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Last year ended with a bang, not a whimper, as air attacks began on Hamas positions from which rockets had been launched into Israel and, as the intelligence was developed, on other Hamas installations and houses.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has announced a commitment to find yet another negotiated end to the cross-border violence, but the intractability of the problem is best exemplified by the lack of unity at the Arab summit, where it is clear that no help will come from those best able to assist. Meanwhile, an air strike on New Year's Day killed Nizar Rayyan, a leading Hamas official and the architect of numerous suicide bombings that have killed a large number of Israelis, both Muslim and Jewish, and foreign visitors. And although Israel has been using precision-guided munitions, civilian casualties are inevitable in a place that is the sixth most densely populated metropolitan area in the world.
The bifurcated rule of Palestinians was the result of Palestinian decisions, not imposed from outside, and it has had the predicted effect of serving the Palestinian people very poorly. Gazans, under the unenlightened, single-minded and inept suzerainty of Hamas, is a mess. Their rotten governance is exacerbated by the impossible demographics---imagine the population of Houston squeezed into an area about one-fourth as large---and the limited movement outside the borders of the strip. Frankly, one can hardly blame either Israel or Egypt for keeping the flow of Gazans in check, since both have suffered nothing but grief when Hamas has had freedom of movement.
Well, what next?
At the beginning of the retaliatory attacks, Israel stated that its objective was the destruction of Hamas, and most actors, including Arab nations, would agree that a world without Hamas would be a safer and more pleasant place.
But remember the last time Israel tried to eliminate an imminent threat on its border? That was the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, designed to get Hezbollah off Israel's back, and it was a debacle, poorly planned and raggedly executed, and it accomplished little more than generating international opprobrium.
The premier principle of war is that of the objective. Any human endeavor, particularly the employment of national power, begins with an articulation of what the objective is, and this must be done with laser-like precision. From a professional military standpoint, it is difficult to envision how the Israelis would accomplish the mission of destroying Hamas---and without ugly collateral damage, lots of casualties on both sides and a long-term occupation of Gaza. Clearing and holding urban areas are among the most difficult of all military missions, and Israeli forces would be left with a situation like that facing the Americans in Iraq but with far less likelihood of a satisfactory result.
So, no matter what the Israelis want, the near-term objective can't be the destruction of Hamas because nobody has the stomach for what the campaign would entail. Instead, Israel is more likely focused on the pragmatic tasks of eliminating some key Hamas leaders, reducing the organization's command and control capabilities, and buying a bit of time during which both western and Arab leaders can be convinced to take responsibility for keeping Hamas in check.
Regrettably, and to the civilized world's great shame, history has demonstrated that the latter has almost no chance of occurring.
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Thanks. As much as an extremist as I am---and as we all tend to be on some subjects, especially as we get older---I find it useful to cut to basics, something we all learned as brand new soldiers.
