Diplomacy takes back seat

By Paul Reynolds
World affairs correspondent, BBC News website

Palestinian medical officials say some 370 people have died in the air strikes

Diplomacy has taken a back seat to military action after a brief flurry in which Israel considered but rejected a 48-hour ceasefire.

Israeli ministers decided it was not the basis for a lasting arrangement and would give Hamas a chance to regroup.

So the Israeli attacks have gone on, with the prospect of ground operations getting closer. The targets have been very extensive, and have even included mosques, in which, the Israelis say, weapons were being stored.

But some targets might not be easily attacked from the air, so the ground option is being prepared. It is not expected to be a re-occupation but it is expected to be a powerful incursion.

Rockets

At the same time, Hamas is continuing to fire rockets into Israel. As long as it does so, the Israeli attacks will continue, as the stopping of these rockets is the main operational aim of the Israeli campaign, known as Operation Cast Lead.

The rockets include some newer longer-range ones based on the old Soviet Grad, also known as the Katyusha. There are reports that Hamas managed to smuggle in some Chinese-manufactured ones from Egypt, but it has also been working on its own rocket technology. Such rockets represent a significantly greater threat to Israel and Beersheba, 40 km (24 miles) from Gaza has been hit, with a school, prudently evacuated in advance, badly damaged.

Split

The 48-hour plan did appear to split the Israeli leadership to an extent, foreshadowing perhaps arguments in future about when to wind down this assault. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni were reportedly opposed to it from the start but Defence Minister Ehud Barak (who had previously been speaking of a "war to the end") was inclined to examine it.

In the event they agreed to carry on with the attack but the issue of how a ceasefire might operate and the conditions that might be attached to it are now in the open.

Attention will turn in due course to seeing if those conditions can be met. At what stage might Israel consider that it has done enough in order to convert whatever military success it has had into a long-term arrangement?

Hamas is already saying that it will demand the full re-opening of the border crossings and an end to the economic squeeze that Israel had imposed in Gaza. So the negotiating lines are being drawn up.

The UN Security Council is also involved, though at this stage it is divided between those, led by Libya which want Israel to be told to stop and those, like the US and UK, who want a resolution to include a demand for Hamas to stop as well.

Commitment sought

The key issue seems to be whether Hamas can be persuaded to give a commitment that a new ceasefire would be permanent. It might also have to agree to stop arms smuggling, a potentially impossible condition for it to accept.

Israel could then argue at the end of all this that its actions had materially changed the nature of the Gaza confrontation and that it had been able to re-impose the ceasefire, which Hamas ended, on its terms.

However, it would leave Hamas in control of Gaza, for damage done to the Hamas organisation can be repaired quite quickly. Gone would be the Israeli hopes of destroying Hamas as a viable military force.

Gone, too, for the moment, would be the Israeli strategic intention of getting Gaza back in the hands of the Palestinian Authority, whose forces control the Palestinian areas of the West Bank and whose leaders are negotiating with Israel about a peace settlement.

It must always be remembered that the Israelis took 30 years to turn the Palestine Liberation Organisation from an enemy into a negotiating partner so this operation in Gaza, however large, is unlikely to achieve the same with Hamas in one go.

[e-mail]