The Israeli media is reporting that the war in Gaza will come to an end during the next 72 hours to allow Egypt to finish brokering an arrangement between Israel, Hamas, and Fatah.

The sources said that the renewed lull will last at least a year, and is expected to last even longer. According to the sources, a “weakened” Hamas will agree to a longer lull in order to recover from the current conflict.

…the agreement is expected to provide an answer to the Israeli demands in terms of the smuggling issue, the rocket fire and a serious discussion on the Shalit issue.

Hamas will gain the reopening of the crossings, the removal of the blockade and an official role at the crossings. Abbas will receive renewed access to the Strip, only at the crossings at first, and Egypt will be able to open the Rafah crossing.

Translation: Hamas comes away from the fight bloodied but able to declare — like Hezbollah — that it survived its encounter with the IDF, and in fact won important concessions.

In the coming months, images of the destruction the IDF has inflicted on Hamas will fade while the strategic fallout from the war comes into stark relief: Hamas will be able to say, with perfect credibility, that it continued firing rockets at Israel — many of them long-range Grads — throughout the war. Almost the entirety of Hamas’ top leadership survived, although the use of the word “survived” is inappropriate because Israel apparently made no attempt to eliminate them: they enjoyed the war from the comfort of bunkers under Shifa hospital in Gaza City, their location known the entire time to the IDF. Most damningly, Hamas’ central goals in the war — holding onto Gilad Shalit, lifting the Israeli blockade, and coercing Israeli and Egyptian acceptance of Hamas’ rule in Gaza — will have been accomplished.

I cannot recall any military power in human history prepared to make so many concessions to an enemy it has routed on the battlefield, or that suspends a military campaign in the midst of its success, rescuing a mortal and implacable enemy from defeat and humiliation. It is hard to envision how Israel will survive as a nation when its political leaders are more afraid of victory than of defeat.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 5:34 PM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.