In Gaza, a war with no winners
Gwynne Dyer says both sides are trading lives for political gain
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, said something cryptic last Friday, shortly after the Israelis began their latest round of attacks on the Gaza Strip. Condemning Hamas' conditions for accepting a ceasefire as "exaggerated and unnecessary", he offered his condolences "to the families of the martyrs in Gaza who are fuel to those who trade in war. I oppose these traders, on both sides."
What could he mean by that? Surely he was not suggesting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and the leaders of Hamas, the Islamist organisation that has effective control of the Gaza Strip, have a common interest in perpetuating the current bloodbath for at least a little while longer.
Yes, he was suggesting exactly that, and he was quite right. This is the third "Gaza war" since late 2008 - they come around more often than football world cups - and each one has followed the same pattern. Some Israelis are kidnapped and/or killed, Israel makes mass arrests of Hamas cadres in the West Bank and launches air and missile strikes on the Gaza Strip, Hamas lets the missiles fly, and away we go again.
So why would Netanyahu be willing to launch Israel's third war against the Gaza Strip in eight years? Because the nature of his political alliances with other parties on the Israeli right, and especially with the settler lobby, means that he could not make a peace deal that the Palestinians would accept even if he wanted to (which he probably doesn't).
And his primary excuse for not moving on negotiations has been that Abbas could not deliver peace because he controlled only the West Bank, while the intransigent Hamas ruled the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu knows that Hamas can be battered into temporary quiescence but not destroyed. He also probably realises that if he did manage to destroy Hamas, its place would be taken by a less corrupt and much more extreme Islamist outfit that might really hurt Israel. He is just doing this, with no expectation of victory, because Israeli public opinion demands it.
