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                 GAMLA:  NEWS AND VIEWS FROM ISRAEL
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Volume 8 Issue 18                                    Jerusalem, Israel
29 Sivan, 5767 *                                       * June 15, 2007


Inside:

Gamla:

Due to the important events in Gaza, we are sending out three
articles which not only explain, but analyse what is happening and
what should be done.

1. Multinational forces in Gaza won't help Israel
2. Analysis: Fatah's collapse in Gaza rocks its W. Bank status
3. Hamas Poised to Convert Captured Gaza Strip into Islamist Enclave



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Multinational forces in Gaza won't help Israel
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Experience of UNIFIL in southern Lebanon shows multinational forces
seek to appease party that threatens them more

Dore Gold

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is apparently considering to raise next
week with President Bush the possibility of deploying an
international force in the Philadelphi route, between the Gaza Strip
and Egyptian Sinai, which has served as the main weapons smuggling
route for Hamas and other Palestinian organizations. The problem is
that such a deployment at this time will not contribute to the
stabilization of this area, but may actually make it a great deal
worse.

According to past experience, international force deployments have
been extremely problematic in areas still afflicted by active combat
operations.

The main issue is that these forces spend most of their energies
seeking to protect themselves from attacks of the more aggressive
party, in particular. As a result, these forces inevitably decide to
appease the party that threatens them more.

For example, UNIFIL established intimate ties with Hizbullah over the
years, in order to protect itself. It failed to address serious
cease-fire violations by Hizbullah and even refused to take any
effective action when the organization kidnapped Israeli soldiers in
broad daylight. Many times UNIFIL was more preoccupied with Israeli
Air Forces surveillance flights than with flow of new Iranian
weaponry to Hizbullah through Syria.

This problem has arisen elsewhere. In Bosnia, during 1995, UN
peacekeepers tended to show greater sympathy-and in some cases even
admiration-for the commanding officers of the Bosnian Serb Army, who
were engaging in ethnic cleansing and of the Bosnian Muslims. A year
earlier in Rwanda, the UN Secretariat was reluctant to authorize US
force on the ground to active thwart the campaign of Hutu death
squads against the Tutsi population.

A senior Hamas official has already said that his organization would
refuse to accept a multinational force along the Gaza-Egypt border
and would treat it as an occupying power. It is pretty clear that if
an international force were to undertake a serious operation against
the tunnels running underneath the Philadelphi route, that are used
by Hamas and by the crime families in Rafiah, local Palestinian
forces would not show the slightest hesitation to open fire on them.

Given the threat environment that they will face, any international
force that is deployed will probably end up doing nothing more than
narrowing the freedom of maneuver of the Israel Defense Forces to
deal effectively with this area in the future.

Israeli diplomacy should focus on Egypt

So what should the Israeli government do? Israeli diplomacy should
focus right now on the other side of the Philadelphi route -that is
the role of Egypt in the development of the current crisis and its
possible contribution to ending it. Since the August 2005 Gaza
disengagement, Egypt has had mixed motivations in how it should
relate to the security problems of the Gaza Strip.

On the one hand, Cairo has no interest in the emergence of a state
belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas defines itself as the
Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood), along its northeastern
border. On the other hand, Egyptians might fear that an outright
clash between Egyptian forces and Hamas would cause a backlash among
the members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. And while Egypt wants
to be perceived as a state that contributes to regional stability,
undoubtedly there are voices still in Cairo that are not disturbed by
an ongoing strategic situation being perpetuated that has Israel
bleeding, as along as it does not spin out of control.

For these reasons, Olmert should focus his energies in his meeting
with Bush on obtaining a firm commitment from Egypt to at long last
seal the Philadelphi route.

Such an action would be far more effective than deploying yet another
multinational force that doesn't help. It should be recalled that
European monitors are presently deployed in the Rafah passageway from
Egypt into the Gaza Strip, as part of an arrangement negotiated by
the Bush administration.

These intentional monitors have not blocked the massive flow of arms
and trained terrorist personnel that have been flowing into Gaza
without interruption. But most importantly, Israel must not take any
initiative that could block the freedom of movement of the Israel
Defense Forces, in the event that the security situation in the Gaza
Strip deteriorates even further.

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Dr Gold was Israel's ambassador to the UN (1997-1999) and now heads
the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs



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Analysis: Fatah's collapse in Gaza rocks its W. Bank status
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Khaled Abu Toameh, THE JERUSALEM POST Jun. 15, 2007

Fatah gunmen and Palestinian Authority policemen launched a wide-scale
crackdown on Hamas figures and institutions in the West Bank on
Thursday. More than 30 Hamas officials and supporters were rounded up
in Bethlehem, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarm.

The crackdown, ordered by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, is seen as an
attempt to consolidate Fatah's grip on the West Bank after the Gaza
Strip fell into the hands of Hamas.

Unlike in the Gaza Strip, Hamas does not have thousands of militiamen
in the West Bank. The few Hamas military cells that operate in the
West Bank are hardly felt. Hamas does not have security bases in the
West Bank, nor does it have armed groups that roam the streets
openly. Fatah, meanwhile, has many armed groups and policemen in the
West Bank.

Most of Hamas's activities in the West Bank are restricted to
political, information and charity work. And Hamas remains popular in
several cities, villages and refugee camps. In the last municipal
elections, Hamas candidates scored major victories in Ramallah,
el-Bireh, Bethlehem, Nablus and Kalkilya.

Hamas's West Bank political leadership is currently in Israeli jails.
In the past few weeks, the IDF even arrested many of the Hamas mayors
there. The Israeli crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank began almost
immediately after the abduction of IDF soldier Cpl. Gilad Schalit a
year ago.

That's why Fatah is now only going after low-level Hamas operatives
in the West Bank.

Despite the clampdown, there is no evidence that Hamas's popularity
among the West Bankers has been severely affected. In fact, the
Israeli and Fatah campaign against Hamas is likely to backfire. The
majority of the Palestinians in the West Bank have yet to come out in
public to pledge their allegiance to Fatah in its war with Hamas.

It's true that many West Bankers are unhappy with what Hamas has done
in the Gaza Strip. But there are still many Palestinians who are fed
up with the scores of Fatah armed gangs that have long been running
wild in the West Bank.

When Hamas leaders decided to take over the Gaza Strip, they knew
that they didn't have much to lose in the West Bank. After all, the
most that Fatah can do is shoot an imam of a mosque in the legs or
close down Hamas-affiliated institutions or kidnap a handful of
supporters of the Islamic movement.

The Fatah gunmen and security officers may be in control of the
streets of the West Bank, but this does not necessarily mean that
they enjoy the support of the majority of the Palestinian public
there. In fact, Fatah's humiliating defeat in the Gaza Strip is
likely to undermine the faction's party in the West Bank. Pictures of
half-naked Fatah officers surrendering to Hamas are certainly not
going to boost Abbas's standing among his constituents in the West
Bank.


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Hamas Poised to Convert Captured Gaza Strip into Islamist Enclave
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DEBKAfile

14 June: Hamas seizes control of strategic Philadelphi enclave on
Egyptian border and all Gaza's border crossings with Egypt and
Israel. At least 35 people died in the fighting Wednesday. Any
international force in Gaza will be resisted in the same way as an
Israeli occupation army, said a Hamas spokesman Thursday, June 14.

Senior Israeli officers described the Hamas victory to DEBKAfile as a
greater misfortune for Israel than its Lebanon War setbacks. There,
Hizballah was forced by Israeli military action to accept a UN
ceasefire and international peacekeepers.

Hamas has no such incentive. In the case of Gaza, the winner takes
all and can dictate terms. A radical Islamic enclave with a dominant
Iranian-Syrian military presence has sprung up unopposed as a hostile
reality on Israel's southwestern border. It has made the
Israeli-Middle East Quartet's boycott an irrelevance.

The Hamas Executive Force completed the seizure of all pro-Fatah
Presidential Guard border positions, including the Karni goods
crossing and the Sufa, Kerem Shalom and Rafah transit points, after
midnight Wednesday night, June 14. Their commander Col. Musbah
Basichi and his 60 officers fled to Egypt. At least 35 Palestinians
were killed in fighting Wednesday.

Hamas pounced as Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert held a belated
conversation with the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the
deployment of an international force on the Philadelphi route. Hamas
leaders flushed with victory will hardly accept such hindrance to the
free flow of smuggled arms, missiles and explosives into the Gaza
Strip.

Israeli military and security personnel administering the crossings
on the Israeli side will have to work cheek by jowl with Hamas
operators. The Israeli government, which decided to stay out of the
Hamas-Fatah conflict, must now decide whether to break off ties with
Hamas-controlled Gaza and seal the crossings, or interact with the
new masters in order to admit emergency supplies for 1.4 million
Gazans.

13 June: Overnight, thousands of Palestinian security officers loyal
to Fatah were under Hamas siege at their last bastions �?Gaza City's
Presidential Guard compound and the General Security command.

They are running out of food, water and ammunition. Hamas and its
Executive Force had overrun some 80 percent of the Gaza Strip, while
loyalists of Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah, including complete clans,
surrendered and turned in their weapons. Hamas has set up large
prisoner camps, some on the rubble of the Gush Katif villages.
Wednesday afternoon, a desperate Abbas appealed to Israel to permit
arms and ammunition to be transferred from the West Bank. Israeli
officers said it was too late. Fatah is a lost case and any arms
crossing into Gaza will be seized at once by Hamas.

Israel decides to stay out of the Palestinian internecine war in Gaza.

Prime minister Ehud Olmert led the cabinet in a decision Tuesday
night, June 12, to avoid "fighting on the side of the pragmatists
against the extremists." Olmert said an international force is worth
considering for securing the Philadelphi border enclave of the Gaza
Strip against further arms smuggling. DEBKAfile: This would replicate
the situation in South Lebanon where UNIFIL troops have been helpless
to halt illegal gunrunning to the Hizballah from Syria. The UN
Security voiced concern over this traffic only Tuesday, June 12.

12 June: DEBKAfile reported Hamas' seizure of Gaza's main south-north
highway in fierce fighting with many casualties, most Fatah.

By borrowing this Israeli tactic for bisecting the territory to
contain terrorists, Hamas shut in Mahmoud Abbas's Presidential Guard,
which has not yet been thrown into battle, and choked off ammunition
re-supply routes to Fatah fighters. To tighten their control, Hamas
units also commandeered high rise rooftops.

Hamas then gave Fatah till Friday noon to surrender their arms or
become wanted men under sentence of death. Abbas called the situation
"madness."

UNWRA has cut down its personnel in Gaza after two aid workers were
killed.

DEBKAfile's military sources report that Hamas' planning and combat
tactics clearly betray the professional hands of Syrian and Hizballah
officers who have set up a command center in the Gaza Strip.

DEBKAfile's Military sources: Iran and Syria are the winners of Hamas
military coup against Fatah in Gaza Strip

It was the second triumph in a week for a Palestinian force backed
by Iran and Syria, after the Lebanese army failed in four weeks'
combat to crush the pro-Syrian factions' barricaded in the Nahr
al-Bared Palestinian camp near Tripoli.

Tuesday, Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Palestinian Authority forces faced
disaster. Their inevitable ejection from the Gaza Strip effectively
severs Palestinian rule between Ramallah, where Fatah will have to
fight to retain control of the West Bank and Gaza, dominated now by
an Islamist Palestinian force manipulated from Tehran and Damascus.

The Iran-Syrian alliance has acquired by brute force two
Mediterranean coastal enclaves in northern Lebanon and the Gaza
Strip.

Its momentum, launched a month ago in both sectors was unchecked.
The Fouad Siniora government's troops failed to break through to the
Palestinian camp and crush the pro-Syrian uprising. The Olmert
government stood by unmoved as the most radical elements in the
Middle East snatched the Gaza Strip on Israel's southwestern border.

The Bush administration is finding itself forced out of key Middle
East positions, its main assets Siniora and Mahmoud Abbas trounced
on the battlefield.

Israel's technological feat of placing the Ofeq-7 surveillance
satellite in orbit Monday quickly proved ineffective against the
sort of tactics Tehran and Syria employ: mobile, suicidal
Palestinian terrorists, heavily and cheaply armed with primitive
weapons, who are winning the first round of the Summer 2007 war and
preparing for the next.

11 June: DEBKAfile reported: The brutal civil strife has brought the
fragile Hamas-Fatah unity government to closure. The War Crimes
Prosecution Watch has condemned rival Palestinian factions fighting
in Gaza for attacking civilians, prisoners and hospitals.

Senior Palestinian politician Saab Erikat warned the "Mogadishu
syndrome" is overtaking Palestinian Gaza. "If war and lawlessness
are not extinguished, the fire will burn us all"

The outcome generated by the civil war is the separation of
Palestinian rule between Hamas-controlled Gaza and the Fatah-led
West Bank.

DEBKAfile's military sources report that Hamas threw its entire
5,000-strong Executive Force armed with mortars, RPGs, heavy machine
guns and grenades into the final bid to conquer the Gaza Strip,
whereas Fatah commanders' desperate appeals to Mahmoud Abbas for
reinforcements drew nothing but a futile call for a ceasefire.


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