Hamas is a home-grown Palestinian phenomenon enjoying legitimacy among
Palestinian citizens as a religious-nationalist resistance movement, and yet
the group's demonization as a proxy of Iran forms an important dimension of
Israel's war effort.
Ever since Israel's military campaign started in Gaza on December 27, Israeli
politicians, pundits and their wealth of supporters in the US government and
media have consistently lumped Hamas, Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah together, as
part of a united front of "Islamofascists" on the march to "eradicate the
little satan" [1], to paraphrase the title of a recent commentary in
a mainstream US newspaper.
"In Gaza, the real enemy is Iran," write authors in the Los Angeles Times [2],
while William Kristol, in his opinion piece in the New York Times, portrays
Israel's re-invasion of Gaza in the larger frame of containing Iran-led
Islamist extremism, ostensibly as a direct service to the national-security
interests of the United States.
Kristol's article depicts the Israeli war in Gaza as implicitly framed as a
"war to war" scenario, that is, as the beginning phase of a larger war against
the Iran-led menace of "Islamist terror" that has now set its eyes on defanging
Hamas.
There are of course dissenting voices, such as literature professor at the
University of Minnesota, William Beeman, who has questioned the rationale
behind the new avalanche of Iranphobia linked to the Gaza crisis. [3] Beeman
points out that with its borders sealed, Hamas has no access to Iranian or
Hezbollah weapons, and that its rockets are crude, home-made ones of the poor.
To add to Beeman's insight, the functional utility of Iranphobic demonization
of Hamas is not limited to Hamas alone, but rather the real target is
Palestinian nationalism and aspiration for statehood, presently gone to smoke
in the firefights raging in Gaza.
Indeed, Tehran is presently engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activities, such
as by sending a high-level delegation to neighboring countries including
Turkey, in the hope of bringing about an "honorable ceasefire" in Gaza, one
that would result in the opening of Gaza's borders and the immediate withdrawal
of Israeli forces. To this effect, Saeed Jalili, the head of Iran's Supreme
National Security Council, has told his hosts in Ankara that Iran is prepared
to cooperate with the international community to bring an end to the conflict
in Gaza.
Israel's power projection in its Operation Cast Lead may succeed against the
much weaker Hamas, given the colossal power of the world's fifth-most powerful
army, yet it is far from clear that in the face of stiff Hamas resistance, and
indeed the collective resistance of the Gaza population against the invading
army, Israel will accomplish its stated objective of "total and unambiguous
victory".
Rather, the result will likely be yet another under-achievement, invoking the
memories of the 33-day "asymmetrical warfare" with Hezbollah in Lebanon in the
summer of 2006.
For sure, compared to Hezbollah, the locked-in Hamas is disadvantaged by the
absence of a foreign outlet to replenish its arms, yet the 15,000 to
20,000-strong Hamas army and the tens of thousands of its sympathizers
nevertheless pose a formidable foe for the Israeli war planners that may exceed
their estimations of Hamas' resilience.
A watered-down objective of simply "weakening Hamas" may be in the works, given
the perils of a long occupation that is bound to exact heavy losses on Israeli
forces, and, in turn, this will complicate Israel's power projection ability in
the larger Middle East.
Sensing this, US officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who,
much like the 2006 Israel-Lebanese war would prefer to wait until Israel
finishes the job, can now be seen favoring a ceasefire, given Israel's apparent
incapability to destroy Hamas and carry the war to the "bitter end".
For the moment, given the outpouring of mass Arab support for Hamas, the
US-Israeli goal of bifurcating the Middle East into allies and enemies of Iran
is in tatters and, in fact, the moderate and pro-Arab states would find it
harder than in the past to ignore the priority of Israel's threat to the Arab
world and to simply focus on fellow Muslims in Iran.
Rice has repeatedly talked about a "new alignment in the Middle East", but
after the bloody Israeli campaign in Gaza, it may be the opposite of what she
and her Israeli friends had wished for.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New
Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) . For his Wikipedia entry,
click here. His
latest book,
Reading In Iran Foreign Policy After September 11 (BookSurge Publishing
, October 23, 2008) is now available.
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