Violence between Palestine and Israel has been erupted again after the last six months of relative calm. Israel on Saturday morning, Dec. 27 launched a massive air raid in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 307 and wound more than 750 people, including high-ranking officers of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, a move that had touched off global condemnation from many countries and world bodies.
About 80 Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) F-16 warplanes and helicopters took part in the Saturday assault and more than 100 bombs were dropped on scores of Hamas compounds, bases and weaponry storage facilities.
Why has Israel taken such brutal actions against Hamas? It has main considerations from three respects, according to critics of Middle East media. First, Israel retaliates against Hamas' rocket attacks against it from Gaza. A truce between Israel and Hamas, or the Palestinian Gaza faction, was brokered by Egypt on June 19, 2008, and Hamas' six-month ceasefire with Israel ended on December 19. So, their conflicts began to flare up. Hamas fired hundreds of rockets into Israeli territory after Dec. 18, and the latter warned that it would strike back hard against Hamas, claimed Israeli military sources.
Second, Israeli airstrike derives from the needs of its domestic politics. Its imminent general elections are scheduled for early 2009, and competitions among Israeli leaders have turned increasingly acute to date. Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials have always accused the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of being weak, and so Olmert has thus come under great pressure, and the latest large-scale air raid in Gaza is ascribed precisely to pressures from all sides. “Tough sacrifices will be required,"Olmert said. Only with a tough stance, would he be able to defeat Likud and other political parties and win the general elections.
Third, Israel has capitalizes on a context of vacancy of power in the U.S. politics, as President George W. Bush is about to end his presidency and President-elect Barack Obama is yet to take office. Israel took the advantage of this special ideal, opportune moment to launch surprise assaults on Hamas. Hence, the Israel security cabinet met and approved IDF massive airstrikes against Hamas' military and political targets on the Gaza Strip in response to homemade rockets attacks carried out by Hamas and other factions' militants on southern Israeli towns and cities in the vicinity of the enclave.
Israel has resorted to its conventional "lightning"operation tactics, and its aircraft bombarded about 50 targets in Gaza and incurred a heavy loss of casualties. In view of real, substantial effect, however, Israel can hardly achieve its objective of annihilating Hamas militants. First of all, such immense casualties are bound to give rise to strong dissatisfaction and widespread condemnations from the international community, and some Arab nations have also called for emergency meetings to discuss the situation. The Arab League (AL) is reported to hold an emergency meeting Wednesday to discuss latest Israeli-Palestinian violence in the Gaza Strip and find out ways and means to cope with the worsening situation.
Secondly, in face of such heavy casualties, Hamas is now more united than ever before, and civilian casualties would fuel more popular support for it. Afterwards, it called its military personnel and supporters to carry out the fiercest and most powerful retaliations against Israel. Hamas members vowed to step up attacks and pay them back in their own coin. “Israel should know that any decision to attack the Gaza Strip will open the gates of hell and we will make you regret your stupidity with tears and blood,"the group's armed wing the Ezzedine-Al-Qassam Brigade said.
Meanwhile, the mainstream Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Al Fatah) has also sided with and voiced their backing to Hamas for the assaults and heavy losses it had endured. The Palestinian interim government declared a three-day mourning period after the Israel raid to grieve for those Palestinians killed in the harshest Israeli airstrike on Gaza since 1967. Of course, what more serious is that things will be out of control if the situation deteriorates. The Palestine and Israel will again be plunged into a vicious circle of violence and the whole Middle-East peace process could then be completely ruined.
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has absolutely been a serious chronic illness in the Middle-East situation, and the latest developments are worrisome however. The use of force cannot dissolve any conflicts at all, as the past practice has time and again proven. At present, the only path of peace is through negotiations and this is truly the only way out for the settlement of all issues.
By People's Daily Online, and its author is PD chief resident reporter in Egypt Huang Peizhao
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