Den israeliska regeringen agerar nu med ett överdrivet våld och på ett sätt som skapar oacceptabelt stora risker för det sköra stilleståndet. Genom en mer och mer okontrollerad händelseutveckling äventyras den lilla strimman av hopp till nya fredssamtal, återupptaget bistånd, mm. Självklart skall tagande av gisslan, som palestinska extremister började med att göra, fördömas som helt oacceptabelt. Men det befriar inte den israeliska regeringen från kritik även från oss varma israelvänner för dess oproportionerliga respons på kidnappningen, med oöverblickbara konsekvenser för regionen och globalt. Min syn på saken är inte unik, naturligtvis.
Den brittiska tidningen Financial Times ledare den 1 juli är tänkvärd och återges nedan. I korthet argumenterar tidningen på ledarplats så här:
Det är möjligt att den israeliska regeringens agerande just nu kan vara taktiskt riktigt för att vända det palestinska folket mot Hamas. Icke desto mindre är agerandet helt utan proportioner. Motivet, att agerandet är ett svar på kidnappningen av en israelisk soldat, förefaller vara en ursäkt för insatserna, snarare än det verkliga motivet.
Hade britterna agerat på ett liknande sätt på Nordirland vid övergrepp och kidnappningar från IRA: s sida, hade omvärldens kritik mot britterna varit skoningslös.
Israels agerande sker samtidigt som Hamas och Fatah förefaller ha nått en något diffus, men dock, överenskommelse sinsemellan om en "nationell enhetspakt". Den innehåller bl. a att Hamas indirekt erkänner Israels rätt att existera. Det, i sin tur, är en vital positionsförskjutning hos Hamas, som om den äger rum, kan öppna upp för nya fredssamtal, möjlighet till bistånd från omvärlden, mm.
Det som nu sker kan radikalisera och legitimera redan radikala palestinier ännu mer, just som klimatet för en rörelse i motsatt riktning av Hamas gjort comeback.
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Mindless in Gaza: Israel's risky strategy
Published: July 1 2006 03:00 : Last updated: July 1 2006 03:00
It is just conceivable that Israel's present course of action in laying siege to the Gaza Strip could be tactically rational. It may, for instance, be aimed at turning the Palestinian people against Hamas, the Islamist movement they elected in January. What is certain, however, is that it is dangerously disproportionate.
No two conflicts are alike, in cause or in contour, but it is legitimate to compare standards of behaviour. Consider, for a moment, what would have happened if, in reaction to the IRA seizing a soldier, the British government had: invaded Northern Ireland; punished its people by destroying its electricity supply, transport links and government offices; shelled Belfast and Derry from land, sea and air; cratered the Falls Road; used the Royal Air Force to buzz the offices of the Taoiseach [dvs parlamentet] in Dublin; and arrested every Republican it could lay its hands on.
There would rightly have been an international outcry - and so there should be in this case.
The new Israeli government of Ehud Olmert says its sole purpose is to secure the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit, seized last Sunday in a raid by Palestinian militants on an Israeli army post. But the disproportion between means and ends suggests this may be a pretext.
The events of the past month have not been easy for Mr Olmert. He was elected on a pledge to set unilaterally new borders for an expanded Israeli state, by annexing large swaths of the occupied territory on which Palestinians had hoped to build their independent state. Getting away with this land-grab depends on the credibility of the Israeli government's claim that it has no Palestinian interlocutor and must therefore act to safeguard its security.
In the past month, however, the political dynamics on the Palestinian side started changing remarkably. Mahmoud Abbas, the nationalist president whose long search for a negotiated solution to the conflict has been spurned by Israel, challenged the rejectionism of Hamas. Either they accepted a state on the West Bank and Gaza with its capital in Arab east Jerusalem - in other words all the territory Israel occupied after the 1967 war - or he would call a referendum he would almost certainly have won.
Hamas and Mr Abbas's Fatah then reached a national unity pact that, by accepting a two-state solution, meant the Islamists implicitly recognised Israel, a step towards the conditions international mediators require for peace negotiations to resume. But, as this process unfolded, and even though Hamas has held to a ceasefire for 17 months, Israel suddenly assassinated Jamal Abu Samadhana, a grassroots Gaza militia leader. The operation in which Cpl Shalit was seized was supposedly in reprisal for this, and the shelling of a beach that killed a Palestinian family, although it could easily be an attempt by rejectionists to sabotage the Hamas-Fatah agreement.
In either case, this dark new episode in the conflict is in danger of spiralling out of control. A decade of intensified Israeli action and political stalemate has radicalised Palestinians. This offensive will continue that - just as politics was staging a comeback.
The response of the US and its allies, calling for "restraint", is mutely inadequate. This is a situation that requires forceful diplomatic intervention - one that emphasises that hostage-taking, by all sides, is unacceptable, and one that magnifies each and every glimmer of political light.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006