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Jewish World Review January 25, 2008 / 18 Shevat 5768 Hamas border takeover was about a lot more than rowdy Arabs By Caroline B. Glick
Their conversation brought immediate results. Wednesday Mubarak allowed
Hamas to take control of the international border between Egypt and Gaza.
Hundreds of thousands of Gazans streamed across the border. Mubarak
maintained his faith with Ahmadinejad even after the US Wednesday afternoon
began demanding that he reassert Egyptian control over the border. Wednesday
evening Mubarak said that the border will remain open.
Wednesday's border takeover by Hamas was but the latest escalation of the
Palestinian campaign for control over the international border. This
campaign has been ongoing since Israel withdrew in 2005 and was sharply
escalated after Hamas seized control over Gaza last June.
Many claim that Hamas's aim of attaching Gaza to the rest of the Arab world
by opening its border with Egypt is good for Israel because it allows Israel
to disengage completely from Gaza. And there is some truth to this claim.
With an open border with Egypt, Gazans will be far less dependent on Israel.
To a degree this may help Israel to ease international pressure on it to
continue to support Gaza by providing its Hamas-supporting population with
electricity, fuel, food and employment opportunities.
But that is not the main significance of the move. Supported and directed by
Iran and Syria, Hamas is uninterested in maintaining ties with Israel. Its
short term goals are to end its diplomatic isolation in the West, and to
force Fatah to accept its control over Gaza and reinstate open negotiations
towards the reestablishment of a unity government between Fatah and Hamas.
Its medium term goals involve extending its control over Gaza to Judea and
Samaria and then unifying the west and east banks of the Jordan River by
overwhelming the border with Jordan in much the same way it took control
over the border with Gaza.
For its part, in the lead-up to the Hamas border takeover on Wednesday and
in its aftermath, Fatah has shown itself to be wholly incapable of
influencing events either in Gaza or in Judea and Samaria. It has been
unable, despite its massive financial resources, to in any way degrade
Hamas's popularity in Gaza. It has been unable to keep its own forces in
Gaza from integrating with Hamas. It has been unable to stem Hamas's rising
popularity in Judea and Samaria.
Hamas's border takeover was synchronized to take place at the same time as
Hamas leaders were meeting with their Palestinian and Lebanese jihadist
counterparts at an anti-peace conference in Damascus. The conference, held
under Syrian and Iranian sponsorship was supposed to be held at the same
time as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's peace conference at
Annapolis. But since the State Department decided to invite Syria to attend
that conference, Damascus decided to delay its anti-peace conference until
this week. Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas went to Syria in recent weeks to beg
Syrian President Bashar Assad to cancel the conclave, organized to
demonstrate Fatah's weakness and unpopularity, but his appeals failed.
In this regard, it also bears noting that Fatah's response to the erosion of
its power has been to escalate its support for jihad. Its television and
radio broadcasts are indistinguishable from Hamas's. Its security forces in
Judea and Samaria actively engage in terrorism against Israel. Its residual
forces in Gaza are full partners in the rocket and mortar attacks on the
Western Negev.
The strategic significance of Hamas's border war clearly escaped the
attention of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. In her address before the
Herzliya Conference on Tuesday, Livni spoke as if Hamas can simply be wished
away. The day before Egypt surrendered control over its border to Hamas,
Livni claimed that in the Arab world, "Nobody wants to see Hamas succeed."
Livni then went on to justify the negotiations she is holding with Fatah's
Ahmed Qurei towards and Israeli handover of Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem
claiming that by negotiating massive Israeli land giveaways she is
preventing the Palestinian conflict with Israel from turning into a
religious conflict. She also claimed separately that Israel's conflict with
Iran is not related to its conflict with the Palestinians.
All of Livni's statements are demonstrably false. Discussing the surrender
of Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem with Fatah does not weaken Hamas. It
strengthens Hamas. Either the discussions will succeed, in which case Hamas
will seize control over Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem from Fatah the minute
that Israel withdraws, or the talks will fail in which case Hamas will say
it just goes to show that there is nothing to talk with Israel about. It
will then reunify its forces with Fatah and increase its subversion of
Israel's Arab citizens. In all cases, Hamas, with its clear vision of Israel
replaced by an Islamic caliphate, comes out the winner.
Livni's assertion that Iran is unconnected to the Palestinians is similarly
ridiculous. Livni was a member of Ariel Sharon's government in January 2002
when Israeli naval commandos seized the Iranian cargo ship *Karine A* in the
Red Sea. That was a ship purchased by Fatah, filled with Iranian weapons en
route to Fatah forces. It was commanded by Fatah officers and manned by
Fatah sailors. Livni was there when the decision was made to use Fatah's
clear connections to Iran as a reason for not conducting negotiations with
the group.
And of course, Iran today is Hamas's primary sponsor. And its sponsorship of
Hamas is facilitating Iran's bid to secure Arab support for its war against
Israel and the US. So Livni's contention that Iran is unrelated to the
Palestinians is both ridiculous and dangerous.
Livni's championing of Fatah and continued Israeli territorial surrenders to
the Palestinians is identical to her boss Ehud Olmert's. So too, her
dismissive treatment of the threat arising from Hamas's continued control
over Gaza, like her dismissive treatment of Hizbullah's reinforcement in
Lebanon and the importance of US's retreat from strategic rationality
towards Iran in the wake of the NIE, is no different from Olmert's.
It is important to note this fact because a week before the publication of
the Winograd Commission's final report on the Second Lebanon War, Olmert's
blood is in the water. The publication this week of an open letter by fifty
reserve company commanders essentially demanding that Olmert resign after
the report is released is a preview of the public calls for his departure
from office that will sweep the country starting January 31.
While the leaders of the radical Left in Peace Now, Meretz, and
*Haaretz*are supporting Olmert's bid to remain in office and launching
smear
campaigns against all forces rising against him, the fact is that even his
most ardent supporters know that it will be difficult to protect Olmert from
the public after the Winograd report is published. Consequently, leading
figures on the Left, in Labor and Kadima are seeking ways to force Olmert
out of office and replace him with Livni.
Livni escaped the public's wrath over the consequences of the failed 2006
war with Hizbullah. During the war she took a backseat to Olmert and then
defense minister Amir Peretz, rarely speaking publicly. Yet from the outset
of the war Livni led the diplomatic campaign for a ceasefire. And her
campaign was flawed and failed, no less, and indeed more than the military
campaign.
Livni began her diplomatic machinations with two incorrect assumptions.
First, she assumed that Israel could not defeat Hizbullah militarily. As a
result, from the very beginning she opposed any escalation of Israel's
campaign in Lebanon. Second, she believed that the international community
would agree to fight Hizbullah for Israel. As a result she worked hard to
get a Chapter VII - that is legally binding - UN Security Council resolution
setting up such a force.
The government's refusal to authorize a timely ground assault in Lebanon
ensured that Israel would not defeat Hizbullah. Livni's belief that the
international community would be interested in fighting Hizbullah led to
Israel becoming the main champion of UNIFIL which both before and since the
war has acted as a shield for Hizbullah against Israel.
And yet, Livni's diplomatic skills couldn't even secure her own limited and
incorrect goal of securing a binding, strong international force in south
Lebanon. In his book, *Surrender is not an Option*, former US ambassador to
the UN John Bolton wrote that on the eve of the Security Council vote on
resolution 1701 which set the terms of the ceasefire, Livni complained to
Rice, "You've given away the cease-fire, you've given away Chapter VII,
you've given away Sheba Farms, now tell us why we should sign on to the
resolution?"
But of course, when the next day the resolution passed unanimously in the
Security Council, Livni was quick to tout it as a strategic success. And
ever since, in spite of the fact that under 1701 Hizbullah has rearmed and
reasserted its control over south Lebanon; paralyzed the Lebanese
government; expanded its influence over the Lebanese military and
intimidated UNIFIL, Livni continues to uphold the resolution as proof of her
own competence. And she has yet to be called on this.
In his own speech on Wednesday at Herzliya, Olmert tried to silence critics
of his government's incompetent response to the Hamas takeover of Gaza.
Olmert argued "If the quiet prevailing in the North would prevail today in
the southern part of the country, would we be occupied with a daily counting
of the number of rockets and missiles which would be hoarded there in
storerooms?"
That is, in Olmert's view, the nature of both Hizbullah and Hamas, their
ties with Iran and Syria, and their burgeoning arsenals are unimportant. The
only thing that matters is if they presently shooting at Israel. And Livni's
view is just as outrageous.
In her speech on Thursday at Davos, Livni proclaimed that the threat Iran
poses to global security stems not from its nuclear weapons program and its
support for terrorism but from its opposition to her negotiations with
Qurei. Livni was quoted as remarking, "Iran is a global threat which
threatens the peace process."
The Olmert-Livni government's ineptitude has brought about a situation where
Israel is threatened by Iranian proxies on three borders. Its diplomatic
fumbling of Iran's nuclear program has led to a situation where Israel finds
itself alone against Iran's Manhattan Project. Its diplomatic fumbling of
Hamas's takeover of Gaza has led to a willingness of ever widening circles
of Western diplomats and policymakers to recognize the jihadist movement as
a legitimate actor in the region. Its diplomatic failures during the war
with Hizbullah enabled Hizbullah to emerge from the war strengthened
diplomatically and positioned to reignite the war whenever Iran orders it to
do so.
Next week's publication of the Winograd Commission report has the potential
to finally end Olmert's premiership. But if the post-Winograd political
reshuffle is limited to replacing Olmert with Livni, Israel will be no
better off.
JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.
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