Israel emerged from a week plus of trading bombings for rocket fire with nothing really having changed. The whole game has all the dressing of a planned and purposeful action by Hamas. They knew Israel would not invade the Gaza area with ground troops and that Israeli air strikes would be carefully controlled to minimize civilian casualties. Hamas was calling for a cease fire (on their terms, of course) from the second or third day. The Hamas narrative was also out to the world media from the same time period. It seems the only thing they really wanted was to gt the Arab-Israeli conflict back in the headlines without engaging in negotiations.
Hamas has never, and does not intend in the future, to grant any recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. This is simply not something they are willing to talk about with anyone. Their sole interest is to work on de-legitimizing Israel. Since they are not a democracy, they are not accountable to their own population. They have been successful in bringing the argument back into the world media headlines, but that’s as far as it is going to get.
the “international community” is, once again, going to pay for restoring any damage in Gaza. The Hamas leaders will continue to live the good life at the expense of others. This scenario has repeated itself many times.
I have to add that no Palestinian Arab leader is likely to step up with a plan to move negotiations forward by recognizing Israel. The only one who made a real attempt at that was Isam Sartawi. He was assassinated for his trouble. The same fate came to other, non-Palestinian, leaders who looked for a solution. King Abdullah the First of Jordan and Anwar Sadat of Egypt are outstanding examples. The killing of Bashir Gemayel in Lebanon might have also been a reason why there is no Israeli-Lebanon peace treaty. The repetitive mini-wars will continue until either a real major change occurs in Palestinian politics or enough of the rest of the world gets tired of bribing the Hamas terrorists to keep quiet for a few more years after each outburst.
Wetherhorn 