Removing Hamas is the only solution

For decades, Israel's history shows a general pattern: its neighbours attack, Israel responds, Israel wins the war, and the world rushes to ensure that its victory is limited or nullified. If, as sometimes happens, the diplomatic process really improves the situation and provides progress for peace that, of course, is beneficial.

Yet Israel's experience has shown that international promises made in return for its material concessions are often broken.

In order to resolve this crisis, the international community must co-operate in the removal of the Hamas regime. It is an illegal government, brought to power by an unprovoked war against the Palestinian Authority (PA), which was the internationally recognised regime in the Gaza Strip. Hamas may have won the elections but it then seized total power, suspended representative government, and destroyed the opposition.

Moreover, Hamas is a radical terrorist group that openly uses anti-Semitic rhetoric and actively seeks to wipe Israel off the map.

From a strategic standpoint, Hamas is a member of the Iran-Syria alliance that seeks to overthrow every Arab regime in the Middle East and replace it with an anti-Western, war-oriented, radical Islamist dictatorship. Hamas' survival is a threat to both Western interests and to those of Arab nationalist regimes. Keeping Hamas in power is equivalent to an energetic Western diplomatic effort to have kept the Taliban regime in power in Afghanistan, despite its role in the September 11 attacks.

If, however, the world is not going to support Hamas' fall from office, Israel cannot bring about this result by itself. At the same time, the world will be making a big mistake if it pushes for a ceasefire at any price, thus encouraging future violence and terrorism, not only in Gaza but in the region generally. What then are Israel's options?

Two possible outcomes are rejected: Israel will not take control of the Gaza Strip again, and Israel will not accept a return to the previous situation in which Hamas repeatedly attacked Israel under cover of a ceasefire.

There are at least six major things Israel can obtain realistically:

■The practical weakening of Hamas. It will continue to be aggressive in future but its losses will reduce Hamas' ability to hurt Israeli citizens.

■Deterrence: While retaining its longer-term goals, Hamas will be more reluctant to attack Israel lest it produce another such Israeli response.

■Border control: A change from the situation in which Hamas can import weapons fairly freely to a stricter order in which humanitarian aid but not arms can come in.

■The return of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, seized in a Hamas attack on Israeli soil and held hostage without contact with international humanitarian groups.

■A reduction of Hamas' standing among Palestinians. Despite macho and religious rhetoric about Hamas' strength, many Gazan Palestinians are eager for a return of the Palestinian Authority.

■Regional perception of Hamas' defeat will lessen support for the Iran-Syria alliance and encourage more moderate Arab forces to resist radical Islam and Tehran's power.

But Israel also knows that such a program might not work entirely, for at least three reasons: Hamas will not change and so will break any agreement; the international community is weak and has a tendency to try to avoid trouble by appeasing extremists; Egypt — even when well-intentioned — is not particularly efficient at controlling the border.

Thus, Hamas will return to building up its forces for future confrontations, teaching a whole generation that it should prepare to sacrifice itself to achieve a "final solution" of the Israel problem. In short, any outcome that leaves Hamas in place is at best a lull until the next round.

It is quite possible that within days or weeks of any agreement, Hamas — partly to prove to itself and others how it remains unbowed — will return to firing rockets and mortar rounds into Israel as well as trying to carry out terrorist attacks across the border. In that case, Israel will have to respond much more seriously than it has in the past. A world that guarantees the ceasefire had better be prepared to remember Israel's legitimate interests in enforcing it.

Finally, as long as Hamas survives as rulers of the Gaza Strip, it will be impossible to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinian Authority will be too intimidated to make compromises and so cannot even help its own people. There can be no Palestinian state with half the territory being controlled by an organisation that will never accept an agreement and will do everything possible to wreck it.

Pushing for a ceasefire at any price is a short-sighted policy for the international community — and this will be paid for in future. If the Gaza war is going to be ended, it should be within the framework of solving the problems that allowed Hamas to create the war in the first place.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs Centre and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal.

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/removing-hamas-is-the-only-solution-20090108-7ctt.html