[Marxism] Israel declares phony cease fire: Gaza elected govt says it will fight on

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

January 18, 2009
Israel Declares Cease-Fire; Hamas Says It Will Fight On 
By STEVEN ERLANGER
JERUSALEM - Israel declared late Saturday that a unilateral cease-fire would
begin in Gaza within hours, but said its troops would remain in place for
now.

After 22 days of war against Hamas, and the deaths of more than 1,200
Palestinians and 13 Israelis, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert insisted that "we
have reached all the goals of the war, and beyond." Speaking to the nation
late Saturday night, he said that Hamas had "suffered a major blow" and that
if it continued to fire rockets into Israel, "the Israeli Army will regard
itself as free to respond with force."

Hamas, battered but hardly broken, said in Gaza that it would continue
fighting so long as Israeli troops occupy Gaza. And Israeli officials say a
new flurry of rocket launches, to prove that Hamas is neither cowed nor
defeated, is likely for at least a short time.

Heavy Israeli bombardment continued throughout the day Saturday, and in an
attack that brought scathing criticism from the United Nations, Israeli tank
fire killed two young brothers taking shelter at a United Nations school in
the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya.

United Nations aid officials raised questions about whether the attack, and
others like it, should be investigated as war crimes. The Israeli Army said
that it was investigating the reports at the highest level, but that initial
inquiries indicated that troops were returning fire from near or within the
school.

On the cease-fire, Mr. Olmert said Israel was responding positively to peace
efforts by President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, in a clearly orchestrated move
by two countries that see the Hamas movement in Gaza as a threat. 

Israel will also wait to see the details of an Egyptian effort, supported by
the United States, France, Britain and Germany, to stop the smuggling of
arms, explosives, cash and men into Gaza through tunnels from Egypt.

Mr. Mubarak and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France will host a summit
meeting on Sunday in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheik to discuss the
interdiction of smuggling and the reconstruction of Gaza after the Israeli
air and land attack, which has left large areas of the crowded territory in
ruins and without basic services like potable water and electricity.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hailed Israel's cease-fire announcement
and said in a statement that the United States "expects that all parties
will cease attacks and hostile actions immediately." 

That appeared unlikely as the truce's 2 a.m. start neared early Sunday. News
reports as of 6 a.m. seemed to indicate that things were relatively calm. 

In Gaza City, a Hamas spokesman in hiding, Fawzi Barhoum, said in a
statement that "we will not accept the presence of a single soldier in
Gaza," according to Agence-France Presse. "The Zionist enemy must stop all
its aggression, completely withdraw from the Gaza Strip, lift the blockade
and open the crossings."

Beyond the potential for an effective end to heavy fighting on Sunday, the
shape of any lasting peace was far from clear.

The length of Israel's occupation of Gaza has now been put in the hands of
Hamas. The Israeli government says it will not sign any deal with the group,
which is committed to Israel's destruction and whose rule over Gaza the
Israelis do not want to recognize. But Hamas is seen as likely to reassert
political control over Gaza.

And Israel and Egypt will be under considerable pressure to reopen its
crossings into Gaza for goods, given the size of the reconstruction
required, and the crossings for people. 

Particularly concerned about limiting smuggling into Gaza, the United States
and Israel signed a "memorandum of understanding" on Friday in Washington
that calls for expanded cooperation to prevent Hamas from rearming through
Egypt. The agreement, which is vague, promises increased American technical
assistance and international monitors, presumably to be based in Egypt, to
crack down on the smuggling. 

As important, the United States agreed to work with NATO partners to
interdict arms smuggling into Gaza by land and sea from Syria and Iran, and
in a letter, Britain, France and Germany also offered to help.

The summit meeting in Egypt on Sunday will also include Italy; Spain;
Turkey; Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general; and a
representative of the Palestinian Authority, which governs the Palestinian
West Bank. The United States was to be represented by Margaret Scobey, the
ambassador to Syria. 

Although Mr. Sarkozy began the diplomatic process toward a cease-fire with
Mr. Mubarak, it has been a deal shaped by Egypt and Israel.

Mr. Mubarak's foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said that his country
would not be bound by the memorandum of understanding agreed to by the
United States and Israel and would not accept foreign troops on its soil.
But officials of both Israel and the United States say Egypt has been
showing a new seriousness about stopping the smuggling.

The Arab and Muslim world again appeared to be split into two camps. Egypt
and Saudi Arabia have been openly critical of Hamas, pressing it to agree to
a cease-fire. Qatar, meanwhile, which has close ties to both the United
States and Iran, held a meeting with Syria, Iran, Mauritania and Hamas's
exiled political leader, Khaled Meshal, as the Palestinian representative.
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority who is supported
by the United States and Egypt, had refused to go to Qatar.

In Beit Lahiya, about 1,600 displaced Gazans have taken shelter at a school
run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or Unrwa, which cares for
Palestinian refugees from the 1948-49 war and their descendants.

John Ging, the Gaza director of the agency, said that two brothers, ages 5
and 7, were killed about 7 a.m. by Israeli fire at the school. Their mother,
who was among 14 others wounded, had her legs blown off.

"These two little boys are as innocent, indisputably, as they are dead," Mr.
Ging said. "The question now being asked is: is this and the killing of all
other innocent civilians in Gaza a war crime?"

Christopher Gunness, the refugee agency's spokesman, said: "Where you have a
direct hit on an Unrwa school where about 1,600 people had taken refuge,
where the Israeli Army knows the coordinates and knows who's there, where
this comes as the latest in a catalogue of direct and indirect attacks on
Unrwa facilities, there have to be investigations to establish whether war
crimes have been committed." 

The strike was the fourth time Israel has hit an Unrwa school during the war
on Hamas. On Jan. 6, Mr. Ging said, 43 people died when an Israeli shell hit
the compound of a school in Jabaliya. Israel has disputed the death toll and
said it had been returning mortar fire from within the school compound.

Four Israeli soldiers, two of them officers, were seriously hurt by mortar
fire in fighting on Saturday morning, the army said, suggesting that they
were victims of friendly fire. Five others were also wounded by an antitank
missile. The army said that Hamas had fired 15 rockets at Israel on
Saturday, lightly wounding five Israelis, in a sharp reduction from daily
attacks since the start of the war.

While the details are debated and the dead are counted, a critical long-term
issue is whether the Gaza operation restores Israel's deterrent. Israel
wants Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and the Arab world to view it as too strong and
powerful to seriously threaten or attack. That motivation is one reason,
Israeli officials say, for going into Gaza so hard, using such firepower,
and fighting Hamas as an enemy army.

The answer will not be known for many months, but the key to the Muslim
world's reaction is actually that of the Israeli public, said Yossi Klein
Halevi, of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies in Jerusalem. "The
Arabs take their cue from Israeli responses," he said. "Deterrence is about
how Israelis feel, whether they feel they've won or lost."

Mr. Halevi cited the 1973 war - which Egyptians celebrate and Israelis
mourn, though it ended with a spectacular Israel counterattack - and the
2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, apologized for the 2006 war on
television, "but he quickly reversed himself to declare a wonderful victory
when he saw the Israeli public declaring defeat," Mr. Halevi said.

Even more important, perhaps, this war is a test case for any potential
Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. If Israelis feel that the West Bank
will turn into another kind of chaotic, Hamas-run Gaza, they will be
unwilling to withdraw - especially if they believe that if they withdrew and
were then attacked from the West Bank, they would not be allowed to respond
with force.

"Gaza is an important test of whether we can defend ourselves within the
1967 boundaries," Mr. Halevi said, noting that Hamas had been attacking
Israel proper, not settlements. "Will we be able to defend ourselves if we
need to from the West Bank? Will the international community let us?"

The Israeli public has stayed united behind the war as a necessary battle,
despite serious misgivings about the death toll of Palestinian civilians and
international condemnation. Even Meretz, a party of the Israeli left,
supported the air war.

Hamas has modeled itself on Hezbollah, calling on Iranian support. Mr.
Nasrallah once spoke of Israeli power as a spider web - impressive from
afar, but easily brushed aside. This war against Hamas, Mr. Halevi said, "is
the revenge of the spider."




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