So far, the ongoing war in Gaza does not seem to be close to an end. The two parties insist on rejecting any truce, even temporary (not more than 48 hours) and for humanitarian reasons. Israel refused such kind of proposal put forward by France, while the government in Gaza denied that some of its leaders were ready to accept – upon certain conditions – the ceasefire as had been declared. Moreover, the draft resolution submitted by the Arab League after its ministerial meeting on Wednesday was rejected by the US and Great Britain because it does not oblige Israel alone to stop the aggression and does not oblige the Gaza-based government to stop its rocket attacks forever. After six days of war, the two parties' objectives are now clearer than they were during the first days. Israel wants to secure its southern borders against rocket attacks forever, while the Gaza-based government wants to have the embargo lifted and the border crossings opened forever. Therefore, if a compromise is to be reached with neither party meeting the other's requests, the fight will have to continue until one of the two rivals succeeds in imposing its will through its military power. In other words, the war could last for weeks and could be made up of many rounds. The factors on which the Gaza-based government has built its attitude have so far been puzzling observers. There are those who say that this government got its calculations wrong when it refused to take part in the inter-Palestinian negotiations and thwarted the Egyptian efforts to restore a national unity where negotiations and resistance could be carried out simultaneously with neither of them being an alternative to the other. According to these observers, the Gaza-based government made another mistake when it refused to renew the ceasefire and continued to fire rockets. It believed there was a vacuum in Israel between a resigning government and another to be elected through future elections. It also imagined that there was a similar vacuum in the White House between the outgoing and the next administrations and that this vacuum would prevent both Israel and the US from planning an aggression on Gaza. It therefore believed that keeping on firing rockets would be a warning to both future administrations and that this would push them to change their policies with regard to the current situation in Gaza and to recognize the status quo there. As a result, Hamas has fallen into the trap, as it has given Israel the pretext to carry out its aggression, while Israel's allies in the can say that the Jewish state is exercising its right to defend itself. On the other hand, some analysts say that the Gaza-based government has indeed tried and planned to prompt Israel to carry out such aggression by withdrawing from the national dialogue which would have ended Gaza's independence and formed a technocratic and universally-recognized national unity government. The Gaza-based government then rejected the ceasefire and although this did not require more rocket attacks on Israel, this government actually intensified them to provoke Israel and spark a crisis in the region. Through this crisis, it hoped to prompt all international and regional actors to act under the public opinion's pressure in Arab and Islamic countries. This government's goal would then be – according to these analysts - to look for a solution halting the bloodshed in Gaza and achieving this government's fundamental request: ending its international and regional isolation and being recognized as the government of an independent free state. This state would be the Gaza Emirate and it would be neither Islamic nor Arab. No one can guess what factors have pushed the Gaza-based government to pull out of the national dialogue and escalate the military confrontation with Israel. Likewise, no one knows what has pushed this government to reject any draft resolution for a ceasefire. The Gaza-based government may of course have the potentials to keep on fighting until it achieves its goals, regardless of which one of the two parties has drawn the other into this military escalation. This is proved by the rockets continuously being fired over the past six days, including some kinds that no one knew this government actually had, such as the Grad. Such rockets have a 40-km range, but they can not hit a precise target. The Gaza-based government may indeed have rockets with a range of up to 76 km, as its military leaders have threatened. It may also have resistance plans if Israel decides to launch a ground operation. If a ground operation is indeed kicked off, the Gaza-based government has to keep on fighting to inflict on Israel as many material and human losses as the destruction brought about in Gaza. At that point, we the Arabs would make a mistake if we asked for a ceasefire or a truce. Let us imagine that the Gaza-based government does not have the possibilities to resist, achieve at least limited results and persuade the international community and the very Israel that all it can do is to recognize the Palestinians' legitimate rights without losing more time. In this case, it would be wrong to reject draft resolutions for a ceasefire in spite of the bloodshed, the children killed, the women displaced and the infrastructure turned into ashes. In this case, the Hamas-led government should accept the ceasefire with the same conditions with which it refused it: a definitive end to rocket attacks in exchange for a perpetual opening of the Israeli border crossings. This, though, should happen only after the destruction of the tunnels through which the Grad rockets have been smuggled through the land of the Egyptian traitors and after Israel has occupied the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing so that it may run it instead of Ramallah's traitors. Hold on, oh you people in Gaza. We stand with you.
