IRIS Blog

I hate to complain when Israel is finally attacking Gaza, really I do.

But the whole point is being missed here, by just about everyone.

Everyone who wants to see Hamas get what they deserve is reveling in the air attacks against Gaza, even though they are a far cry from all-out war. And they are hoping that it what is next will be the ground invasion that will finish Hamas off. Some even dare to dream that this we are seeing the first steps of rolling back the clock to the status quo ante Disengagement.

Not so fast.

Has everyone forgotten that Israeli elections are a mere 6 weeks away, that the governing parties need to bolster their images in the wake of the Lebanon War and Disengagement fiascos, and that both Menachem Begin (Osirak in 1981) and Shimon Peres (Operation "Grapes of Wrath" in Lebanon in 1996) did the exact same thing right before tight elections?

Let me make this very clear:

1) Yes, Israel has to cream Hamas.

2) This is the Left's fault in the first place, since they caused the retreat out of Gaza which allowed Hamas to take over, arm themselves to the teeth and fire rockets at Israel for years with impunity.

3) If the current leaders of Kadima and Labor really wanted to destroy Hamas they would have done it years ago, but they didn't because it would have been an admission of guilt that the Disengagement was a mistake and the occupation of Gaza wasn't.

4) Therefore it is obvious that the current attacks are a pre-election ploy to help Tzippi Livni's image ("she's not just a nice Jewish girl, she can lead Israel in war) and Ehud Barak's ("he can fight and lead, unlike the previous Defense Minister, Amir Peretz").

5) Since PM Olmert, Livni and Barak still can't re-invade Gaza since that would be admitting guilt, they won't unless it is in their short-term political interests or unless they lose control of the situation.

6) Therefore they will stop attacking Gaza the second their short-term political aims have been accomplished; and

7) Therefore the current round of fighting is actually pointless and will change nothing at the cost of lots of bloodshed on both sides.

The bottom line: Yes, it is long-past time to stop the rocket fire from Gaza, and as everyone knows, that requires an invasion of ground forces, a permanent re-occupation and a long, hard process of disarming the Arabs of Gaza. There is no chance whatsoever that that is what the current government has in mind.

Those that favor such a policy need to expose Israel's current attack on Gaza for what it is: a short-term political stunt that, at best, will change nothing and at worse could leave Israel worse off than before. Just like happened in Lebanon when the government, basically the same government as we have now, fought a similar war against a similar foe and refused to do what needed to be done to finish off the enemy completely.

Israel today launched a massive air attack against Hamas targets in Gaza. It sure looks like pre-election positioning, but any excuse is a good one:

The IAF's attack against targets in Gaza on Saturday was the most lethal single day of bombing in the region in at least 41 years, experts said. The IAF executed over 170 sorties against 60 targets, reportedly killing over 200 and wounding hundreds of others. Most of the casualties are Hamas terrorists, according to both IDF and Arab journalistic sources.

Am I being too cynical? I don't think so. Nothing has changed; Hamas has been launching rockets and mortars at Israelis for 7 years. It is unlikely that the leaders of the Kadima and Labor parties, who made the situation much worse with the Disengagement from Gaza, have suddenly changed their stripes.

Rather, some action against Hamas at this time will bolster both parties security credentials, which were so badly damaged in the 2006 Lebanon War, in the run-up to February's national elections. Prime Minister Olmert's press conference where he was flanked by Kadima's new leader Tzippi Livni on one side and Labor leader and Defence Minister Ehud Barak on the other was the perfect photo-op. And Barak's pledge to cease campaigning was just too reminiscent of John McCain's similar pledge during the recent US elections.

In fact, this seems like a repeat of the "Grapes of Wrath" operation against Lebanon just before the Israeli elections in 1996.

It is unlikely that the Israeli ground forces massing near Gaza for a possible operation, will turn into a serious effort to crush Hamas and restore Israeli control over Gaza, as that would be an admission of guilt by the same leadership that removed the IDF from Gaza in the first place. But in battle events take on a life of their own.

Will the operation expand until real damage is done to Hamas? Or will Olmert, Livni and Barak cave in to the inevitable international pressure to cease fire sooner rather than later, giving Hamas a symbolic victory? How will Israelis react to the dramatic increase in rocket attacks from Gaza which has already begun?

All in all, the Israeli air attack on Gaza seems like a high-risk gamble indeed.

After the Kadima party's leaders brought Israel a retreat from Gaza with disastrous results and a historic failure in the second Lebanon War, one wonders what it would take for Israelis to punish the party in the polls:

Poll: Kadima and Likud neck and neck:

A new poll published Friday puts Kadima and Likud neck and neck.

The poll, conducted by the TNS Teleseker firm for Ma'ariv and coming hot on the heels of the Kadima primary, predicted that the parties of Tzipi Livni and Binyamin Netanyahu would each win 30 seats.

Based on those numbers, the number of seats that the parties' possible coalition partners would receive becomes crucial:

It also showed that Labor and Yisrael Beiteinu would each get 12 mandates, Shas would win nine and Meretz - running with the new Hatnua Hahadasha - would win seven.

That brings the total to 100. Based on other recent polls the other 20 seats in the Israeli Knesset would probably be split roughly 50/50 between the Arab parties and religious or right-wing parties. Overall that points to a close balance between the Left/Arab and Right/Religious blocks, with the caveats that the Arab parties have never been in a government and that at least one religious party would be likely to join a Left-wing government if it could be formed.

800 people were interviewed for the poll. The margin of error was the equivalent of two parliament seats.

The polls in Israel have been clearly slanted to the Left in just about every national election at least since 1992. If that holds true and the other factors above are taken into consideration, the Likud probably has a slight edge over Kadima.

Livni is a polical lightweight who effortlessly jumped from being a life-long Likudnik to a "peaceloving" Kadima leader for political expediency. (Most of Kadima's MK's could be described in a very similar manner.) Her only achievement to date is that she is a media darling who incorrectly was not blamed for her share in the recent fiasco in Lebanon. Yet she is running close to a tie against the much more serious and experienced Netanyahu and trouncing former Prime Minister Ehud Barak from Labor.

Does this mean that Israelis have been asleep for the last few years as Kadima's leaders have botched their jobs just about as thoroughly as possible? Or does it reflect on their lack of satisfaction with Netanyahu and Barak, both of whom were ignomiously tossed out of office at the end of their first terms as Prime Minister?