Israel & Hamas

Monday, 12th January 2009

I thought diplomat Sir Jeremy Greenstock made a forceful impression on the Today programme when he talked about the need to draw Hamas into negotiations. [The interview starts around the 2hr 39 min mark.] Adloyada wasn't so impressed.

Jeffrey Goldberg, who's no enemy of Israel, still has major doubts about the Gaza offensive:

If the goal is to destroy the Hamas government in Gaza, well, this is not something so easily destroyed. I thought Israel learned a lesson from the 1982 Lebanon invasion: You can't inflict political change on your enemies by force. You can defeat your enemies, yes, you can blow up their rocket launchers and destroy their smuggling tunnels, but you can't make them into something they're not. Israeli Military Intelligence seems to understand this better than Prime Minister Olmert

Similar misgvings from Goldberg's Atlantic colleague, James Fallows, who adds this telling quote from strategist Anthony Cordesman:

As we have seen all too clearly from US mistakes, any leader can take a tough stand and claim that tactical gains are a meaningful victory. If this is all that Olmert, Livni, and Barak have for an answer, then they have disgraced themselves and damaged their country and their friends. If there is more, it is time to make such goals public and demonstrate how they can be achieved.