There’s Always Time When There’s Will

This is not the first time a Sharm el Sheikh summit takes place before or after an Israeli war in the region. To begin with, the ‘motto’ of crushing a resistance force mainly in the Arab world has fallen; not only in Iraq and Lebanon but also in Gaza. True, Palestinian factions have declared a ceasefire hours after a same declaration by Tel Aviv, yet the scene in Israel is not the same as in Gaza. Israeli defense and security officials, in addition to political heavyweights in the Jewish state have admitted Olmert, Livni and Barak’s war on Gaza has failed to fulfill anything. The Shin Bet says that Hamas will be able to rebuild tunnels in a matter of weeks, Likud and other critics insist Gaza is still “Hamasstan”, experts believe Hamas has gained more momentum and legitimacy by the Palestinian people (in Gaza and the West Bank), a larger part of the Arab world and the international public opinion during the war and most importantly, the resistance still has the capacity to fire rockets at Israeli communities. It is likely that the Palestinian resistance factions have declared a ceasefire to keep the doors open for a possible solution within the framework of: Stopping the aggression (not just a ceasefire), pulling out of Gaza, opening all crossings including Rafah and ending the blockade of the Strip. The resistance factions have given Israel one week to pull out starting Sunday. WHY DECLARE A CEASEFIRE? Barak advised the security cabinet not to lengthen the occupation of Gazan territories and Olmert believes the pullout would be concluded within a week. Israel’s image of deterrence is already shredded; the longer the ground operation takes the more this image will be damaged. Apparently Israel was forced to call off its operation because Barak, a veteran Israeli officer, found that the third phase of “Operation Cast Lead” was inapplicable because of the risk of resistance operations in Gaza’s narrow streets and the potential risk of high losses in army ranks. If Israel were able to go for the third phase of the operation and destroy Hamas, it would have never hesitated. Moreover, Israel and the ‘moderates’ with it are bargaining on the reaction in Gaza when the whole population gets to see the magnitude 10 earthquake that has struck their neighborhoods and hopefully divert their anger towards Hamas and other resistance factions. WHAT STATURE FOR EGYPT’S REGIME? Time is everything Israel doesn’t have. The Jewish state has a transition government whose term will expire in a few more weeks; Hamas is not a party to agreements and summits, thus it has no obligation to abide by resolutions; and the United States is busy preparing for a much more important and optimistic ceremony…The inauguration of Barack Obama. Britain, Germany, Czech, Italy, Spain and France leaders did not come to Sharm el-Sheikh to laud a ceasefire or for a fundraiser ceremony to spend European taxpayers’ money to rebuild buildings destroyed by their Israeli friends. For the busy European leaders who attended the Sharm summit Sunday, it was a golden (once in four or eight years) opportunity to gain back a lost role in Middle Eastern diplomacy from US dominance and an impotent Quartet. But where is Egypt’s regime in all this? The Egyptian regime was somehow ‘used’ to ready an exit scenario for the war and to buoy up Mahmoud Abbas. It seems that it had never been really planned to make the Egyptian ceasefire proposal work, with Cairo unnecessarily knowing it. FM Abul Gheit angrily admitted before Israel’s unilateral ceasefire declaration that the Jewish state showed obstinacy during negotiations as the Israeli side sought to include Gilad Shalit’s issue in the talks. Moreover, Livni and Rice did not give Egypt’s Mubarak note of their intention to sign a memorandum of understanding on “countering smuggling.” The Egyptian regime sensed a trend to marginalize Cairo hence negatively reacted to the MoU and Abul Gheit announced that the agreement is not binding to his regime. Such agreement would besiege Egypt more than Gaza and constitutes utter disrespect by Israel and the US to Egypt. Israel wants to deploy international forces in Egypt, something Cairo firmly rejects. It is unlikely that the Livni-Rice agreement is to allegedly prevent “Iran and Syria” from sending arms to Hamas. Hamas does not even have the logistics to receive arms shipments. It goes without saying that the resistance in Gaza and other part of Palestine arm themselves through Israeli arms traders and smugglers. This is a fact even Tel Aviv does not deny. Apparently, the US-Israeli MoU wants Egypt to police the Red Sea for smuggling and create an internal strife between rival factions in Palestine especially that one of the clauses stipulates a PA role in fighting smuggling. Clearly the Gaza war has highlighted deep Arab divisions. Egypt did not succeed in any settlement and did not succeed in eliminating the ‘Hamas factor” from the equation of Gaza. However, Cairo still has the opportunity to rectify its mistakes based on the Lebanese experience in 2006, when the government failed to take out the Hezbollah factor from the Lebanese equation and bargained on crushing the resistance in a matter of days. There is always time for Arabs to sort out differences but what’s keeping them is that they never have neither perception, the courage to admit mistakes nor the will – in some case - to seize golden opportunities like Israel, the US and the Europeans do. ‘Divide and rule’ should not continue to be the law that governs our Arab and Islamic worlds. Instead of Arab states accusing other Arab “resistant” states of not doing the Palestinian cause any good, they ought to look in the mirror and accuse themselves of not helping Gaza and the Gazans when they needed them the most. /106