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The imbalance of casualties in the tragic confrontation between Hamas and Israel is stark. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed or injured, from toddlers to the aged. Television footage suggests almost all are innocents. Israeli spokespeople dispute that impression and speak in frigid terms of "collateral damage," meaning everything from the destruction of mosques to the loss of civilian lives. Viewers react with outrage, as is only human. Compared with Palestinian losses, Israeli victims of Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets are few. There is a lurid sense of disproportion. Many, including reflective Israelis, question the morality of their government's action. Many question its effectiveness.

The Israeli government was placed in an impossible situation when Hamas refused to renew its six-month-old ceasefire on Dec. 19. From that day on, Hamas has laid down an array of rockets and increasingly sophisticated missiles, with a range reaching Ashdod and Beersheva, some 46 kilometres away from the Gaza border. This raises the question whether Tel Aviv itself could be vulnerable. Even the most placid of governments would have to react in order to survive. And the Israelis have done so, massively.

ELECTION PENDING

Israel will hold a general election on Feb. 10. Most polls show that the right-wing Likud opposition leader and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to come to power. A weak-willed reaction to Hamas's rocket attacks would have exposed the present government to sharp criticism from Mr. Netanyahu, against the background of a frustrated and angry populace. It would have opened the governing coalition's departing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the Kadima Party's new leader, and, most of all, Ehud Barak, the Defence Minister and Leader of the formerly dominant Labour Party, to devastating criticism and their portrayal as leaders unable to safeguard their country's most basic interests. Inaction would have meant humiliation for Mr. Olmert, electoral defeat for Ms. Livni and the end of Mr. Barak's political career.

Reverberations from the debacle of the 2006 war in Lebanon are keenly felt. There is no room for a second failure. Contingency planning had been under way for more than six months. Many politicians and military commanders have limited objectives. They want to weaken Hamas as a guerrilla organization and force it to give up the missile threat, but leave its domestic rule in Gaza intact. Mr. Barak's chief of staff, Brigadier-General Mike Herzog, has been explicit. He says the aim of Operation Cast Lead is strictly confined to creating deterrence and forcing a sustainable ceasefire. His candour has been ill received in some military circles.

These officers worry that leaving Hamas intact, even if seriously weakened, would be only a temporary palliative. They believe Hamas would spring back with newfound support from the Palestinian and Arab grassroots, much as Hezbollah did in Lebanon. Hamas members claim to have driven Israeli soldiers and settlers out of Gaza in 2005, restoring Palestinian honour. The current confrontation, for them, is simply a continuation of that struggle against what they call Zionist aggression. Hamas will reinforce its inflammatory rhetoric aimed at discrediting the mainstream Fatah movement, depicting it as not capable of carrying the Palestinian banner to a satisfactory end.

TARGETING LEADERS

Given Hamas's ambitions, some Israelis argue that destroying infrastructure in Gaza and killing off its leadership will not be enough. They say Israel must go further. The assassination on New Year's Day of the senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan does not change the equation for these skeptics. They cite the March, 2004, assassination by Israel of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, Hamas's leader at the time. Those who argued then that pinpoint assassinations would decapitate Hamas have long since been proved wrong, as the past weeks' events vividly demonstrate. What is needed now, hard-line skeptics say, is boots on the ground, to eliminate the entire Hamas organization, root and branch.

Even if Hamas were extirpated, the question remains who would take over. The Palestinian Authority and Fatah are too weak. The Israelis will never pay the physical, moral and emotional cost of renewing the occupation. The Egyptians will not take on the impossible burden of trying to govern Gaza. Israeli hopes for a strong international presence are naive. They are in a Catch-22 dilemma.

NO EXIT PLAN

In Israel, the military action has thus far been portrayed as a success. The domestic standing of the key ministerial and military players, particularly Ehud Barak's, has improved. But what is the Israeli exit strategy? One would have expected this to have been decided far in advance, but cracks are beginning to show in the Israeli leadership. Ehud Barak wants to consider the 48-hour ceasefire proposed by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, to test Hamas's intentions. Such a ceasefire would go some way toward meeting international and humanitarian concerns. This could then be stretched into a renewal of the six-month cessation of hostilities, should Hamas be willing. It would reduce the possibility of ground troops being caught in a quagmire. The Prime Minister's office, however, has denied that any consideration has been given to winding down. Several on the general staff agree. The debate goes on in public. Such is the chaos of Israeli politics.

No matter how much their views differ, the entire Israeli leadership knows that international pressure is on them to stop the fighting as soon as possible, if only because its continuation radicalizes the Arab and Muslim streets throughout the region. If the Sarkozy proposal develops into a six-month option, this would give them a reprieve. It would be greeted with relief by European, Arab and American leaders because it would postpone the crisis to an undefined future. President Sarkozy would have his day in the sun, the incoming Obama administration would have time to consolidate, and moderate and conservative Arab governments would get their feet out of the fire, no longer having to temporize with their own peoples. Egypt in particular is seen in much of the Arab world as a collaborator with Israel. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has publicly described Hamas as "those who are seeking political gain at the expense of the Palestinian people," while demonstrators in Cairo carry banners reading "Down with Mubarak" and "Where is the Egyptian Army?"

Always with an eye for the main chance, Mr. Sarkozy will be in Israel on Monday. Ms. Livni has just completed a visit to Paris.

The Israeli government might prefer to put such a visit off and surely would if it felt confident enough.

Ceasefires buy time. They can be a tool in conflict management but they lead to resolution only if the parties are prepared to accommodate each other's needs. That is not the case in Gaza. When former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon decided to withdraw the Israel Defence Forces from Gaza in 2005, he made that withdrawal unilateral, without co-ordination with the Palestinian Authority or outside governments. What was needed then was a carefully planned and co-ordinated action to ensure stability and decent governance in a territory where the rule of law had been notoriously weak. Israeli policy had been to break up such institutions and organizations from the time its occupation began in 1967, some 38 years before. Now that power vacuum has been filled by Hamas, as foresight would have told.

RAGGED RIVALS

Hamas is a radical, political-Islamic organization. There are those who think that bringing its leadership into dialogue and negotiation would facilitate concord and in the longer run pave the way to a comprehensive peace between Israel and Palestine. They suggest reconciliation between Hamas, on the one hand, and the Palestinian Authority and Fatah, on the other. There is, however, nothing to indicate this is possible, except perhaps wishful thinking. Hamas and Fatah are rivals for the ragged mantle of Palestine in both the West Bank and Gaza. Fissures run deep. Philosophies differ markedly and personal antagonisms are pervasive. These rivals will not work together, nor can Hamas, which rejects the very concept of a Jewish state, be trusted to negotiate in good faith.

If there are Palestinian partners for peace, they are the Palestinian Authority and Fatah, despite their many imperfections and weaknesses. If Western countries ever want to see peace in the Middle East, they must embolden Israelis to meet the basic needs of Palestinians for dignity and self-respect. Without real movement on West Bank roadblocks, Israeli settlements and the prospect of real independence, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his supporters will be viewed more and more as Israeli quislings. Moderates must be bolstered and empowered. They must be seen by their populations as able to deliver on basic aspirations. Only in this way will extremism lose its appeal. Without profound changes in the way we think about accommodation and peace, the current Gaza confrontation will be nothing but a bridge on the road to the next bloodletting.

Michael Bell is a former Canadian ambassador to Israel, the Palestinian territories, Egypt and Jordan. He is also Paul Martin Senior Scholar in Diplomacy at the University of Windsor.