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Beyond Gaza

[Saban Center for Middle East Policy-Brookings Institution] Bilal Y. Saab - Israel's Gaza operation will not achieve a strategic outcome that goes beyond a breakable ceasefire. Hamas will find a way to eventually re-arm and re-engage in the same destructive behavior against Israel. At the same time, Hamas leaders will not be able to explain to Palestinians how shelling Israeli towns with rockets and terrorizing Israeli society will better their lives and advance the cause for statehood. Negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians based on the 1967 boundaries seem almost futile today. There is little reason to believe that Israeli leaders will now accept, rightly or wrongly, going back to the 1967 borders where Israel's cities would be connected by a corridor nine miles wide, leaving population centers exposed and within mortar range of adversaries. It is equally difficult to imagine how Palestinians, as weak and divided as they are, will ever be able to change the balance of power in their favor and achieve their aims. The future of Palestinian refugees lies either in full citizenship in some of the countries where they now live, or in relocating them to areas that can absorb them far better than Gaza and the West Bank. The writer is a research analyst at the Saban Center.
2009-02-13 06:00:00
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