Dr. Bruce Maddy-Weitzman is an Associate Scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is also the Senior Research Fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University and editor of its Tel Aviv Notes. He is an author and editor who has specialized in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Dan Shvartsman: What are the big themes you take out of the Gaza conflict, and the initial days of the aftermath?
Dr. Bruce Maddy-Weitzman: This latest round is over. Just the way the (2nd) Lebanon War ended in summer of 2006, and since then the ceasefire has held almost perfectly, so too in this case I think that it’s fairly likely that we won’t see another round like we just saw any time soon.
What did each side achieve from this? Israel went into this determined not only to end the rocket fire, but to also change the “rules of the game”. That “Hamas shoots rockets, we shoot back,” and this tit-for-tat doesn’t change Hamas’s behavior. Beyond that, I think there was also a general desire for Israel to strengthen its deterrent posture. There was a feeling here that Israel’s deterrent posture over the last years has weakened.
I think a central goal of this operation was to send a clear message to the rest of the region and the world that it wasn’t going to allow an Iranian client-state to develop on its borders.
Hamas turned out to be far weaker than anticipated. In that regard, Israel has significantly improved its deterrent posture. It’s not just that they hit them hard, but also the incorporation of the diplomatic elements. At least on paper, the support for a change in the strategic parameters governing the Gaza area, the support for Israel’s desires is considerable. The French are patrolling off the shores of Gaza, the Americans signed a memorandum of understanding, they’re training Egyptian troops dealing with smuggling, they’re talking about interdicting Iranian ships in the Gulf of Aden.
The Egyptian participation in this sort of Western framework is a gain for Israel as well. It remains to be seen whether this framework will have real teeth and do what it’s supposed to do. So from that regard, one can say that Israel’s achievements in this operation were considerable.
They came at costs, obviously. Israel’s image has been damaged to a considerable extent among public opinion. There’s no question that more hate towards Israel will have been generated by this operation, which doesn’t bode well if you talk about the need for a long-term reconciliation.
You can even suggest the possibility that radical forces might become even stronger, particularly among Palestinians; there’s a possibility of splintering off from Hamas to represent even more Islamist, jihadi, Bin Laden-type radical views, which would make Hamas look like a positively moderate force in comparison.
Dan: How does Hamas come out of this? Read More
