Hard-liners strengthened by Gaza war

The biggest gains in the Gaza war have gone to the hard-liners on both sides. Hamas is declaring victory, while Israel's leading hawk is the front-runner in elections just over a week away. But a new phase in peace efforts has opened with Barack Obama's election as U.S. president and the international community may find itself offering Hamas incentives to moderate rather than shunning it. Hamas is exulting in the widespread support it received in the Muslim world and many Western countries. Israeli public opinion has emerged tougher and more inclined to choose Benjamin Netanyahu over the more dovish candidates. Israeli strategists say the offensive, mounted to halt rocket fire on Israeli settlements and cut the flow of arms to Hamas, has dealt the militants a heavy blow. But it has not yet led to a permanent arrangement that would stop Hamas weapons smuggling and rocket attacks, and fighting could erupt again at any moment. The crippling international blockade imposed on Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt has failed to oust Hamas since it seized control in June 2007. And the Israeli onslaught that killed nearly 1,300 Palestinians has not seriously hampered its ability to rebuild itself. The tunnels through which it gets its arms are still operating. Meanwhile, Palestinian moderates led by President Mahmoud Abbas have been discredited, along with their U.S.-backed policy of reaching Palestinian statehood through negotiations. Some areas of Gaza have been reduced to moonscapes of flattened buildings. The stench of rotting livestock killed in Israeli airstrikes fills the air, and thousands of Gazans live in rubble or in tents provided by relief agencies. Like the scarce cooking gas for which Gazans are waiting in long lines, hope is running low. Yet the Gaza offensive has shaken up Mideast politics in unpredictable ways. The world is being asked to cough up an estimated $2 billion to rebuild Gaza, and that gives it leverage to make Hamas cooperate with the rival Abbas government in rebuilding the territory. At the same time, the reconstruction task ahead makes the West's blockade look increasingly unsustainable. At the diplomatic level, change may also be coming. The Bush administration boycotted the last Palestinian unity government when it included Hamas. Obama, who has shown eagerness to mend fences with the Muslim world, may see benefits in accepting a Hamas role in the government. "That would be a positive development," said Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian Cabinet minister. "So far the international community has been showing only sticks, which has not been helpful. They need to show both sticks and carrots." For now, Hamas rulers show no signs of readiness to compromise to open the borders. But they are hearing the first rumblings of recrimination from the homeless, and their top leaders have been in hiding for a month. Yet when one of them emerged from underground on Friday, it was to declare victory. "We say proudly that Gaza has won the war, the resistance has won the war, and Hamas has won the war," lawmaker Khalil al-Hayeh told a crowd of 5,000 on Friday. On the other hand, if Hamas is serious about getting the blockade lifted, it may have little choice but to halt arms smuggling and rocket fire on Israel. Abbas seems to be the biggest loser, seen as increasingly irrelevant by his people both in Gaza and the West Bank–the two territories on opposite sides of Israel that are supposed to become a Palestinian state. He did not speak out harshly against Israel and stifled Gaza support rallies in the West Bank. "The moment the first Israeli bomb fell on Gaza, his legitimacy vaporized and his leadership ended," said Jordan-based analyst Mouin Rabbani. Now, with his presidency already in constitutional limbo, he faces the threat that Hamas will turn its sights on the West Bank, where his Fatah movement is headquartered. "They (Hamas) have consolidated their control in Gaza and now they will focus on shaking Fatah's control of the West Bank," said Khatib. Abbas still has Western support. He begins a European tour on Sunday, and Obama's Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, says Abbas must be part of any cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas. Abbas may also find himself having to deal with Netanyahu, who, according to one poll this week, is poised to receive five parliamentary seats more than his nearest rival, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of the centrist Kadima Party, in the Feb. 10 election. Netanyahu believes Hamas must be toppled and will not likely agree to a border deal that could be seen as cementing the Islamic militants' power in Gaza. He'll have popular support for maintaining a tough stance. Many Israelis see the Gaza war as a lesson on the need to contain Iranian-backed extremists on their border. Even if Netanyahu wins, however, the vote is likely to be highly fragmented, auguring unwieldy coalition government and a possible role for the doves. The war damaged Israel's standing in the world, as evidenced by the myriad calls for war-crimes investigations into its handling of the offensive and a stunning public row in Switzerland between Israel's president and the prime minister of Turkey–a key strategic ally of Israel's. However, Israel appears to have made progress in achieving its main war aim: to deter Hamas from firing rockets. Shlomo Brom, former chief of strategic planning for the Israeli army, believes Israel made gains in the fighting, and if it has to reopen the war "it would be much easier, because Hamas is weakened. They lost a large number of trained fighters, of weapons, their inventory has been depleted." A visit to the Gaza-Egypt border, however, reveals that heavy Israeli bombardment has done little to shut down Hamas' network of tunnels where everything from guns to cash and diapers is smuggled in. On a recent afternoon, drillers were busy reopening a tunnel that was shut during the fighting. "If they bomb again here, it doesn't really matter," said the tunnel's owner, Abdullah Moammar, 30. "We can just open it up again."