Pact Targets Gaza Rocket Smuggling
US agreement with Israel will provide funds

by Farah Stockman
Boston Globe
January 17, 2009

http://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/685/pact-targets-gaza-rocket-smuggling

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed an agreement yesterday with Israel that committed an unspecified amount of US funding and technical assistance to stop the smuggling of rockets into Gaza, seen as key to bringing a halt to Israeli military actions that have killed more than 1,100 Palestinians in recent weeks.

The 2 1/2-page memorandum of understanding puts the United States in the lead of stepped up international efforts to stop the flow of rockets from Iran to Hamas, using intelligence-sharing and assistance from NATO in the Red Sea and off the coast of Africa, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of Israel told reporters at a press conference yesterday. The agreement - and Thursday's killing of Hamas Interior Minister Said Siam - appear to pave the way for Israel to declare a unilateral cease-fire after a vote scheduled for today.

But the flurry of diplomacy yesterday appeared to be part of a larger effort to deny Hamas a political victory, and perhaps even dislodge it from power, two years after the militant group won parliamentary elections over the moderate - but sometimes corrupt - Fatah party.

Rice implied yesterday that the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority - which Hamas chased out of Gaza last year - would be involved in administering a massive international reconstruction package to 4 million suffering Gazans.

"I think that there is much that can be done to begin to bring Gaza out of the dark of Hamas's reign there and into the light of reconnecting to the very good governance that the Palestinian Authority can provide," she said, after mentioning a possible donor conference in Norway. "In time, it will be clear that [Palestinian Authority president] Mahmoud Abbas, who still cares about the people of Gaza, who talks all the time about the need to stop this fighting, who contributes 58 percent of the PA budget to Gaza, is demonstrating that he is the Palestinian leader for all the Palestinian people."

But analysts warned yesterday that using reconstruction aid as a blunt instrument to restore Fatah's rule in Gaza would only backfire, further weakening Abbas by making him appear to be the stooge of the Israeli military.

"Having the Israelis hand them Gaza on a silver platter is not politically viable," said Tamara Wittes, a Middle East specialist at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. "If this is the outcome, the irony will be that the big loser out of this military confrontation is not Israel, and not Hamas, but the Palestinian moderate camp."

Since the election of Hamas, which the United States considers a terrorist organization, donors have funneled aid only through Fatah officials, who at one time created an uneasy unity government with Hamas. But after an all-out war between Hamas and Fatah resulted in Fatah's eviction from Gaza last year, Abbas was left in control of only the West Bank, while Palestinians in Gaza were placed under an embargo. Six months ago, Hamas and Israel struck a fragile cease-fire, but Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israeli cities last month - killing four people - demanding that the borders be opened.

Israel responded with a major incursion into Gaza that has killed many Hamas fighters, but also a number of civilians, including children.

Israeli officials have made no secret that in addition to stopping the rocket fire, they are trying to bring about a more permanent change in Gaza.

"This is not a regime change operation, but I think at the end of the day, the restoration of the Palestinian Authority should be part of the solution," Israel's Deputy chief of mission, Jeremy Issacharoff, told reporters in Washington recently.

Yesterday, Livni said Israel's military actions in Gaza are meant to bolster Abbas, with whom Israel has been conducting peace talks.

Israel's incursion into Gaza "is not against the peace process, but it serves the peace process. In order to strengthen the moderates and the legitimate government, we need to weaken the others," she said. "Hamas control of the Gaza strip is an obstacle on the way of the Palestinians to create a state."

But many specialists said the deaths of so many civilians in Gaza would only weaken support for peace talks, and strengthen Hamas.

"There is no doubt in my mind that Hamas will retain social and political power in Gaza," said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator who is now a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. "Whether it retains the formal capacity to govern in Gaza or not remains to be seen."

Levy said the only way to remove Hamas would be to keep the Israeli Army in Gaza indefinitely or to impose a Fatah government. Both would face a vicious insurgency, he said. But others said there is a dim possibility that a new unity government could be formed that included Fatah to oversee the rebuilding of Gaza, or that a Palestinian entity made up of technocrats could be created to oversee reconstruction efforts.

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