By George Friedman
The current confrontation in Gaza began June 12 after three Israeli
teenagers disappeared in the West Bank the month before. Israel
announced the disappearance June 13, shortly thereafter placing blame on
Hamas for the kidnappings. On June 14, Hamas fired three rockets into
the Hof Ashkelon region. This was followed by Israeli attacks on
Palestinians in the Jerusalem region. On July 8, the Israelis announced
Operation Protective Edge and began calling up reservists. Hamas
launched a longer-range rocket at Tel Aviv. Israel then increased its
airstrikes against targets in Gaza.
At this point, it would appear that Israel has deployed sufficient
force to be ready to conduct an incursion into Gaza. However, Israel has
not done so yet. The conflict has consisted of airstrikes and some
special operations forces raids by Israel and rocket launches by Hamas
against targets in Israel.
From a purely military standpoint, the issue has been Hamas's search
for a deterrent to Israeli operations against Gaza. Operation Cast Lead
in late 2008 and early 2009 disrupted Gaza deeply, and Hamas found
itself without any options beyond attempts to impose high casualties on
Israeli forces. But the size of the casualties in Cast Lead did not
prove a deterrent.
Hamas augmented its short-range rocket arsenal with much longer-range
rockets. The latest generation of rockets it has acquired can reach the
population center of Israel: the triangle of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and
Haifa. However, these are rockets, not missiles. That means they have no
guidance system, and their point of impact once launched is a matter of
chance. Given these limits, Hamas hoped having a large number of
rockets of different ranges would create the risk of substantial Israeli
civilian casualties, and that that risk would deter Israel from action
against Gaza.
The threat posed by the rockets was in fact substantial. According to
senior Israeli Air Force officers quoted on the subject, Israel lacked
intelligence on precisely where the rockets were stored and all the
sites from which they might be launched. Gaza is honeycombed with a
complex of tunnels, many quite deep. This limits intelligence. It also
limits the ability of Israeli airborne munitions from penetrating to
their storage area and destroying them.
The Israeli objective is to destroy Hamas' rocket capacity. Israel
ideally would like to do this from the air, but while some can be
destroyed from the air, and from special operations, it appears the
Israelis lack the ability to eliminate the threat. The only solution
would be a large-scale assault on Gaza designed to occupy it such that a
full-scale search for the weapons and their destruction on the ground
would be possible.
Hamas has been firing rockets to convince the Israelis that they have
enough to increase casualties in the triangle if they choose to. The
Israelis must in fact assume that an assault on Gaza would in its
earliest stages result in a massive barrage, especially since Hamas
would be in a "use-it-or-lose-it" position. Hamas hopes this will deter
an Israeli attack.
Thus far, Israel has restrained its attack beyond airstrikes. The
extent to which the fear of massed rocketry was the constraining factor
is not clear. Certainly, the Israelis are concerned that Hamas is better
prepared for an attack than it was during Cast Lead, and that its
ability to use anti-tank missiles against Israel's Merkava tanks and
improvised explosive devices against infantry has evolved. Moreover, the
occupation of Gaza would be costly and complex. It would take perhaps
weeks to search for rockets and in that time, Israeli casualties would
mount. When the political consequences, particularly in Europe, of such
an attack were added to this calculus, the ground component of
Protective Edge was put off.
As mentioned, a major issue for the Israelis is the intelligence
factor. It is said that Iran provided Hamas with these rockets via
smuggling routes through Sudan. It is hard to imagine the route these
weapons would take such that Israeli (and American) intelligence would
not detect them on their thousand-plus mile transit, and that they would
move into Gaza in spite of Israeli and Egyptian hostile watchfulness.
Even if Iran didn't provide the weapons, and someone else did, the same
question would arise.
The failure of the Israelis to detect and interdict the movement of
rockets or rocket parts has an immediate effect on the confidence with
which senior Israeli commanders and political leaders calculate their
course. Therefore, to this point, there has been a stalemate, with what
we assume is a small fraction of Hamas' rockets being fired, and limited
operations against Gaza. The ground operation is being held in check
for now.
While there have been a few public attempts to mediate between Hamas
and Israel, most of these efforts have been lackluster, and the
condemnations of violence and calls for peace have been more perfunctory
than usual. Rather than leaving Egypt as the principle mediator, Turkey
and Qatar have also weighed into the cease-fire discussion. U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry also reportedly contacted Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, offering assistance in mediating a
truce. Meanwhile, high-ranking diplomats from the United States, the
United Kingdom, France and Germany discussed truce efforts on the
sidelines of talks on Iran, and Israel’s government has began mulling a
plan to offer development aid in exchange for a demilitarization of
Gaza.
There is good reason for the slow pace of these cease-fire efforts,
however. As evidenced by Hamas' ability to replenish its rocket supply
through routes traversing Sinai, Israel cannot rely exclusively on Egypt
to uphold a cease-fire agreement -- nor does it trust Qatar and Turkey
to do so. Instead, Israel is attempting to place responsibility for
cease-fire enforcement on its main external patron, the United States.
Of equal importance, Hamas shares a deep distrust of the current regime
in Egypt, given Hamas' past links to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose brief
reign in Egypt ended with a military coup. As these negotiations move
slowly forward, Israel's focus is on trying to degrade Hamas' military
capabilities enough to compensate for the weaknesses implicit in any
cease-fire agreement. But tackling the problem primarily through the air
has limits, and Israel's questionable confidence in its own
intelligence is what has prevented a ground incursion so far.
The problem for Israel in any cease-fire is that it would keep the
current status quo in place. Hamas would retain its rockets, and might
be able to attain more advanced models. Israel was not able to stop the
influx of this load, so Israel can't be confident that it can stop the
next. A cease-fire is a victory for Hamas because they have retained
their rocket force and have the potential to increase it. But for
Israel, if it assumes that it cannot absorb the cost of rooting out all
of the rockets (assuming that is possible) then a cease-fire brings it
some political benefits without having to take too many risks.
At this moment, we know for certain that Israel is bombing Gaza and
has amassed a force sufficient to initiate ground operations but has not
done so. Hamas has not fired a saturation attack, assuming it could,
but has forced Israel to assume that such an attack is possible, and
that its Iron Dome defensive system would be overwhelmed by the numbers.
The next move is Israel's. We can assume there are those in the Israeli
command authority arguing that the Gaza rockets will be fired at some
point, and must be eliminated now, and others arguing that without
better intelligence the likelihood of casualties and of triggering a
saturation launch is too high.
We have no idea who will win the argument, if there is one, but right now, Israel is holding.
