Secretary of State John
Kerry's push for a cease-fire in Gaza last week was so flawed it
managed to unite Israel's fractious political leadership in opposition
while simultaneously being lambasted by the Palestinian Authority.
The proposal called for
negotiations on Hamas demands, including opening border crossings into
Gaza and relaxed boating restrictions off the Gaza coast. In addition,
its language reportedly elevated Hamas -- a designated terrorist
organization -- to equal footing with Israel. Then, President Barack
Obama called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday to make "clear the
strategic imperative of instituting an immediate, unconditional
humanitarian cease-fire that ends hostilities now and leads to a
permanent cessation of hostilities based on the November 2012 cease-fire
agreement."
In other words, Obama
demanded that Israel institute an immediate unilateral cease-fire even
while Hamas continues its terrorist operations against Israel. True to
form, Hamas escalated its attacks on Monday.
A mortar attack on the
community of Eshkol near the Gaza border killed four Israeli soldiers
and wounded at least nine others. At the same time, a squad of
heavily-armed Hamas terrorists emerged from a tunnel near Kibbutz Nahal
Oz in an attempt to carry out a mass murder attack, killing five IDF
soldiers. The Israeli military killed one terrorist and was searching
for the rest.
The U.S. response? In
addition to more demands that Israel stop trying to root out the Hamas
terror infrastructure in Gaza, administration officials Monday expressed
anger that the Israelis would leak details of the proposed cease-fire
and criticize Kerry.
This overlooks an
important fact -- Kerry's proposal also angered the Palestinian
Authority, with a senior official telling London-based Saudi newspaper
Asharq Al-Awsat that "Kerry wanted to create a framework that would be
an alternative to the Egyptian initiative and to our concept regarding
it, in order to please Qatar and Turkey." The move would strengthen the
Muslim Brotherhood's stature, the PA official said, "because the
Americans think -- and will be proven wrong -- that moderate political
Islam represented by the Muslim Brotherhood can combat radical Islam..."
In their haste to bring
about an end to the hostilities, U.S. officials have lost perspective
about the conflict and how to prevent the next flare-up. Israel has
acknowledged that the depth and sophistication of the Hamas tunnel
network greatly surpassed previous assessments. Reports suggest that
Hamas was planning to use the tunnels to wage a massive attack involving
200 terrorists against communities neighboring Gaza during the Jewish
high holiday Rosh Hashanah.
Yet U.S. officials continue to pressure Israel, which has accepted five cease-fires. All of them were broken by Hamas.
Reports coming out of
Israel say Kerry's proposal did nothing to help identify and dismantle
Hamas tunnels or strip it of its remaining rocket arsenal. Israel's
security cabinet quickly and unanimously rejected it.
Justice Minister Tzipi
Livni, considered one of the most dovish members of the cabinet, blasted
the proposal as "completely unacceptable" and one that "would
strengthen extremists in the region."
While its specifics
have attracted scant attention in American media, it left Israeli
commentators dumbstruck. The result "is clearly a major crisis in
Israel-U.S. ties at a time when Israel finds itself in the midst of a
complex and costly war," Times of Israel editor David Horovitz wrote
Sunday in a commentary headlined "John Kerry: The betrayal."
An unnamed senior U.S.
official briefed Israeli reporters Sunday night, claiming the proposal
is being misrepresented. "There was no Kerry plan," the official said.
"There was a concept based on the Egyptian cease-fire plans that Israel
had signed off on."
No one else in the
arena seems to agree. The proposal was based on Kerry's consultations
with Qatar and Turkey -- Hamas' two leading patrons -- a move which
angered Palestinian Authority officials and other Arab states for
empowering a terrorist group and excluding them.
"Those who want Qatar
or Turkey to represent them should leave and go live there," PA
President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah group said in a statement that Jerusalem
Post reporter Khaled Abu Toameh wrote was "directed against Hamas."
Kerry's disastrous
idea, giving Hamas a clear diplomatic win at a time it had nothing to
show but devastation for a fight it started, drew perverse praise.
"It takes a certain
artistry to irritate and annoy not only the Israeli Left and the Israeli
Right at the same time, but also both Jerusalem and Ramallah," The
Jerusalem Post's Herb Keinon noted wryly.
"This provided Hamas
with a badly needed tailwind," Keinon wrote. "Sure, they were getting
clobbered, their human shields were dying, but they were getting what
they wanted. The world was talking to them, recognizing their standing
in Gaza, presenting their demands. Why stop, things were going their
way. And, indeed, they didn't stop, and violated three different cease
fires Saturday night and Sunday, including one that they themselves
declared."
As I noted previously,
it was under the terms of the 2012 cease-fire Obama and Kerry are
pushing to restore that Hamas diverted money meant to improve life for
people in Gaza to building its tunnel network and built an arsenal of
10,000 rockets -- each one earmarked for firing on Israeli civilians.
If there are
suggestions for a better way for Israel to unearth the tunnels and to
stop the rocket fire emanating from crammed neighborhoods surrounded by
civilians, by all means, offer them up.
It's safe to assume
that, in the course of invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq, American
forces killed many more civilians than the last three Gaza conflicts
combined. It's a product of war. The difference is there were not
network cameras poised to show the carnage from a drone strike or other
inadvertent killing.
But let's not pretend
that this conflict can be resolved by giving Hamas what it wants. Its
officials may talk about economic suffering among Palestinians in Gaza.
But if the past month has proven anything, it is that the Hamas
leadership cares more about creating Israeli suffering than alleviating
the pain and devastation its actions have brought upon the Palestinians.
The millions of dollars diverted to building tunnels, to importing or
manufacturing rockets, could have done wonders to create infrastructure
and jobs in Gaza. And none of that activity would have generated Israeli
military strikes. But those facts seem to be lost on the mainstream
media which Hamas has handily manipulated to show images of Palestinian
casualties rather than show the civilian hiding places -- like schools,
hospitals, mosques, kindergartens, U.N. centers -- where Hamas has
brazenly stored weapons and from where it has also thousands of launched
rockets and missiles at Israel.
Hamas political leader
Khaled Mashaal made clear what Hamas ultimately desires during an
interview with CBS' Charlie Rose that was aired on "Face the Nation"
Sunday. Rose tried to pin Mashaal down on Hamas' willingness to accept a
two-state solution and coexist peacefully next to a Jewish state.
"Do you want to recognize Israel as a Jewish state?" Rose asked.
"No," Mashaal said.
After a long pause, he added, "I said I do not want to live with a state
of occupiers." To Hamas, as its charter makes clear, all of Israel is
occupied Palestinian land. There can be no peace until Hamas either
gives up on its founding principle to destroy Israel or until it is
removed from power and influence.
Pushing a cease-fire that accentuates Hamas demands could not be more counterproductive.
Kerry may be feeling
some of the sting from all the criticism. In new remarks Monday, he
emphasized the need to disarm Hamas. But he has lost tremendous
credibility with those elements who stand opposed to Hamas and its
benefactors in Qatar and Turkey.
"Jerusalem," writes Horovitz, "now regards him as duplicitous and dangerous."
If he really cares
about generating a lasting peace, his next, best move might be
resignation. As for Obama, he might start to educate himself about
Hamas' horrific murderous actions and agenda before approving a plan
that allows this al-Qaida clone to resurrect itself after being
seriously wounded by defensive Israeli actions.
Steven Emerson is executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, an international counterterrorist institute focusing on the worldwide threat of radical Islam.
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