And suddenly: Quiet. No Qassams. No mortar shells. The tanks are not rolling. The aircraft are not bombing. In Sderot, sighs of relief. Children venture out. Inhabitants who have exiled themselves to other towns return home. And the reaction? An outburst of jubilation? Not at all. The expression on Israel’s face is a grimace of disgust. Why? What causes this almost unanimous reaction of disappointment? It’s because the national ego is hurt. How wonderful it would have been to see the Israeli Army in Gaza destroying Hamas, together with the entire city.
From the military point of view, a year of war in the Gaza Strip has ended in a draw. IDF-Hamas 1:1. Hamas is an armed political-religious movement, what is termed in current Western parlance “a terrorist organization”. When such an organization achieves a draw with one of the mightiest armies in the world, it can justifiably claim victory. The aim of Olmert’s war was to topple the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip and to destroy the organization itself. This has not been attained. On the contrary, according to all reports, Hamas is stronger than ever.
For a year, the Israeli government has maintained a total blockade of the Strip — on land, at sea and in the air. It has enjoyed the unqualified support of Europe, which assisted in starving a population of one and a half million men and women, children and old people. The US was, of course, a full partner in this glorious enterprise. Egypt, dependent on the US, collaborated, if unwillingly.
Hamas has survived, but it, too, did not achieve its aim. It had no answer to the blockade. Only the pressure of international public opinion (as well as the Israeli peace forces) prevented total starvation. That is the nature of a draw: Neither of the two sides is able to force a decision and impose its will on its opponent.
A cease-fire only comes about when both sides need it. Indeed, the Israeli Army needed the cease-fire no less than Hamas. The cease-fire has far-reaching political implications. This is an agreement between the Government of Israel and the Gaza authorities. It means a de facto recognition of the Hamas government there. In the eyes of the Palestinians, the situation is clear: Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah has not got anything from the Israelis, Hamas has. In the coming prisoner exchange, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners will be released in return for the captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit.
If I were a Palestinian, what conclusion would I draw?
The cease-fire affects the balance of power within the Palestinian people. Hamas has proved that it can maintain an orderly government. Now it is proving that it can control the radical organizations, too. The wisest thing Mahmoud Abbas can do now is to form a unity government, based on both Hamas and Fatah.
Will the cease-fire hold? The correspondents report that nobody expects it to. Every agreement holds only as long as both sides believe that it serves their interests. If one of them thinks otherwise, it will break it (and assert that the other side broke it first). In this case, the first to break it will most likely be the Israeli side.
A cease-fire is not peace and not even an armistice or truce. It is no more than an agreement between combatants to stop shooting for some time. In the nature of things, each side will use the cease-fire to prepare for the next round of fighting — to breathe deeply, to rest, to train, to plan, to obtain more advanced weapons.
But the cease-fire can become more than that. It can lead to Palestinian unity, to Israeli rethinking, to a practical advance toward a peaceful solution. At the very least, every day of the cease-fire saves human lives.
And in the meantime the Hebrew and the international dictionaries have acquired another Arabic word: Tahdiyeh, calm.
