By Ira Sharkansky
JERUSALEM — It’s been a tough time on Israel’s southern border.
Gaza is a slim slice of land on Israel’s and Egypt’s borders.
If Israel is small, about the size of New Jersey, Gaza is tiny, about 11.5 percent of Rhode Island’s size, with perhaps 2 million of population, about twice the number of Rhode Island’s.
Its statistics show it to be similar to some of the poorer African countries, but insofar as it is alongside Israel, the contrast is sharp.
Critics refer to it as a prison, kept closed by Israel. Yet they overlook that Egypt also has closed its border with Gaza.
Israel is Gaza’s principle supplier of fuel and consumer goods, and Israeli currency is what circulates there.
At one time Gazans could enter Israel in order to work, but that opportunity has been closed for years.
Hamas controls what is the Gazan government, and is sharply at odds with the Fatah government in the West Bank. Hamas policy, and that of several smaller organizations even more extreme, is committed to Israel’s destruction.
Surveys show local opposition to Hamas, but who can do anything about it?
Since Israel’s withdrawal of settlements in 2005 there have been several upticks in violence. There were major incursions with ground troops in 2008 and 2014. Since then there have been periods of rocket attacks from Gaza and IDF air strikes, the most recent a week ago.
Estimates are that Gazans have thousands of missiles, most of them home made without means of guidance. A fair number do not make it out of Gaza when fired. Most others land in empty fields. Some of the hundreds fired during the last go-around landed on houses or cars. Four Israelis died and several dozen were injured, some seriously. While most damage was close to Gaza, rockets fell in Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Beer Sheva.
Israel’s responses included numerous air attacks, and escalated from previous encounters to include the destruction of multi-storied buildings and targeted killings.
Several events were in the background of calculations. Ramadan on the Gazan side, and Memorial Day then Independence Day and a week after the Eurovision song contest in Israel.
A cease fire was arranged, mainly by Egyptian pressures on Gazan, two days after the onset of violence.
Calculations are difficult. While some Israelis call for an invasion and conquest, the counter is why? To control 2 million restive Palestinians at a continuing cost of Israeli casualties?
Since 2014 Israel has refrained from an extensive ground operation, seemingly wary of the human cost for minimum benefits.
Argument continues, generally with critics demanding more forceful responses. Many urge a political solution. But that is difficult to conceive against the rhetoric of Hamas and Jihad.
Providing sea and airports, even with some degree of Israeli control, and developing Gaza, to the point where it would have much more to lose in opening violence, comes up against the antagonism expressed by Gaza’s leaders.
Are we destined for a period of occasional violence and then quiet? Or near quiet? Providing enough fuel and consumer goods to keep some semblance of satisfaction, with or without opportunities for the movement of population outward?
Currently Israel faces four insoluble problems: Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria.
They differ sharply in detail, even while all are marked by the need to cope, without exaggerating Israel’s actions.
The West Bank seems easiest. There’s a tense peace. The Palestinian political leadership is antagonistic to Israel, but gets along with it in practice. More than 100,000 West Bank Palestinians work daily in Israel, there are other visits for medical care and religious purposes, and living standards are decent. Israelis enter the West Bank for shopping. There are numerous settlements sharing roads with Palestinians. Often there is violence on these roads. Polls show considerable disagreement of the Palestinian people with their political leadership, which is old, sick, and crumbling, but internationally recognized.
Lebanon appears stable, but with a substantial sector of Hezbollah equipped with thousands of missiles, active in Syria and threatening to Israel. Yet it’s been largely quiet toward Israel since the Second Lebanese War of 2006. Guesses are that Lebanon as well as Israel have a lot to lose in the case of overt violence.
Some would improve Gaza to Lebanon’s situation, perhaps with sea and airports, so Hamas would have more to lose from violence. It may only be a matter of taking a chance, in the hope that there is enough rationale in Gaza so that it would work.
Syria’s civil war may be winding down, but still has points of tension involving Kurds, Turkey, the Assad government, Iran, Hezbollah and Russia, as well as occasional attacks by Israel on Iranian and Hezbollah facilities.
Gaza is Israel’s most pressing problem, with international actors pretty much ignoring Egypt’s role in closing its border.
Involved here is intense dispute between the Hamas and Jihad leaderships and that running the West Bank, as well as the intensity of animosity toward Israel. Tensions are persistent, marked for the last year by weekend marches by masses near the border and occasional injuries and deaths from Israeli sniper fire, as well as kites and balloons with incendiary devices sent toward Israeli fields.
Israel’s provision of supplies and allowance of Gazan fishing have been cut and restored, and the provision of financial aid from Qatar allowed and prohibited in response to Gazan missiles.
Israel’s antagonists, including the West Bank leadership, refer to Gaza as an Israeli prison, while overlooking Egypt’s closure and the West Bank’s opposition to any aid for the Hamas leadership.
There’s also a charge that Israel maintains Gaza in a state of suspension, keeping it alive in competition with the West Bank as a way of avoiding a settlement of the Palestinian issue.
Israeli and Palestinian security forces sometimes cooperate in the elimination of Hamas operatives in the West Bank.
There may be nothing that Israel can do with the Hamas and Jihad combine, financed and encouraged partly by Iran, except to keep it under control, without expanding operations designed to remove it, and replace it with who knows what.
Thousands protested near the border to mark the Nakba, or Palestinian catastrophe. There was one Palestinian killed and nearly 50 injured. But Hamas seemed to limit the violence, seemingly to keep Israel’s concessions on track.
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Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University. He may be contacted via ira.sharkansky@sdjewishworld.com