By EHUD YA’ARIehud224(photo credit: )Column from Issue 16, November 24, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Reportclick here.
The truce between Israel and Hamas is
due to come to an end in December. It is already abundantly clear that both sides are interested in prolonging the quiet in and around the Gaza Strip for another protracted period. Messages to this effect, according to several reports, have already been conveyed to the Egyptian government, which brokered the agreement that has been in effect since last June.
There's no need to explain the advantages of the truce, which gave the town of Sderot and other communities in the area between Ashkelon and Netivot a respite during which they could return to normal life. And it will, of course, be very convenient for the government in Jerusalem to extend this situation and not have to contend with more volleys of Qassam and Grad rockets. The political instinct, and not just in election season, is not to rock the boat and not to undermine the cease-fire.
However, this tahadiyeh, to give it its Arabic name, also has not a few disadvantages. First and foremost, it eases the pressure on the Hamas rule in Gaza, allowing it to consolidate and to step up its military buildup at an unprecedented rate and scale. It was not for nothing that Hamas strove with all its might to achieve the truce, flying in the face of its own "constant resistance" rhetoric, and it is not by chance that it is doing all it can to strictly observe its terms.
In the defense establishment, voices have been raised warning against a renewal of the truce, in particular those of the head of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), Yuval Diskin, and the head of the army's Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant, the two men directly in charge of handling the Hamas threat. Both believe that a prolonged truce will ultimately lead to a dramatic upsurge in the dangers lurking in the Gaza Strip. A high price will be paid tomorrow for the benefit of quiet in Sderot today, they believe.
Indeed, Hamas is hard at work bolstering its power in the Strip: 25,000 armed men, organized in territorial battalions and brigades. They are building tank-hunting units and even an anti-aircraft unit, as yet armed only with shoulder-fired missiles and light cannons. Across the Strip, a complex network of bunkers and tunnels is under construction, and innumerable booby-traps and explosive devices have been prepared to greet the Israeli forces when hostilities are resumed. Thanks to the some 800 tunnels between the Strip and Egypt in the Rafah area, Hamas has a large stock of Grad missiles with a range that could perhaps reach Ofakim, or the outskirts of Kiryat Gat, and they have the capability of maintaining a constant barrage of Qassam rockets and mortar shells.
Israel's best option today is to present its own terms - even publicly - for the renewal of the truce. On the assumption that Hamas is eager to see the cease-fire prolonged - and this an assumption that no one disagrees with - Israel should set its price for doing so, and to start negotiating anew through the Egyptians. Hamas will be furious, but will have to play the bargaining game.
The conditions that Israel should insist upon are:
• An immediate conclusion to the deal for the release of the abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, at tolerable terms. The reasoning is simple: All Israeli security agencies believe that maintaining the truce only makes the Shalit release ever more remote, because Hamas is not interested in giving up this bargaining card. It is possible, however, that in order to preserve the tahadiyeh, Hamas will agree to reduce its demands about the numbers, and especially the identities, of the prisoners that Israel will have to free in the exchange. Israel could agree to release a considerable number of the "hard cases" (those with "blood on their hands") on the Hamas list, on condition that they go to Gaza or abroad, but in no circumstances to the West Bank, where they will constitute a threat of rebuilding terrorist networks, as has happened when such "hard cases" were released in the past.
• The imposition of restrictions on military activity by Hamas, such as stopping the positioning of armed units in the border fence zone and near crossing points, including that at Rafah and the testing of rockets and missiles (which Hamas needs to do to increase ranges and payloads).
• No less important is excluding from a renewed truce agreement any restrictions on Israel acting against the Rafah border tunnels, in parallel with the semi-successful Egyptian activity on their side of the border, with the help of American engineering advisers.
Instead of waiting for Hamas to raise, as is anticipated, its demands for relaxing the blockade on the Strip as an ostensible precondition for its agreement to prolonging the truce, it would be better for Ehud Olmert's transitional government to take the initiative and make it clear that Israel is ready to give up on the tahadiyeh, if renewing it means endangering Israel in the future. •
Column from Issue 16, November 24, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Reportclick here.
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