Look up the word “massacre” in the dictionary. Mine defined it as: “The unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings or animals, as in barbarous warfare or persecution or for revenge or plunder.” In the near future dictionaries will associate this chilling definition with Gaza. In the past few days we have seen a thousand manifestations of Guernica, the Basque town in northern Spain bombed by the German Luftwaffe in 1937 killing hundreds of men, women, children and animals and later immortalized in a daunting painting by the same name by Pablo Picasso. Today a tapestry copy of Picasso’s Guernica is displayed on the wall of the United Nations building in New York City, at the entrance to the Security Council room as a reminder of the horrors of war.

Yet the haunting nature of Israel’s full-scale military onslaught on Gaza, more than a week ago, has redefined our sense of these horrors. Nothing on earth will ever justify the wanton killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in the narrow land strip which the world knows as Gaza. And when the war stops, and it will soon, the world will discover to its shame the true dimension of the human catastrophe that took place there.

From an illegal siege that stretched for months to an aerial bombardment — in which the most lethal weaponry on the planet was used — culminating with a ground attack that spared nothing in the densely populated strip of 1.5 million Palestinians, the majority of them refugees from previous wars, were subjected to unprecedented atrocities in modern times.

Israel’s killing machine could not be reined in, and as diplomacy stumbled, or was intentionally aborted, anger and calls for action swept through world capitals. The show of solidarity with the Palestinians, and in particular with the people of Gaza, was universal in spite of a brittle resolve of governments, especially members of the Security Council.

It would be simplistic to think that this was a showdown between Israel and its nemesis, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas. In a complicated Middle East, with so many overlaying associations and alliances, this was the second phase of another bloody war which took place less than two years ago between US-backed Israel and Iran-supported Hezbollah over Lebanon. That Israeli incursion had been costly to all parties. Nothing suggests that this battle will have a different result.

Israel’s declared objectives are to stop the firing of Palestinian rockets and the imposition of a new security order in Gaza, which it unilaterally vacated three years ago. Hamas, on the other hand, escalated the encounter by refusing to renew a shaky truce with Israel, negotiated by the Egyptians six months ago, unless the Israelis lifted their blockade and opened all land passes into the Strip.

Both sides defended their positions eloquently. But the reality is that Hamas became an Israeli target the minute its candidates won elections in Palestinian National Authority-controlled areas in 2006, thus changing the political formula that governed Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. Some Arab, and Palestinian, parties to the conflict were also peeved by Hamas’ stunning victory and participated, directly or indirectly, in the process of ostracizing the movement in its Gaza base.

The “conspiracy” against Hamas culminated in the Gaza putsch last year, when Fatah and PNA supporters and officials were literally chased out of the Strip. Hamas and its deposed government became the sole governing power in Gaza. From there the road to last week’s war began.

Hamas’ isolation and its knowledge that sooner or later it would have to bear the brunt of Israel’s military firepower, with America’s blessings, drove it into the laps of Syria and Iran. Hezbollah’s astonishing resistance of Israeli attacks in the summer of 2006 inspired its leaders, who sought to replicate the Lebanese party’s experience.

Egypt tried to mediate at different levels, succeeding in efforts to install a rickety hiatus to hostilities between Israel and Hamas earlier this year, and launching futile initiatives to bring Palestinian factions together with the intent of ending the rift and restoring the PNA in Gaza. But Hamas and Fatah had become irreconcilable. Both were under pressure from outside parties. The PNA could not afford to lose American and Israeli support while Hamas’ political leadership in Damascus was trapped in a Syria-Iran axis.

Israel, on the other hand, had a lot to gain by preventing a Palestinian reconciliation. The peace process was going nowhere and it became aware that Hamas was using the truce to acquire short to medium range missiles, probably supplied by Iran and smuggled through a labyrinth network of Sinai tunnels.

Israel could have opted to ease the pressure on Gaza, and prevent a showdown with Hamas. The Palestinian movement had offered a decade-long truce with Israel provided that it was allowed to function in a normal fashion, with border crossings open. That would have meant the recognition of a mini-state in Gaza, autonomous and getting stronger every day. Strategically, Israel would be allowing a precedent, and with its eyes focused on the West Bank, it perceived this as unacceptable.

The triumph of Hamas will mean a victory for the resistance. At a time when Israel and the PNA, along with the majority of Arab governments, continue to back the negotiations path, the Hamas model will prove to be disastrous.

For the PNA, this scenario will spell out its doom. And for the moderate camp in the Arab world it would give Hezbollah and Hamas a hazardous popularity across an already frustrated region. Somehow, with or without Arab collusion with Israel, destroying Hamas now is a strategic goal to maintain almost two decades of Arab-Israeli rapprochement with US patronage.

Ironically, there is no way for Hamas to lose this war. The movement will suffer and so will hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living, or trying to, in the beleaguered Strip. But how would Israel measure its success? Stopping the firing of missiles or crippling Hamas’ control of Gaza will eventually look like a hollow victory.

Israel will have to face the specter of occupying Gaza for a third time in 50 years. Or it will have to hand the Strip over to an unpopular PNA whose credentials with the Palestinians have been stretched to their limit. On the other hand, if Israel loses heart and decides to accept a cease-fire with Hamas then the moderate camp and all those behind it will have to face some dire consequences.

The fact is that more than 60 years after its birth, and about 40 years of occupying Palestinian lands, Israel cannot figure out a working formula that will guarantee its long-term security. This is a nightmare for Israeli leaders. The Gaza massacre has exposed the fragility of the Jewish state. It can only rely on its military to postpone the inevitable. This is not a good strategy to protect the state for another 60 years.

— Osama Al-Sharif is a veteran journalist based in Amman.