Word: israelism
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...Israel and Hamas both know that there will be a cease-fire in Gaza. Its timing and terms will be "negotiated" in bombs and bloodshed in the days ahead; it will be mediated by a third party or a combination of third parties; and it will be shaped by a complex regional power game involving an array of competing Israeli politicians, the rival Palestinian leaderships of Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas, Egypt, Syria and even more distant players such as Turkey, Iran and, of course, the United States. The victims of this "negotiation," needless to say, will be scores...
While some Israeli political leaders have spun this episode as a decisive showdown, Israel knows that its military offensive is unlikely to end Hamas' political control of Gaza or even to eliminate the movement's capacity to fire rockets into Israel. Israel's objective is to force Hamas to stop all attacks on Israel from Gaza. Or, to put it another way, to restore the cease-fire Hamas abandoned on Dec. 19, on terms more acceptable to Israel. Polls taken on the first day of the bombing showed that while 81% of Israelis supported the military campaign, only 6% believed...
Despite the heavy casualties inflicted by days of bombing, Israel believes it has not seriously impaired Hamas' ability to fire rockets at Israel. But by targeting the basic infrastructure of Hamas governance in Gaza - everything from police posts, a government building and a university to the private homes of Hamas leaders - Israel is trying to set a crippling price for continued rocket attacks...
...Still, Israel's next step remains unclear: its armored units, poised to drive into Gaza, have not yet been ordered to advance, and the Israeli offensive remains confined to air strikes. U.S. Defense officials have told TIME that the chances of a successful ground assault would have been higher if it had been launched earlier in the bombing campaign, not several days into it. But Israel is well aware that a ground assault is precisely what Hamas wants. There is little the militants can do against Israeli air power, but they believe they can bloody Israel's armored columns...
...ground offensive is still likely. For the past two days, Israeli leaders have said they will not agree to an early cease-fire and instead want to cripple Hamas permanently. Sources in Israel's Defense Ministry said Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave France's Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, a polite "no" to his request for a 48-hour cease-fire. But today, as the voices of well-known Israeli writers joined the call for an immediate end to hostilities, the idea of a cease-fire was still being debated, according to the Defense Ministry sources. It's probably no coincidence...