Today's Situation

A murder and mass arrests Thursday, June 29, 2006

The execution-style killing was enough for Israel to put into motion a secret plan approved weeks ago by Attorney General Menachem Mazuz -- the arrest of dozens of Hamas officials, including ministers and parliamentarians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The 87 Hamas officials, including 64 elected officials, from Palestinian parliamentarians to at least two major city mayors (Jenin and Qalqiliya), are not being held as counter-hostages, as part of Israel’s efforts to win the release of captured soldier Gilad Shalit, Israeli officials insisted. They are all going to be questioned as suspects in specific terror cases and charged if evidence is found against them. Among those arrested are at least two Palestinians suspected of direct involvement in the murder of Asheri. National Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer hinted on Israel Radio that Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh is not exempt from arrest or harm. 'No one is immune... This is not a government. It is a murderous organization,' said Ben-Eliezer. ‘The Hamas leadership in Gaza seems to have disappeared underground,’ said Israel Radio’s correspondent, who quoted Fateh-affiliated politicians are saying they are ‘very disappointed’ that the Americans and Europeans have not said anything against the Israeli arrests.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, as aircraft struck targets in southern Gaza, trying to prevent Gilad Shalit’s captors from moving him, leaflets were flung from helicopters last night over Beit Lahiye and Beit Hanoun, the two northeast corner towns of Gaza used by Qassam rocket launching crews to set up their attacks on the Israeli hamlets and towns around Gaza. The leaflets warned residents ‘to stay away’ as the IDF prepared to shell the residential areas and move in. Not since Operation Grapes of Wrath in southern Lebanon, when Israel warned civilians to leave south Lebanon and then proceeded to shell the region to drive out Hizbollah forces, has Israel taken a step so clearly aimed at forcing people out of their homes. Palestinian militia -- not official armed forces -- were said to be taking up positions and mining roads leading into the areas expected to attacked by Israeli forces. Operation Grapes of Wrath ended with an accidental Israeli shelling of a UN encampment set up to provide refuge for fleeing Lebanese, killing some 120 people. As of noon, there was no actual movement of Israeli troops into the area, nor had shelling begun in that area. But there were reports of hundreds of Beit Lahiye and Beit Hanoun families moving out of the area.

Syria was testy about Israel’s announcement last night that on the previous evening four of its F-16s had buzzed Syrian President Bashar Assad’s coastal palace at Latakiye in northern Syria, sending the message Assad should take action against Khaled Mish’al. The secretary general of the Hamas politburo was meanwhile said to be surrounded with security and might be on his way to Egypt, for meetings with Egyptian intelligence chief Omer Suleiman, who is trying to broker a deal that would free the captured Israeli soldier. Israel has explicitly stated that Mish’al is a target for assassination, as he is believed now to be behind the refusal by the captors of the missing soldier to give up the soldier. Israel’s accusations against Syria as Mish’al’s host and host of other radical Palestinian ‘rejectionists’ have been backed indirectly by Mubarak and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who both have called on Syria to do what it can to press Mish’al into freeing the soldier.

Operation Summer Rains is thus gradually transforming from an operation -- still bloodless as of this morning -- meant to put pressure on the Palestinian population to put pressure on the Hamas government to put pressure on the Hamas militants who are holding Shalit, into an operation with three goals: freeing the soldier, ending the Qassam fire, and bringing down the Hamas government.

But it is not at all clear if it can accomplish any of those three goals. The more pressure on the population, the more the Hamas government wins popular support; even as Israel was issuing dire warnings about the Qassam fire coming from the northern Gaza area, Qassams were being fired into the Western Negev; and even if Israel were to arrest all the Hamas parliamentarians and all its ministers, the Fateh leadership would not be able to step in lest it appeared as if they were merely Israeli collaborators. Israeli officials were saying that Israel was not dealing with who would now lead the Palestinians but Tourism Minister Yitzhak Herzog said that PA President Mahmoud Abbas ‘has many powers’ according to the Palestinian constitution. In any case, ‘Israel has turned its policy around -- it now regards all Hamas officials, elected or not, as criminals subject to arrest,’ said Israel Radio’s diplomatic correspondent.

While army commanders keep dropping hints about what they are doing outside the frame of the camera crews watching the operation unfold, it is obvious to everyone that without very precise intelligence, no Entebbe-style raid to free Shalit is possible. Still, there are more people asking why Israel isn’t trying an Entebbe-style rescue than asking why Israel thinks that more force will succeed where force has already failed.

Indeed, if Israel is not careful -- and the bloodless nature, so far, of the operation shows that it is trying to be very careful -- it could bring down the PA itself. And that would mean Israel is once again responsible not only for security, but for the health, education and welfare of the Palestinians, to the tune of billions of shekels. Furthermore, it would likely mean a new eruption of intifada-style warfare in the territories, which would once again damper the Israeli economy, driving away tourists, harming international investment, and curtailing the impressive 5-6 percent economic growth rate Israel has enjoyed for the last year.

Prime Minister Olmert and Defense Minister Peretz are fighting for their political lives as much as Shalit, presumed to be still alive, must be fighting for his. Neither have any military stature, which is being seen as one of the main reasons that Israel began using military measures -- and its leadership is so insistent about not negotiating a prisoner exchange -- so soon in the war of nerves. Meanwhile, the public is behind the army, and Olmert and Peretz can interpret that as being behind them, if they want. But if something goes wrong -- and when a lot of force is applied, something always seems to go wrong -- the mood could change.

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