Israel's massive assault on the militant Hamas organization in the Gaza Strip shook the Middle East this weekend. Few people expected Israel to deal such a blow, with such carnage, against a group whose repeated rocket attacks posed no existential threat to the powerful country.
“What's happening here is capital punishment,” said a stunned Sabri Saidam, a former Fatah minister of communications, and no friend of Hamas. This was “the fastest massacre in the shortest time span” he had ever heard of.
It should come as no surprise. Since before the founding of the state in 1948, Israel's military doctrine has been about deterrence, about striking fear in the hearts of its enemies whenever possible. Israel's weekend attacks were as much about instilling awe in future enemies as they were about shocking the country's current nemesis.
Now, that power of deterrence is in doubt. A poll released Sunday night in Israel showed that 81 per cent of Israelis favoured the action being taken against Hamas, but only 39 per cent thought it was likely to be effective. Even Israelis appear to have lost faith.
“A country that is afraid to deal with Hamas won't be able either to deter Iran or to safeguard its interests in dealing with Syria, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority,” wrote Nahum Barnea in Yediot Ahronot, Israel's most popular newspaper.
“The problem is: Nobody's afraid of us today, the way they used to be,” said Mark Heller, principal research associate of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. “A big reason for this operation” isn't to wipe out Hamas or even to instill “quiet” in southern Israel, “it's to restore credibility in Israel's ability to deter enemies,” he said.
That credibility was largely lost 21/2 years ago when Israel tangled with another militant Islamic group, Hezbollah, in southern Lebanon.
Then, too, Israel was plagued with cross-border rockets and raids; then too it launched a massive shock-and-awe display of aerial firepower to intimidate the enemy. But that's where, Israel hopes, the similarity ends. In 2006, Israel would go on to effectively lose that war by limping out of Lebanon without coming close to meeting its declared objective of wiping out Hezbollah.
The outcome emboldened the Shia militia and other regional groups, such as Hamas.
They no longer cower before the power of Israel.
So, this time, Israel is trying to leave nothing to chance.
For weeks, it worked to minimize the fallout from the assault by preparing the international community, and the Israeli people for the attack. No other country would have sustained as many rockets as this without responding, said Israeli diplomat after diplomat.
It prepared for declaring victory by setting a much more modest goal than Israel declared when it attacked Hezbollah two years ago. Israeli leaders said they only sought to restore “quiet” in the south of the country where rockets fired from Gaza have rained down daily – no mention of eradicating Hamas, or even of eliminating all the rockets.
Unlike the 2006 war, this time Israel was prepared to evacuate the regions within reach of the enemy's rockets, thereby reducing Israelis' own aversion to a drawn-out fight.
Already, however, Israeli leaders may be making one of the same mistakes they made in Lebanon: fooling themselves into thinking that the civilians in the place being bombed will turn against the militant Islamic group in their midst.
Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed the people of Gaza: “You the citizens of Gaza are not our enemies. Hamas, [Islamic] Jihad and the other terrorist organizations are your enemies as they are our enemies.”
And Sunday, Israeli Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog told interviewers that Israeli “intelligence” already was reporting the people of Gaza were turning against Hamas.
