Haaretz Analysis: Hamas shows IDF who is in charge
By Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents (emphasis added. VS)
A few Israel Defense Forces Engineering Corps officers surely shed a tear yesterday while viewing the television reports from Rafah: The barrier built by the IDF with blood and sweat along the Philadelphi Route, on the Gaza Strip border with Egypt, was coming down.
It was, apparently, the final remnant of Israel’s years of occupying the Strip. But Israel has better reasons to be worried by what happened yesterday. In destroying the wall separating the Palestinian and Egyptian sides of Rafah, Hamas chalked up a real coup. Not only did the organization demonstrate once again that it is a disciplined, determined entity, and an opponent that is exponentially more sophisticated than the Palestine Liberation Organization. It also took the sting out of the economic blockade plan devised by Israel’s military establishment, an idea whose effectiveness was doubtful from the beginning but whose potential for international damage was not.
Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority are now forced to find a new joint border control arrangement, one that will probably depend on the good graces of Hamas. If the PA is indeed interested in taking responsibility for the border crossings, as Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has declared, it will have to negotiate with Hamas even though President Mahmoud Abbas is trying to avoid that at any cost. The other option – to leave the border untended – is even worse.
The Hamas action yesterday was anything but spontaneous. It was another stage in the campaign that began in Gaza’s night of darkness on Sunday. As Gaza was plunged into widely televised blackness, Palestinian children armed with candles were brought out on a protest march and organized into prime-time demonstrations in support of the Egyptian and Jordanian branches of the Muslim Brotherhood.
On Tuesday, Hamas put together a violent demonstration that ended in a confrontation with Egyptian police officers at the border, and, as usual, broadcast live on Al-Jazeera. Apparently it was enough to make Egypt lose its appetite for confrontation.
Yesterday, tens of thousands of people burst through to the west. President Hosni Mubarak explained that he instructed his police officers not to block the hungry on their way to grocery stores in El-Arish and the Egyptian side of Rafah.
Mubarak also had to contend with domestic politics. The violent suppression of the Palestinian masses would have turned up the tension between him and the Muslim Brotherhood, or Al-Jazeera. More than a few Arab commentators now see the Qatar-based satellite channel as the superpower of the Arab world. In many cases its broadcasts clearly promote an Islamic agenda. (utter nonsense. VS)
Explosions were set at 20 points along the border fence, clear evidence of a campaign that was planned and coordinated well in advance. Israeli intelligence officials will have to explain, to themselves and the country’s leaders, whether and how the preparations took place without their knowledge – another Gaza goof, in the wake of the Hamas election victory in January 2006 and the rapid military drubbing it gave Fatah in the Strip last June.
Most of the Gazans who crossed into Egypt are expected to return home within a few days, after stocking up on staples and meeting with relatives they have not seen for years. Meanwhile, Egyptian security forces set up dozens of checkpoints to prevent the Gazans from spreading into other areas of Sinai.
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Comment: the Israeli press, to its credit, often shows a remarkable level of lucidity and critical thinking which puts the US corporate media to shame. Haaretz in particular has, for a long time already, proven to be one of the best news sources of the Middle-East (along with the equally excellent Al-Jazeera). This latest article is an example of this capability to offer a pragmatic analysis of events (setting aside the silly comment about Al-Jazeera being “Islamic” – something which anyone who has ever watched this TV channel knows is utter baloney).
Corny I know, but this song – from the great Paul Weller – seems totally appropriate now:
“Governments crack and systems fall
cause unity is powerful –
Lights go out – walls come tumbling down!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I29aPBkEc0Y
“Israeli intelligence officials will have to explain, to themselves and the country’s leaders, whether and how the preparations took place without their knowledge” (Haaretz)
Was it really “without their knowledge” ? Isn’t it hard to believe ?
“Most of the Gazans who crossed into Egypt are expected to return home within a few days, after stocking up on staples and meeting with relatives they have not seen for years. Meanwhile, Egyptian security forces set up dozens of checkpoints to prevent the Gazans from spreading into other areas of Sinai.
My fear is that as soon as the number of Palestinians returning starts to exceed the number fleeing we’ll see another incursion, the border will be sealed, and those refugees who fled will be deemed to have abandoned any right of return. I hope I’m wrong, but I have a lingering suspicion that such a thing may happen.
-AA
I must say I’m not quite as enthusiastic about Ha’Aretz as VS. Sure, they are head and shoulders above the US press, but that is’nt saying much. Ha’aretz’ commitment to Zionism is never in doubt, and its writers resort to the same tired Zionist cliches whenever it suits them: Witness the nonsense about Al Jazeera in this article. Not only is Al J far from “Islamist”, Arabic-speaking followers of the channel (few Israeli journos speak Arabic) report that of late it has greatly toned down its pro-Palestinian coverage, probably under pressure from the Qataris, in turn under pressure from the US.
hopefully I’m not straying too far off topic by posting a link to the images in Gaza.
-AA
Ha’aretz’ commitment to Zionism is never in doubt, and its writers resort to the same tired Zionist cliches whenever it suits them
True, but that is the due you have to pay to be read in Israel. My point though was that this type of article brings the “real world” to the Israeli reader way better than the BBC does it for a British reader, or any US TV for an American.
But for somebody who already knows? Sure it appears “lame and tame”. No doubt here.
@AA: thanks for the link to the excellent pics!
Was it really “without their knowledge” ? Isn’t it hard to believe ?
No, not really. Not if you know how inept they really are.
Arrogance has no place in intelligence work, and the Israelis are the most arrogant bunch on the planet.
Another wall went down.