War of attrition pointless in Gaza

If the report that appeared in the Qatari Al Sharq newspaper on Aug. 24 can be trusted, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is preparing a somewhat unpleasant surprise for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The report claimed that at a meeting this past weekend in Doha between Abbas and Khaled Meshaal, head of Hamas' political bureau, it was agreed that Abbas would present US Secretary of State John Kerry with a deadline. He would tell Kerry that the United States has a month to recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders as the basis for negotiations with Israel, or he would dismantle the Palestinian Authority and hand all the occupied territories, including the Gaza Strip, back to Netanyahu.

This report was preceded by a surprising interview that Meshaal gave to the Hamas website Aug. 11. In response to the question of whether he can imagine one day sitting down at the negotiating table with Israel, Meshaal responded, “Negotiations between enemies is a well-known phenomenon throughout all of history and politics. It is not forbidden from a religious perspective. Negotiations have their own foundations and calculations. There is a verse in the Quran that says, 'And if they incline to peace, then incline to it [also].'"

That same verse appeared on street signs greeting Egyptian President Anwar Sadat back to Cairo when he returned from his breakthrough visit to Jerusalem in November 1977. Eight years earlier, his predecessor Gamal Abdel Nasser said, “I cannot take over Sinai, but I can break the spirit of Israel by attrition” (more accurately “bloodletting” in Arabic). The term “war of attrition,” which was used to describe the lengthy war that took place mainly on the Egyptian front from mid-1968 to August 1970, has entered Israel’s political discourse once again, now that the negotiations in Cairo have reached a dead end and the cease-fire is over.

At an Aug. 20 press conference, Netanyahu said, “Hamas thinks that it can wear us down. It is mistaken. The Israeli people are strong. Instead of attrition, Hamas will be crushed — its infrastructures, terrorists and commanders. … Our policy toward Hamas is simple: If they fire, they will be hit, and not just hit but hit very hard. And if Hamas does not understand this today, it will understand it tomorrow. And if not tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow.” In Hebrew, the speech uses the term for “determination” five times, implying that in the Middle East, one needs not just military power but stamina and patience.