Max Boot concedes Israel's defeat in Gaza
I read Max Boot’s latest for its actual strategic analysis. Dry the rest out, as they say, and you can fertilize the lawn. Nevertheless, when read between the lines, Boot essentially makes a grudging concession that Israel is no better off after the war in Gaza than it was beforehand:
It is true that Hamas managed to keep firing short-range rockets into Israel, but they caused scant casualties. [Sounds like the status quo ante, doesn’t it?] . . . .
What [the Israelis] did not manage to do, because it was never their purpose, was to finish off Hamas for good…As a result, there is little doubt that Hamas, like Hezbollah, will rise from the rubble to emerge as strong as ever–and probably stronger.
Some Israeli officials express hope that the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas can reenter Gaza on the back of the trucks that will be bringing in reconstruction supplies. Fat chance. Hamas used the war to reassert its control in Gaza by killing, wounding, or torturing at least 100 Fatah officials who were accused of “collaboration” with Israel. All indications are that the Palestinian Authority’s close association with Israel has only further damaged its already eroded standing among residents of both Gaza and the West Bank, while Hamas has claimed even more firmly for itself the mantle of “resistance movement” against the hated “Zionist entity.”
Hamas’s friends in Iran, moreover, already have considerable experience in helping its clients rebuild after an Israeli war. They helped Hezbollah do such a good job of reconstruction in 2006 that Hassan Nasrallah’s hold on southern Lebanon was actually strengthened. The same thing is likely to happen in Gaza no matter how hard outside donors try to route assistance outside of Hamas channels. Given the degree of Hamas control in Gaza, it is in a perfect position to claim credit for any reconstruction that occurs and to blame whatever does not happen on Israel. [It sounds like there’s some kind of economic blockade in effect here] . . . .
The only faint hope of hindering Hamas in the future rests in Egypt’s presumed ability to close off tunnels running from its territory into Gaza. . . . [Egyptian and U.S. pledges to this end] are likely to prove as hollow as the promises by the United Nations and European Union in 2006 to prevent the rearming of Hezbollah. . . .
Hamas will rearm and prepare to fight another day. Although it lost at least 600 fighters, it still has more than 10,000 left. It has accrued prestige that will allow it to mount an even stronger challenge to the decrepit Fatah bosses of the West Bank. Mahmoud Abbas’s term as president of the Palestinian Authority expired earlier this year but he dares not call another election for fear that Hamas would win. “If the IDF leaves the West Bank, Hamas will take over in five minutes,” says Khaled Abu Toameh, the Jerusalem Post’s fearless Palestinian correspondent. “Hamas continues to be as strong as ever.” . . . .
Many Israeli officials expressed to us the expectation that after this war Israel’s enemies will view it as a “crazy animal” that they cannot afford to bait. “Hamas will think again, not 17 times but 17 million times, before they shoot the next bullet at us,” an Israeli government official told us, although a retired general suggested that more incursions will be necessary to keep Hamas from mounting fresh attacks.