The scale of Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip, and the almost daily reports of war crimes over the last three weeks, has drawn criticism from even longstanding friends and sympathizers.

Despite a mass of evidence that includes Israel’s targets in Operation Cast Lead, much of the analysis offered by politicians or commentators has been disappointingly limited, and characterized by false assumptions, or misplaced emphases, about Israel’s motivations.

First, to what this war on Gaza is not about: It’s not about the rockets.

Second, the current operation is only in a limited sense related to both the upcoming Israeli elections and restoring the IDF’s so-called deterrence.

Israel has been deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians and the very infrastructure of normal life, in order to teach the natives a lesson. Some 15 percent of all buildings in the Gaza Strip were completely destroyed or collapsed and there is an estimated $1.4 billion worth of destruction to vital civil infrastructure

Much of this is widely known, and easily accessible; yet still the analytical emphasis has remained on Palestinian rockets, Israeli elections, and deterrence. I would like to suggest three alternative purposes for Israel’s Operation Cast Lead that go beyond the usual perspectives, and presuming with Yale professor David Bromwich that “if Israel in 2009 reduces to rubble a large portion of the Gaza Strip and leaves tens of thousands homeless, there is a strong chance that this was what it intended to do”.

The first aim is to humiliate and weaken Hamas, because it had withstood isolation, a siege, mass arrests, and an attempted Western-backed coup. Moreover, cracks were appearing in the international community’s resolve to parrot Israel’s line on Hamas.

Back in December, before both the end of the six-month truce and the start of Operation Cast Lead, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni stated that an extended truce “harms the Israel strategic goal, empowers Hamas, and gives the impression that Israel recognizes the movement”. By the end of the month, Livni would be telling a press conference that “Hamas wants to gain legitimacy from the international community” and stressing that it is “important to keep Hamas from becoming a legitimate organization” (apparently winning a democratic election isn’t enough to confer legitimacy).

Just as Israel chose “blood over diplomacy” in order to avoid enhancing “Hamas’ image as a responsible interlocutor”, so Israel chose a unilateral cease-fire for the same reason, “hoping to send the message that Hamas is not a legitimate actor”.

Hence Israel decided to shortcut the Egyptian-driven efforts at securing a cease-fire, and opt for a unilateral approach that allows Israel, the US, Egypt, Mahmoud Abbas, Britain — in fact, every interested party, except the Gaza Strip authorities — to work together on an apparent solution.

The second aim of Israel’s war is to teach a lesson to the Palestinians in Gaza, and elsewhere, that the only way to avoid the wrath of the Israeli military is to accept Israel’s idea of a two-state solution, a generous concession to be gratefully received by Abbas and fellow moderates. It is a reflection of the approach outlined by the IDF chief of staff, Moshe Ya’alon, in 2002 that “the Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people”.

On Jan. 4, Israeli President Shimon Peres said that Hamas needed “a real and serious lesson”. The next day, the Washington Post described how Israeli officials were hoping that the attacks would mean “that Gazans become disgusted with Hamas and drive the group from power”.

Deliberately targeting civilians and vital infrastructure for political purposes links smoothly, into the post-conflict phase, with the Israeli and US plan to try and rescue the deeply discredited image of the Palestinian Authority through a politicized reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.

The third aim of Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip is to further “catastrophize” the territory, reducing the capacity for continued existence to the barest of minimums.

Yes, Israel seeks to turn the Gaza Strip into a depoliticized humanitarian crisis.

All three of these Israeli aims — to delegitimize and sideline Hamas, to persuade Palestinians to give up their resistance and to shirk responsibility for a shattered Gaza Strip — require the deliberate commission of war crimes and gross human rights abuses. As time will tell, they are also doomed to fail.