Israeli Offensive In Gaza Is Risky
Updated: 12:27am UK, Thursday 15 November 2012
By Sam Kiley, Middle East Correspondent
Israel's spectacular escalation of the conflict in the Gaza Strip in a bid to secure its southern population against the constant threat from Palestinian rockets risks having the opposite effect.
In the worst case scenario it could undermine the bedrock of the Jewish state's security. This is its peace treaty with Egypt, Israel's southern neighbour.
Within hours of the latest bloodletting, which began with an Israeli air force missile strike on the moving car of Ahmed Jabari, the leader of Hamas' military wing, Egypt had ordered its ambassador out of Tel Aviv and the Israeli envoy to Cairo was packing his bags.
Egypt had played an important role in persuading Hamas to de-escalate its own attacks on Israel and police more militant groups in the Strip which it has ruled since 2007.
Cairo managed just such an agreement the day before Israel launched Operation Pillar of Defence, its new campaign to decapitate Hamas.
More than 100 rockets and mortars had been launched into Israel in the previous 24 hours.
Israel understandably could not tolerate a barrage which sooner or later would cause civilian casualties.
It has promised a campaign lasting several days. It issued sneering Tweets warning Hamas operatives no matter how lowly, not to emerge from underground shelters.
There was a time perhaps even in 2008 when Israel launched its last campaign in Gaza, that Israel might have been able to impose peace for itself by force.
But a Harmattan of revolutionary fervour has blown through the Islamic world carrying with it the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies into the presidency of Egypt. Hamas is to some extent, a child of the Brotherhood.
Mohammed Morsi, Egypt's president, is a member of the movement. He may be exasperated by Hamas' petulance and its violence if he does not want to see it dismembered.
The Arab street has never been keen on peace with the 'Zionist Entity'. Morsi knows this, and while he has insisted he will respect Egypt's treaties, his spokesmen have warned of regional insecurity if Israel persists with its military campaign.
They do not mean that Egypt will give up on peace - rather that the violent al Qaeda-linked groups that have been growing in strength in the Sinai and elsewhere in Egypt will draw strength from the spectacle of Israeli aggression in Gaza.
But for Israel to leave Hamas intact now would look like a defeat. Destroying it could be worse, a regional conflagration might follow.
The best hope to avoid these nightmare scenarios is for the United States, the biggest donors to Israel, Egypt, and the Palestinians to step in and demand that all sides engage in a Washington sponsored peace process.
So far there hasn't been a whiff of that.
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