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A Cease-fire or Quagmire in Gaza?
07/31/14
Dov Waxman
Security, Military Strategy, Diplomacy, Israel, Palestinian territories
"Now that Israeli soldiers are in Gaza, how will Israel get them out?"
There
was a good reason why, for the past five and a half years since Israel
last invaded the Gaza Strip in January 2009, Israel’s generals were
reluctant to send their troops back in. They knew that while getting
into Gaza would be easy for the mighty Israeli army, getting out would
not be. This is a lesson that the IDF learned the hard way after it
spent eighteen years in a costly, protracted, occupation of southern
Lebanon (it is also a lesson that the United States has learned after
its bitter experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan). So while hawkish
right-wing Israeli politicians often called for the IDF to conquer the
Gaza Strip in response to sporadic rocket fire from Palestinian militant
groups, Israel’s military establishment counseled caution.
The
failure of Israel’s aerial campaign to stop the incessant rocket fire
from Gaza during the first ten days of “Operation Protective Edge,”
Hamas’ rejection of the Egyptian cease-fire proposal and its attempt to
send a group of fighters into Israel via one of its underground tunnels,
together with the mounting domestic political pressure upon Prime
Minister Netanyahu from his right-wing ministers (particularly Avigdor
Lieberman and Naftali Bennett) has now led the Israeli army back into
the Gaza Strip, albeit not yet deep inside.
Now that Israeli soldiers are in Gaza, how will Israel get them out?
The
obvious answer is a lasting cease-fire, not merely a temporary truce (a
peace treaty with Hamas is out of the question since the group is not
even willing to accept Israel’s existence). Achieving such a cease-fire
is now the focus of intense international efforts, as U.S. Secretary of
State John Kerry, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, and Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have all been engaging in shuttle diplomacy between Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and Israel.
Read full articlehttp://nationalinterest.org/feature/cease-fire-or-quagmire-gaza-10994
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