War in Gaza: the domestic, regional and strategic implications
THE Gaza war planners have succeeded at most to mobilize Israeli public opinion in support of the military campaign against Gaza. Although the trio of leaders, Olmert, Livni and Ehud Barak, lack real support from the public to lead, they have succeeded to convince Israelis, getting 90% support, of the necessity of this campaign. Olmert, who has been questioned tens of times by the police, is suspected of receiving bribes and of other wrong doings, was forced to leave office early and to agree to early elections. He declared war on Gaza one and a half months before the elections as a transitional Prime Minister. Nobody knows how Prime Minister Olmert has succeeded to conduct a war given his current status as a Prime Minister under suspicion for taking bribes. Some argue that all the investigations against him were part of a grand deception to show that there is no Prime Minister functioning while at the same time planning the grand strategy of the war. Others argue that the military leadership decided to conduct a war exactly at this moment with a weak transitional Prime Minister. The same can be said about a short sighted Foreign Minister like Tzipi Livni who pushed for the war in order to upgrade her status as an 'Iron Woman' with a military agenda who is capable enough to replace Olmert as the Head of Kadima and as the Prime Minister. We also have to remember that she is competing with Barak who has a security agenda and Benjamin Netanyahu who was Prime Minister from 1996-1999. It seems that by engaging in this war in Gaza she was lacking the global vision of understanding the consequences of this war to her political future and to the image of Israel in the international arena. Currently, her adventure in Gaza will not help her influence the dynamics of the war as to the conclusion that she wants, nor with gaining more votes in the upcoming election. It is quite certain that Tzipi Livni, who could not form a coalition last September, cannot form any coalition after she loses this war. She will be in a no win situation without any possibility of claiming any achievement from this war. Concerning Barak, he started this campaign against the Palestinians in Gaza after he realized that he needed an instrument such as this in order to increase his status as leader of the Labor Party. Barak wants to change the agenda from economic to a security one. He suffers from a low number of projected Knesset seats (9-10) and he decided that this was the moment to upgrade his status as a military leader by conducting a war on Gaza. Barak also wants to compete with Tzipi Livni and Benjamin Netanyahu. In that sense, he discovered that this war is his best opportunity to be "on the map". Barak argues that he wants to change the security environment in Gaza. The consequence of this war will be to bring him more votes among Israelis. He will get temporary support from the Israeli public because this public was very supportive of acting against Gaza. Public opinion was also mobilized and well recruited by the Israeli media. Some experts compared this mobilization and recruitment of public opinion to the radical consensus of Israeli public opinion on the eve of the 1967 war. (Avigdor Kahalany, Kol Yisrael, 10/1/2009). Barak and the military establishment also wanted to implement the lessons learned from the Second Lebanon War, which lacked social cohesion among the public. They are currently working very hard on this social cohesion. The Israeli strategic planners worked on creating a public consensus to support this war. (Avi Benyaha. IDF Spokesperson, Galeh Tzahal, 10/1/2009). The media was also recruited by the IDF and acted as a mediator between the army and Israeli public opinion (one of the lessons of Vinograd). The media was prepared psychologically for the war and also prepared the public for the necessity of this war. In addition to Barak's will to win the elections, he prepared the army to wage a war against Gaza using shock strikes against the civilian facilities and then started a series of air strikes against anything that moved in Gaza. These attacks created hundreds of casualties and thousands of injuries. Barak then continued the second stage by moving ground troops and armored vehicles into the tiny area of Gaza (350 square kilometers). The IDF stopped after fierce fighting with Palestinian fighters at the entrance of the huge refugee camps Jabalya, Beit Lahya, Nuserot, El Shitie, El Zeitouh in North Gaza and at the same time conducted other comprehensive ground attacks in the south near Khan Yunis and Rafach. At the same time the IDF tried to encircle the City of Gaza from two directions. The strategic location of the Israeli ground troops inside the refugee camps and the decision to stay at its location by moving back and forth using a huge amount of bombardments against civilian targets undermined the military operation. Media sources pointed out that Major General Yoav Galant, the Commander of the Southern Command, and General Gaby Ashkenazi, the Chief of Staff, asked the political leadership to decide whether they could invade Gaza and fight in urban areas or withdraw and not have casualties. Some officials pushed for the urban warfare. Major General Yiftach Ron Tal (Channel 10, 12.1.09) proposed to prepare the army for fierce fighting inside Gaza City and criticized the political establishment for not deciding to penetrate Gaza City. However, both Barak and Livni preferred to stop the military campaign in its current stage by claiming that it reached the targeted deterrence against the Hamas and Hezbollah. It implemented the lessons of the Lebanese War and Hamas will not have the courage to strike back with rockets against Israel. However, the excessive use of violence targeted against the civilian population left over 1,350 killed and 5,700 injured. The consequences of this battle and the inability of the IDF to act against guerilla units changed the strategy of the Troika. Suddenly they realized that they needed Egypt for the end of the battle. Without Egypt they could not design any ending for this war. Egypt sacrificed its status in the Arab world in order to do this. PM Olmert, the third partner, had other thoughts of continuing the third stage of the campaign in order to totally demolish the Hamas regime in Gaza according to his understanding. Barak and Tzipi Livni were looking closely at the forthcoming elections on the 10th of February 2009. At the same time Olmert has nothing to lose and could think of continuing the war in Gaza. Consequently, according to the current results of this campaign, it seems that neither Tzipi Livni nor Barak will get any real fruits from this war and it is quite sure that neither of them will win the election on February 10, 2009. Benjamin Netanyahu will fiercely criticize all three leaders who failed to reach the strategic aims of the operation against Gaza. Netanyahu is behaving in all the media interviews with him as the incoming Prime Minister. Barak, even if he gets more seats next election, will not be nominated as Minister of Defense because any incoming coalition will not try to start its business with a minister who will face accusations of war crimes by international circles. Olmert himself has started to realize that he will not get a photo finish victory from this war. Eventually he will try to get any modest commitment from the Egyptians that Hamas will not fire rockets at cities in Southern Israel nor smuggle arms. All in all, the Israeli Troika decided to wage a war, each one with his own political desires and motivations. For Olmert, as he said, it was to change the strategic reality of Israel with Gaza, an aim which coincided with the ideology of Kadima and the Labor Party, which is to eliminate the Hamas regime in Gaza. This policy met with the electoral motivations of Barak and Livni. All three acted in the classical way of adopting a military plan ordered by the security establishment and imposed this plan step by step using aircraft, tanks and special units mainly against civilian targets. In the Arab world, Egypt's decline was very clear as a result of its inability to prevent the Israeli invasion. The Mubarak regime has suffered greatly as a result of this attack and other actions. Egypt, as a neighbor of an Arab entity such as Gaza, had to have used its influence to stop the killing from the beginning. This current situation has created many enemies for the Egyptian regime in the Arab world. Qatar took the lead by initiating an Arab Summit in Doha on 12.1.09. In addition, an Arab Economic Summit took place in Kuwait City. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait argue that the Kuwait Economic Summit will deal with the Gaza War. However, Qatar, Syria, Lebanon and Hamas argue that the Gaza War deserves a summit of its own, not just a debate or a chapter in an economic summit. The Doha Summit will strengthen Syria and Qatar as it is quite certain that they will decide on actions against Israel and all those who cooperate with Israel. This is another regional aspect that Barak and Tzipi Livni did not consider. Internationally, it is not clear to what extent Israel will reach any strategic benefits. However, especially after the OlmertCondoleeza Rice incident, the US will give fewer marks to Israel during the Obama administration. Israel did not respond to Security Council Resolution 1860. It is the first time ever in front of the TV with a military crisis, which is being broadcast live globally, that a state rejected such a resolution. Even the US, which completely supported Israel these past eight years, could not vote with its action in the UN. Israel continues its invasion policy in Gaza as if nothing has happened. In addition, lately, Tzipi Livni, Barak and Olmert have understood their mistake. Olmert conducted a war in the summer of 2006 to free two Israeli hostages. He started an unexplained war against civilians and lost. The Vinograd Commission was appointed and recommended firing him. He refused and continued to make the same mistake on December 23, 2008 in Gaza. Everybody followed his lead and nobody wanted to question him. This war will not reach its strategic aims. The strategic status of Israel will deteriorate and not the opposite. Israel will not reduce the influence and the power of Hamas for several reasons, which I mentioned in this report. The Troika acted with a great miscalculation concerning the targets of this war. It is not sure whether they mobilized the people to this war or whether they were mobilized to conduct this war. The author is a journalist and member of The Arab Council for Foreign Relations. He has contributed this article to The Daily Star.
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