Two years on from its vast offensive on Gaza that killed and maimed thousands, Israel is renewing its efforts to break the back of the Palestinian national cause, writes Khaled Amayreh Israel has been escalating tensions in both the Gaza Strip and West Bank in what seems to be a fresh attempt to pacify Palestinians and eliminate expressions of resistance -- peaceful or otherwise -- to its occupation. Israeli troops have been carrying out raids in several areas in the West Bank, including arrests in the Silwan neighbourhood and house demolitions in nearby localities. Israeli authorities have also decided to banish a leading East Jerusalemite community leader "for disturbing law and order" while prosecuting another for "disobeying court orders". According to a press release circulated by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Israel demolished 396 Palestinian homes in Jerusalem and other areas of the West Bank under direct military rule. The figure represents an increase by 45 per cent in the number of demolitions in comparison to last year's figures. As a result, 561 Palestinians, including 280 children, were rendered homeless. The message these draconian measures carry for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian citizens in occupied Jerusalem is that no level of national activism or passive resistance to Israel will be tolerated, and that "violators will be thrown off to Palestinian Authority [PA] areas". In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation army has been killing innocent Palestinians on a near daily basis. The victims of Israeli attacks include fishermen, farmers, workers collecting gravel to sell for building purposes, and suspected militants. This comes at a time when even Israeli intelligence sources testify that Hamas is not interested in provoking a confrontation with Israel, and that the Islamist movement that governs Gaza is doing all it can to prevent the firing of rockets onto Israel. Nonetheless, it seems that Israel is determined to provoke and embarrass Hamas, if only by deliberately attacking civilian targets in Gaza in order to show the Palestinian masses that Hamas is in no position to protect them from Israel's wrath. Israel is also believed to be conducting an extensive intelligence campaign in the Gaza Strip aimed at discovering the whereabouts of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Palestinian officials in Gaza interpret terse Israeli references to Shalit as a ruse to prompt Hamas to move him from his present place of detention to another place, which might allow for the discovery of his ultimate whereabouts -- either by Israel's Palestinian agents or by unmanned surveillance aircraft flying non-stop over the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, the Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai lashed out at Hamas, calling the Islamic movement a "problematic abscess". "Gaza is like an abscess, a problematic boil, for as long as they [Hamas] don't understand how to act, nothing will move forward here," said Vilnai while touring areas adjacent to the Gaza Strip. "Instead of taking care of their people, Hamas is trying to conquer Jerusalem," he added. A few weeks before Israel's full-blown onslaught on Gaza two years ago, it was Vilnai who threatened Gazans with "a holocaust" in response to the firing of homemade Qassam missiles onto Israel. The missiles inflicted very few casualties and caused only negligible damage. Israel continues to be hell-bent on destroying -- or at least seriously weakening -- Hamas for purely political and ideological reasons that have little or nothing to do with the pretext of "terror". The more plausible interpretation of Israel's stance is that as long as Hamas is able to maintain a credible presence among the Palestinians, the PA leadership won't dare sign a peace agreement with Israel that would waive long-held constants, such as the right of return for Palestinian refugees and the recovery of East Jerusalem. Most Palestinians would view any peace agreement with Israel that excluded the right of return and restoration of Jerusalem as outright surrender. Hence, Israel hopes that by weakening Hamas, which means eliminating the most credible and effective opposition to the Western-backed PA, Tel Aviv would be able to cajole or bully the Palestine Liberation Organisation into accommodating Israeli demands, even if this means betraying Palestinian rights and aspirations. This is certainly the view of many Israeli hawks, which constitute the vast majority of Israel's political and military elite. For example, Shaul Mofaz, the number two leader in the opposition Kadima Party, was quoted last week as saying that "the eradication of Hamas was a sine qua non for peace." What Mofaz almost certainly had in mind was Palestinian capitulation, which would allow Israel to keep dismember what remains of historic Palestine and block the right of return. Meanwhile, many in the Israeli political-military arena are actively pushing for a fresh assault on Gaza for a variety of reasons, including "finishing what we didn't -- or failed to -- finish during Operation Cast Lead (in December 2008 and January 2009)," avenging Hamas's Intifada-era suicide bombings inside Israel and, simply, enhancing Israel's deterrence vis-à-vis Hamas and indirectly other resistance groups, such as Hizbullah. However, Israel today is not in the best position to wage naked aggression against the Gaza Strip -- a fresh war that would require a green light from the United States. Such aggression, especially if perceived as unprovoked, and if it inflicted heavy casualties among civilians, would cost Israel immense diplomatic capital, including further possible deteriorations in relations with countries such as Turkey. This is not to say that Israel will not continue to look for a pretext that would allow for more aggression against the Palestinians, whether in Gaza or in the West Bank. Tormenting the Palestinians has become a kind modus operandi for the Jewish state. And it seems there is no particular reason that would prompt Israel to abandon this tradition.
