This Time, a Different Kind of War Between Israel and Hamas
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Version 0 of 1. THE collapse of a 72-hour cease-fire in the Gaza fighting only two hours after it began marked a new phase in the violence, as the reported capture of an Israeli officer by Hamas gave the Palestinian militants a powerful bargaining lever and fired an all-out effort by Israel to get its soldier back. One of Israel’s cardinal principles is to do everything possible to secure the release of any captured Israeli. The last Israeli soldier to be captured by Hamas, Gilad Shalit, was freed after more than five years of captivity in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian and other prisoners. The latest development added to the maze of political struggles around the Gaza fighting — among Arabs, among American factions, between Israel and Washington — that had already severely constrained Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts to mediate a cease-fire. In other major developments of the past week, the C.I.A.’s inspector general found that C.I.A. officers had hacked computers of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The internal report confirmed charges leveled by Senator Dianne Feinstein last March, prompting a furious outcry from many senators on both sides of the divide. On the Ukrainian front, Russia began to take stock of serious economic sanctions against its banking, energy and military sectors ordered by the European Union and the United States. Though long reluctant to take action that would hurt their own economies, the Europeans were galvanized into action by Russia’s cynical response to the downing of a Malaysian jet by the secessionist rebels the Kremlin actively supports in eastern Ukraine. A New Calculus This miniwar between Israel and Hamas is very different from previous ones. A central difference is in the way the “Arab spring” has altered the political calculations of the Arab states and their feelings toward Hamas. Egypt, now back under military rulers hostile to Islamists, along with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf autocracies, have not-so-secretly welcomed Israel’s campaign to crush Hamas. That has reduced the ranks of mediators Washington can draw on to lean on the Islamic militants. Mahmoud Abbas, the leader in the West Bank, has little sway over Hamas, despite a purported political alliance formed in April; the United Nations, which joined Washington in seeking a cease-fire, has no credibility with Israel after decades of lopsided votes against the Jewish state. So Mr. Kerry has been compelled to work through Qatar and Turkey, two states that can still communicate with Hamas. But Hamas itself has no urgent reason to end the fighting. As in the past, the huge toll in civilian lives, along with the tragic strikes on schools, beaches and homes, have roused an international outcry against Israel. Hamas evidently believes that sustaining the fighting can eventually rouse enough international pressure on Israel to compel it to open Gaza and release Palestinian prisoners. Israel, for its part, appears convinced that it can crush, or at least severely weaken, Hamas through sanctions and force. Though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reluctant to order an incursion into Gaza, since it began he has been intent on continuing long enough to destroy Hamas tunnels and rockets and batter the Hamas leadership. The Israelis, moreover, have succeeded in sharply blunting Hamas’s rockets with the Iron Dome missile defense system, which has intercepted a number of rockets headed for population centers. It is also no secret that Mr. Netanyahu and President Obama have strained relations, and Mr. Kerry’s mediating efforts have been sharply assailed in Washington for pressing Israel to end its attack. The best Mr. Kerry was able to achieve against these obstacles was a 72-hour cease-fire. Now that has collapsed, and if Second Lt. Hadar Goldin is indeed in the hands of Hamas, it is even more difficult to see how the bloodshed can be stopped. Spy vs. Senator The acknowledgment by the C.I.A. that its officers had in fact snooped on the computers of a Senate committee investigating the C.I.A.’s controversial “enhanced interrogation” and secret-prisons program under the George W. Bush administration further escalated the feud between Congress and the spy agency. It also led to demands for the ouster of the agency’s director, John O. Brennan. At the heart of the long-running dispute is a 6,000-page report by the Senate Intelligence Committee that is still classified. But it is known that the report is highly critical of the secret program, and a 600-page summary of the report that is in the process of being declassified is said to conclude that the C.I.A.’s use of methods like waterboarding after 9/11 failed to produce any significant information. The investigation was stormy from the outset, with Republicans withdrawing from the investigation and the C.I.A. disputing many findings. Last March, Senator Feinstein publicly lashed out at the C.I.A. over its monitoring of her committee’s investigators. On Thursday, the C.I.A. effectively vindicated her when the agency’s inspector general, David B. Buckley, said his investigation found that five agency members “improperly accessed or caused access” to a computer network used by the committee staff. Mr. Brennan apologized to Senator Feinstein and the ranking Republican on the committee, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia. But that was not enough to dispel the anger among lawmakers, who viewed the snooping as a major violation of the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches. A footnote on the spy front: Edward J. Snowden’s one-year temporary political asylum in Russia ran out on Thursday, and there was no confirmation that it was being extended. Sanctions Galore On the Ukrainian front, the announcement of stern new sanctions on Tuesday by the European Union and the United States was followed by defiant declarations from Moscow and more fighting in eastern Ukraine. But international inspectors were finally able to reach the site of the Malaysian jetliner that was shot down on July 17. While insisting that the European Union and American sanctions would not hurt Russia, Moscow contributed to its own sanctions on Ukraine, adding fruit juice to the list of Ukrainian products banned from Russia. A Russian official said sunflower seeds, sunflower oil, soybeans and cornmeal were next on the list. |