"It's like the dog that didn't bark," - Neocons Nervous About Gaza Conflagration

[Leigh Meyers <leighcmeyers@xxxxxxxxx>]

> "It's like the dog that didn't bark," David Makovsky, a senior analyst
> at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a conservative,
> pro-Israel think tank, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
> Friday. He said Washington had also pressed its European partners in
> the so-called to Quartet to mute their criticism of Israeli actions.
.

Inter Press Services:
POLITICS-MIDEAST:
Growing Calls for U.S. to Step In
http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=33900

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jul 7 (IPS) - Amid worsening violence between Palestinian
fighters and the Israeli military in Gaza, calls are mounting here for
the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush to take a stronger
role in ending the escalating conflict.
Aside from calling for the unconditional release of an Israeli soldier
held by Palestinian militants believed to be tied to the ruling Hamas
party, and urging Israel to ensure the flow of humanitarian supplies to
the civilian population, Washington has been largely silent about a
developing crisis with potentially serious regional implications.

"Other than statements calling for the release of (Cpl. Gilad) Shalit
and for a tempering of the violence, the United States is AWOL (absent
without leave)," complained M.J. Rosenberg, an analyst at the Israel
Policy Forum (IPF). "And its absence is being felt."

Washington's silence has contributed to the impression that, despite its
support for Hamas' participation in last January's Palestinian
elections, the administration now backs what a growing number of
analysts believe is an deliberate effort by the government of Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to oust the party from power.

"The Bush administration appears to have dropped any objections to
Israeli efforts to topple the Palestinian Authority's (PA)
democratically elected Hamas government," wrote Ori Nir, diplomatic
correspondent of the major U.S. Jewish weekly, The Forward, in Friday's
edition.

Among other indications, he noted, was the administration's failure to
intervene when Israel last week carried out the arrests of dozens of
Hamas officials and lawmakers, or to protest its bombing of the Gaza
offices of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya and the PA's
Interior Ministry.

"It's like the dog that didn't bark," David Makovsky, a senior analyst
at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a conservative,
pro-Israel think tank, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) Friday.
He said Washington had also pressed its European partners in the
so-called to Quartet to mute their criticism of Israeli actions.

The current crisis dates to early June when eight Palestinians,
including an entire family, were killed on a Gaza beach by an Israeli
artillery shell that had apparently gone astray. Palestinian militants,
reportedly joined by Hamas units that had previously observed a 16-month
truce, responded by intensifying their firing of short-range Qassam
rockets across the border into Israel.

As both sides escalated their exchanges, a group of Palestinians
attacked a border outpost just inside Israel two weeks ago, killing two
soldiers and abducting Shalit back into Gaza, where he is still believed
to be held.

While Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for his release, Hamas
leaders backed the militants' demands that Israel release Palestinian
women and children in its custody in exchange.

Ruling out any such deal, Olmert sealed off Gaza, demanding Shalit's
unconditional release. In the days that followed, Israeli forces crossed
into the territory from which they had withdrawn only last August,
rounded up dozens of Hamas officials, destroyed Gaza's U.S.-financed
power plant and several bridges, and even buzzed the residence of Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad who, according to Israel, is the chief sponsor
of the Damascus-based leader of Hamas' military wing.

The violence has since increased, reaching a high point Thursday when
some 21 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed as Israeli
tanks pushed into populated areas of Gaza for the first time.

Deprivations caused by both the closures and the destruction of the
power plant have spurred strong protests by Arab governments and
humanitarian groups that have described Israel's assault as an act of
"collective punishment" against Gaza's civilian population in violation
of international humanitarian law.

"The (Israeli) response is disproportionate and cruel, even if one
believes that it is merely an effort by the Olmert government to free
its soldier, an excuse that even the Israeli press no longer believes,"
charged James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute (AAI) here.

"What is occurring in Gaza today is nothing short of a crime against
humanity -- unless, that is, is you believe that the suffering of one
soldier outweighs the suffering being imposed on 1.5 million innocent
Palestinian men, women and children," he added, noting that even before
the latest crisis, two-thirds of Gaza's population were living below the
poverty line.

But, like Zogby, most analysts believe that Olmert's intentions go far
beyond securing Shilat's freedom and include, among other goals, the
destruction of the Hamas government.

"The arrest of the Hamas politicians -- Abbas and everyone understands
that as a step against the government," Menachem Klein, a political
scientist at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, told the New York Times last
week. "It's part of a grand strategy, to undermine the Hamas government,
that the Israeli cabinet decided upon in its first meeting after Hamas
took power."

That goal, according to Gareth Evans and Robert Malley, president and
Middle East programme director, respectively, of the International
Crisis Group (ICG), is shared by the West, including the U.S., which has
deliberately starved the PA of aid and access to credit in hopes that
"popular discontent with its non-performance (would) ensure that Hamas
experience in power comes to a rapid end."

The problem, according to the two men, however, is the current offensive
is having the opposite effect. "(I)n the current confrontation, Hamas's
support is growing, its ranks are becoming more unified, and its
detractors are being reduced to silence," they wrote in the Financial
Times this week. Indeed, as the siege and the violence intensified,
Abbas' Fatah, whose Gaza City offices were also attacked by Israeli
aircraft this week, has moved closer toward Hamas.

"(A)ny Israeli attempt to manipulate the Palestinian political situation
so as to bring about the downfall of the Haniyeh government and its
replacement by moderates," wrote veteran Israeli security analyst Yossi
Alpher on his bitterlemons.org website this week, "is almost certainly
doomed to failure." Moreover, having gone into Gaza, Olmert may find it
much more difficult to get out.

Meanwhile, U.S.-backed Arab leaders, including Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak who, at Israel's behest, has tried to quietly mediate between
the two sides, are reportedly warning of growing popular outrage -- and
support for Hamas -- in their own countries as a result of Israel's
campaign, adding to pressure on Washington to take a more active role.

"Decisive U.S. involvement, which the Bush administration seems to avoid
when it can, will be inevitable to prevent the highly combustible
Irael-Hamas warfare inflaming the entire region," according to John
Cooley, a veteran Middle East analyst, writing in the Christian Science
Monitor.

And while the key components of an accord, including some kind of
prisoner swap, that could restore the status quo ante are fairly clear,
according to Evans and Malley, "getting any such agreement will require
far more active and assertive third party mediation than has been the
case so far."

(FIN/2006)