamas understood full well the implications of an imminent Israeli Syrian deal and hence stood much to gain from any forthcoming confrontation, as that would surely halt this process for the foreseeable future as it surely has.

So what was the outcome of this war for both sides?

For Hamas the short-term prospects are good. Their popularity amongst Palestinians and the Arab world at large has skyrocketed with hundreds of thousands if no millions temporarily drawn to its cause. It withstood three long weeks of a vicious Israeli assault and did not yield. This similar to what Hezbollah was able to achieve following the 2006 invasion of Lebanon. In which case in the short term Israel is the loser since it failed to achieve any of its stated goals such as destroying Hamas or stopping rocket fire from Gaza. Furthermore this offensive has not translated itself into any real sustainable political gains for either Livni (as head of Kadima) or Ehud Barak (as head of the Labour Party). The other big loser is Mahmoud Abbas head of the Palestinian Authority and leader of the supposed moderate Palestinian faction. His popularity and standing amongst Palestinians is now at an all time low having lost all credibility for his lack of support for Hamas during this war.

The long-term results from this war are a little more difficult to predict as yet. There is no doubt that Hamas’s weapons arsenal has been significantly reduced with no prospect of rapid rearmament, as was the case for Hezbollah in 2006 courtesy of Syria and Iran. Furthermore Hamas is rapidly running out of allies with vehement Egyptian and Saudi opposition to Hamas’ continued hold on Gaza and the eventual shift in both Syrian and even Iranian support as they come down to negotiate their own deals. Syria has already signalled that future peace talks with Israel are likely (with a strong prime minister) while Iran is looking to sitting at the negotiating table with Barak Obama at some point and Hamas is but one card of many which it will seek to play out and dispose of at the right moment. All of this means that Hamas sooner or later will find itself without support and without a friend in the world.

This essay was originally published in the BYU Political Review on February 27, 2009.