What was achieved by the Israeli action?

Background

On 27th December 2008, Israel launched an all-out attack on the Gaza strip. Their objectives were supposedly to suppress Hamas offensive capability by destroying their tunnels used to import weapons, capture or destroy stockpiles of rockets, and to weaken the leadership of Hamas either by killing or capturing the leaders or undermining popular support for them.

Were these really their objectives, and have they achieved them?

Tunnels:

Within a few days of the ending of offensive Israeli action, the BBC filmed people reconstructing some of the tunnels and the International Herald Tribune reports:

RAFAH, Gaza Strip: It was Friday, the Muslim day of rest, but the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt was a hive of activity. Men scraped sandy soil out of holes that had served as tunnels for smuggling, and were one of the main targets of Israel's assault.

Now, less than a week after it ended, Gazans were back, plunging deep underground with lamps to carry rocky loads of soil out on pulleys.

"Everybody's busy rebuilding now," said a manager of one digging team. "In a month, it will be back to normal."

These tunnels were no doubt used to import weapons materials, but they were also used to bring in necessities such as food and fuel because of the Israeli obstruction of border crossings. The tunnels will be rebuilt, and Israel may have to continuously repeat the operation to demolish them, only for them to be rebuilt again.

If Israel are serious about wanting to prevent the movement of weapons through the tunnels, then they need to remove any popular support for the tunnels by allowing the free movement of fuel, food, medical supplies, and people through "official" border crossing points.

At the best of times, access into Gaza via the Israeli and Egyptian crossing points is laborious, bureaucratic, humiliating, and slow. As far as I am able to tell, the Egyptian crossing point has been effectively closed since June 2007. The Israeli crossing points are opened and closed at will by Israel - during 2008 they were closed in January, March, June, July, September, October, November, and December. There may well be more examples, I found the above by trawling the results of ten pages from a google search. The majority of these closures were in response to rocket attacks, but they had no effect on the rocket launches - they were a collective punishment on the Palestinians and therefore a breach of human rights.

...I deplore the all-too-frequent breaches of international humanitarian law -- including rocket attacks against civilians, excessive uses of force in civilian areas, and collective punishment of the civilian population. It is vital that Israel ceases actions of collective punishment, and allows all legitimate and necessary humanitarian and commercial supplies to reach the population.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, February 2008.

However, the tunneling objective was already being worked on, and didn't require offensive military intervention at all according to the 'Slate' web site:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is already working with Egypt on such a system. Recently, the United States allocated $23 million to Egypt for tunnel sensors. Two months ago, Ha'aretz reported that the corps was teaching Egyptian soldiers how to find tunnels using "instruments that measure ground fluctuations." Last week, the Washington Post said the corps was helping Egypt find tunnels with "sonar equipment." Apparently, what worked in Iraq is now being tried to Gaza.

The Israelis failed in the tunnel part of their stated objectives - if it really was a serious objective in the first place.

Capture or destruction of Hamas weapons stockpiles:

There is little doubt that a significant quantity of Hamas weapons were destroyed, after all, if you lay waste to a region, you are bound to hit some military targets. I have not seen any Israeli propoganda displaying any captured rockets though.

The only way to tell whether or not this objective was achieved is if Hamas resume their rocket campaign, which I hope that they don't. In any case, with the failure of the tunneling objective, Hamas can resupply should they choose to do so, therefore this objective has also failed substantially.

According to an article on Wikipedia, the Hamas rocket and mortar campaign inflicted 8 Israeli fatalities during 2008, 4 of these after the Israeli offensive started. Israeli casualties during the offensive were 13 dead (including 3 civilians). Palestinian casualties are estimated to be at least 1,300 dead and 5,500 injured. The invasion cost more Israeli lives than were lost in the entire year due to rocket attacks, but Palestinian casualties soared.

Weaken the Hamas leaderhip

The Israelis did kill some prominent Hamas leaders, but these will be replaced. As for undermining popular support for Hamas, the operation has most likely had the opposite effect.

Hamas can't control the actions taken by the Israelis, only the Israelis can. People both inside and outside Gaza know this. It wasn't Hamas that destroyed the palestinian infrastructure, targetted UN buldings (including schools) or killed and maimed thousands of Palestinians, it was the Israelis. If anything, support for Hamas will now be much greater than it was before the offensive. Another Israeli failure?

The real reasons for the Israeli offensive.

Given that the Israelis failed to fully achieve any of the objectives which they were said to have set out to accomplish, it is reasonable to suspect that there were ulterior motives for the action.

Elsewhere in my blog I have laid out evidence that Israel is conducting a gradual programme of genocide. This action is yet another large step towards that "ultimate solution". On that basis, the Israeli action can be seen as a success, but I am sure it was not the only factor which determined the timing of the offensive.

Prior to the offensive, Likud (the main Israeli opposition party) was gaining ground in the run-up to the national elections on February 10th. The leader of Likud, Benjamin Netanyahu, was seen as more nationalist than the other Israeli party leaders. By carrying out the assault on Gaza, Olbert expects to garner support for his Kadima party from the more right-wing electorate. Incidentally, Arab political parties are now banned from taking part in the Israeli elections.

Additionally, Barak Obama was shortly due to be sworn in as President of the United States. Obama appears to be far more objective than Bush in respect to the Middle East, and according to The Times, supports a solution based on the 1967 borders. This is not to Israel's liking, and Obama is viewed as less malleable than Bush was. Given that, there was a possibility that carrying out the operation after the installation of Obama may have drawn unprecedented public criticism of Israel from the White House.

Whether the attack on Gaza will improve Kadima's fortunes in the coming election remains to be seen. If not, then the Israelis can still draw comfort from the 1,300 Palestinians which they killed as a consolation prize.