Gaping holes in Israel’s ability to crush Hamas

Vappala Balachandran

Ex-Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat

The present Israeli-Palestinian war was anticipated in April 2015 by Moshe Ma’oz, a leading Israeli academic, in a Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung paper. The clash so far has claimed 130 lives, mostly civilians on the fifth day (122 Palestinians, including 31 children and eight Israelis).

Yet, leading powers like the US and Germany are only speaking about the “Israeli right for self-defence”. Only the United Nations and the global media are highlighting the war’s disastrous effects on Palestinian children.

Additionally, serious communal riots have broken out within Israel due to the factors mentioned by Ma’oz, Professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He had warned of the possibility of serious clashes between Jews and Palestinians on the issues connected with the Temple Mount/Al-Haram Al-Sharif (Al Aqsa) and the East Jerusalem/Al-Quds Al-Sharif. He had feared that this would spiral out of control, far beyond East Jerusalem.

For this, he had blamed right wing leaders, especially Benjamin Netanyahu, for flagging emotive issues like the Jewish sanctity of the Temple Mount for political reasons and on the inability of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas in controlling the fears of his people on the alleged Jewish intentions to destroy the holy Al-Aqsa mosque.

Ma’oz had said that the Zionist-Jewish campaign which began in the late 19th century had also included purchasing Arab lands in Palestine and thus, indirectly, evicting Arab peasants. This trend was exploited by Hajj Amin Al-Husayni, the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who was the first to allege that the Jews were conspiring to destroy the Temple Mount mosques and rebuild their ancient Solomon temple of 957 BCE.

All these factors had vitiated the atmosphere and had led to the 1929 riots which started at the Western Wall and spread throughout Palestine, killing more than 300 people. On the other hand, moderate voices in both communities wanted only peaceful coexistence. Moderate Jews only demanded to control the Western Wall as a historical national symbol.

The 1936-37 “Palestine Royal Commission”, led by Lord William Robert Peel, grandson of the legendary creator of “Bobbies” had recommended that Palestine should be divided into three areas: one for Arabs, another for Jews and a neutral territory, including Jerusalem, under British control as “holy territories” for the three religions.

The United Nations Resolution 181 passed by the UN General Assembly in 1947, which was accepted by the Jewish leadership followed this principle of dividing Palestine into three areas: Arab and Jewish states and the city of Jerusalem declared as a corpus separatum (Latin for “separate entity”) to be governed by a special international regime. The UN map shows these three areas in different colours.

In 1948, Jordan captured the eastern portion of the city of Muslim Jerusalem during the Arab-Israeli War. Under the Jordanian regime, Jews were barred from entering the Old City till June 10, 1967 when Gen Yitzhak Rabin (later Prime Minister) captured it during the Six-Day War, allowing Israel’s control of the Al-Aqsa compound.

There are three immediate reasons for the present crisis: It started with daily clashes for nearly a month between the Israeli police and Ramzan worshippers while controlling some of Palestinian gatherings outside Al-Aqsa. Unfortunately, this coincided with the efforts of Zionist “nationalists” to celebrate “Yom Yerushalayim” (Jerusalem Day) on May 9-10 when East Jerusalem was captured by Israel in 1967.

Another reason was the recent ruling by a Jerusalem district court evicting several Palestinian families living for years in the Sheik Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem which were claimed to have been purchased originally by the Jews before 1947. The matter is now before the Supreme Court which has delayed hearing that case. This has severely agitated the Palestinians who feel that the Jews are now evicting Muslims even from East Jerusalem.

Hamas elevated the tension from May 10 onwards through rocket attacks on Israel in support of the 300 Arabs who were alleged to have been injured during clashes with Israeli police and right-wing “nationalists” outside Al-Aqsa.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) responded by missile attacks on pinpointed targets claimed to be Hamas military and intelligence centres. The IDF has now massed ground troops for action if necessary.

Israel had tried the same strategy in 2009 and 2014, but failed. The Guardian (UK) said that Hamas had fired 8,500 rockets into Israel in 2009 and Israel retaliated with an air strike every 20 minutes. During the 2014 war, Hamas fired 4,000 rockets into Israel. On both occasions, Israel could not locate where the Hamas had stored its rockets. Instead, they bombed apartment complexes and police stations.

The New York Times (May 13, 2021) reported that Israel believes that Hamas has about “30,000 rockets and mortar projectiles stashed in Gaza.” The question is why is Israel not able to detect where Hamas stores such rockets? Is it not better to bomb those targets instead of causing civilian deaths?

There are many reasons for this, including misjudgement and capability. On January 1, 2009, famous pianist-conductor Daniel Barenboim wrote an Op-ed piece in The Guardian (UK) that Israel had encouraged Hamas to weaken Yasser Arafat. Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman confirms this by quoting former Chief of AMAN (military intelligence) Amnon Lipkin-Shahak: “In a certain sense, the Shin Bet grew the jihadist.”

In 2011, Prime Minister Netanyahu was forced to order the humiliating “Gilad Shalit” exchange in which a lone Israeli soldier, kept hostage by Hamas since 2006, was exchanged for 1,027 Hamas prisoners. This was because Israeli intelligence agencies, despite their legendary technical prowess, could not locate Shalit, although Gaza is only 365 square kilometre in area (one-fourth of Delhi’s area).

Bergman quotes another instance of 1992 how a wrong decision by the IDF chief Ehud Barak (later Prime Minister) to clandestinely expel top 200 Hamas operatives to Lebanon in December 1992 had paved the way for Hamas getting closer to Shia extremist group Hezbollah and then to Iran for rocket technology.

These examples would indicate gaping holes in Israeli capability of vanquishing a diehard enemy like Hamas. As a result, innocent civilians are suffering. 

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.