The Israeli Invasion of Gaza: Rolling Updates (10 January)

Latest Story: The Plan to Bring Fatah into Gaza — Livni Speaks
The Final Bush Legacy: Why the US Abstained on the Gaza Resolution
Latest Story: The Plan to Bring Fatah into Gaza?

12:10 a.m. With a lull in activity, we're going for some downtime. We half-expected a major Israeli ground attack before dawn but it appears that the Israeli Cabinet may still be undecided about pushing into Gazan cities.

Meanwhile, it's safe --- and sad --- to say that all is stalled on the political front. This has settled into a frustrating circle: none of the major players wants to appear to make a concession to Hamas (since most of those players want to get rid of the organisation) and, without a concession such as the opening of border crossings, Hamas will not negotiate for a cease-fire.



11:25 p.m. Israeli military says seven soldiers "lightly wounded" on Saturday. More than 60 targets hit in airstrikes. Suicide bomber killed in northern Gaza.

Four members of same family killed by Israeli tank shell near Beit Lahiya.

10:15 p.m. Israeli bombing raids in northeastern Gaza. Meanwhile, Israeli "information" services brings out their secret weapon: "internationally-renowned singer Noa", who speaks for peace to "Palestinian brothers":

Now I see the ugly head of fanaticism, I see it large and horrid, I see its black eyes and spine-chilling smile, I see blood on its hands and I know one of its many names :Hamas.

9:55 p.m. Watching Khaled Meshaal recorded statement: while he says Israel has ruined chance of peace, I think he has set down a marker: Hamas will negotiate if there is an unconditional opening of the crossings (which Israel will not accept, of course)

9:50 p.m. Khaled Mashaal, Hamas leader in Damascus, tells Al Jazeera that Israel has failed in Gaza, achieving only "a holocaust which your leaders are trying to use for the next election".

9:45 p.m. Report of 500-1000 demonstrators in front of Israeli Embassy in London. Shoes and signs being thrown, and riot police charging the crowd.

9 p.m. Four Israeli F-16 jets violate Egyptian airspace.

8:30 p.m. Human Rights Watch tells Al Jazeera that it is "convinced" Israeli military is using white phosphorous

8:15 p.m. Information or disinformation? Israel's Channel 2 claims some Hamas fighters are wearing civilian clothes and some are impersonating IDF soldiers.

7:50 p.m. "Rafah Kid" is blogging with updates and opinion from Rafah, Gaza.

7:40 p.m. BBC says up to 50,000 at London demonstration for Gaza. Participants estimate more than 100,000.

6:20 p.m. Israeli military claims that it has killed Gaza City commander of Hamas rocket launching programme.

4:25 p.m. Diplomatic battle lines drawn between Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas. Abbas in Cairo supports "international presence in the Gaza Strip", but Hamas delegation says it was not consulted.

While Abbas covered his back with the warning, "If Israel doesn't want to accept, it will take the responsibility of perpetuating a waterfall of blood," he also set up Hamas for the fall if it does not accept the Mubarak-Sarkozy proposal: "If any party does not accept it, regrettably it will be the one bearing the responsibility."

4:15 p.m. Associated Press says leaflets dropped by Israel throughout Gaza announce "a new phase in the war on terror". Israeli Army calls the leaflets "a general warning".

3:45 p.m. Diplomatic negotiations going nowhere. Egypt and the Palestinian Authority have rejected the placement in Egypt of international observers for the Gaza-Egypt border, while Hamas have rejected the placement of an international force in Gaza.

3:40 p.m. From the diary of Sami Abdel Shafi, management consultant and columnist in Gaza City:

Whatever capacity we did have to run our own affairs is now no longer there, and it will make it extraordinarily difficult for the Gaza Strip to go forward whenever the war does end.

Only then will people discover the real cost of this war, when we have to look around and ask just how we begin a rebuilding effort on such a massive scale.

3:35 p.m. UN says three-hour respite not enough to allow resumption of aid deliveries in Gaza.

3:30 p.m. Israel dropping leaflets on Gaza City residents warning them to stay indoors as it plans to "escalate" offensive.

2:15 p.m. The interview with Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert could have a significant impact if it spreads beyond Al Jazeera, which is featuring it each hour. Gilbert is saying that the injuries he is seeing are not from "ordinary" shrapnel but from DIME (dense inert metal explosive) weapons.

Claims that the Israelis used DIME in Gaza first surfaced in 2006. The weapons have not been declared illegal, but the injuries caused show severe heat as well as percussive damage.

2 p.m. Israeli ground offensive imminent? Israeli Cabinet approves call-up of "unlimited" number of reservists

1:45 p.m. Explosions continue despite supposed three-hour "respite".

1:25 p.m. United Nations official Chris Gunness says Israeli Defense Forces have admitted responsibility for the Jabiliya school/shelter bombing:

In briefings senior officers conducted for foreign diplomats, they admitted the shelling to which IDF forces in Jabalya were responding did not originate from the school. The IDF admitted in that briefing that the attack on the UN site was unintentional.

Gunness added that footage released by the IDF, trying to show Hamas fighters operated from the school in 2007, was filmed after the UN had temporarily abandoned the site.

1:10 p.m. Israeli military says three-hour "respite" began at 1 p.m. Al Jazeera's Ayman Moyheldin reports that Israeli forces have surrounded all major population centers in Gaza City.

UN is now investigating the Zeitoun mass killing.

1 p.m. Gazan death toll now 815.

12:40 p.m. Israeli tank shell kills eight members of a family in Jabaliya camp.

12:10 p.m. In Cairo, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas calls Mubarak-Sarkozy proposal a "rescue initiative" which is "the only mechanism" to end Gaza war. Sharp-eyed readers will note that Abbas makes no reference to the UN cease-fire resolution passed just over 24 hours ago.

12:05 p.m. Latest Israeli airstrike just outside Gaza City as Ayman Moyheldin reports live on Al Jazeera.

12 noon: Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor, says 165 dead children and more than 1200 wounded children brought to al Shifa hospital to date.

Al Jazeera's Ayman Moyheldin says Israelis are bringing aid into warehouse but international agencies cannot and will not distribute because of security issues and shortage of fuel. No resumption of aid shipments so far. Close combat between Israeli and Hamas forces overnight, with unknown number of Hamas fighters killed and five Israeli troops wounded.

11:10 a.m. Journalists in Gaza demonstrate after the Israeli strike on a building used by media.

11 a.m. Poll of the Day: Hamas' military branch, the Al Qassam Brigades, offers visitors to their English website the choice of "Keep Calm", "Resume Rockets", "Resume Operations". Right now, it's 40 percent each for "Keep Calm" and "Resume Operations", with 20 percent for "Resume Rockets".

Morning Update: Israeli operations continue overnight, with strikes on more than 40 targets, as talks begin in Cairo on the Mubarak-Sarkozy proposal.

Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations Secretary-General, in a phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, "expressed disappointment that the violence is continuing on the ground in disregard". A UN official has called for a war crimes investigation of Israeli actions.

More to our follow-up on the Zeitoun mass killing: The Guardian has an article --- it appears at least 30 members of the al-Samouni clan died in the Israeli shelling of a house, and up to 30 other civilians died nearby. The dead and wounded lay unattended for up to four days.

More than 800 Gazans have been killed since the start of the conflict two weeks ago. Thirteen Israelis, of whom 10 are soldiers, have been killed --- in contrast to the claims of the Al Qassam Brigades that they killed eight Israeli troops in an ambush, claims no losses on Friday.

Follow-Up: The Plan to Bring Fatah into Gaza --- Livni Speaks

For those still sceptical of our notion of the "grand design" to topple Hamas and replace it with Fatah....

I just read carefully Israeli Foreign Tzipi Livni's interview in today's Washington Post. Most reports have focused on the headline, "Israel is Not Going to Show Restraint", but the political significance is hidden away in the second half of the interview:

POST: People in Washington are interested in how long the operation will last and what Israel's aim is.

LIVNI: The Annapolis[peace] process is based on the understanding that we are working with a pragmatic leadership in the Palestinian Authority while fighting terror. It is a zero-sum game when Hamas is getting stronger while Abu Mazen is getting weaker. The Palestinians need to understand that Israel can share and implement and translate the vision of two states for two peoples with those that accept this vision, who accept Israel's existence and renounce violence and terrorism. Hamas does not. Hamas does not represent the national aspirations of the Palestinians. It represents extreme Islamic ideas, which they share with Iran, Hezbollah and Syria.



POST: Your goal is to continue the dialogue with the Palestinian Authority but also weaken the extremists?

LIVNI: Yes. . . . We are willing to . . . try and find a peace treaty with the moderates as long [as] at the end of the day, we don't fight a terror state on the other side of the border.

POST: Would you say [Hamas] needs to be removed?

LIVNI: I would say that the Gaza Strip controlled by Hamas is a burden not only to Israel but to the Palestinians themselves.

Gaza Story of the Day: The Plan to Bring in Fatah?

In today's updates, you may have noticed the diplomatic development of Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas enthusiastically backing the proposal for "international monitors" in Gaza while Hamas is resisting it. Why would that be?

Because, to be blunt, someone is spreading the story that the plan is a Trojan Horse to bring Fatah back into Gaza. From The Times of London, which is not exactly a Hamas-loving newspaper:

A plan to create a new foothold in Gaza for the Palestinian Authority and to bring in international monitors was being drawn up by diplomats yesterday....The plan would allow a return of the authority, led by the secular Fatah faction, to the territory 18 months after it was expelled by the Islamist Hamas.

Frustratingly, the article offers no further detail other than that "a triangle at the southern end of Gaza, including the Rafah crossing to Egypt and the Kerem Shalom crossing to Israel, [will] be policed by Turkish and French military monitors to stop arms smuggling into Gaza". How Fatah uses this to return to the Strip is unclear.

The most likely scenario is that someone in New York has had a word in the ear of James Bone, one of the co-authors of the piece. But whom?

The Israeli Invasion of Gaza: Rolling Updates (8 Jan --- Evening)

Photograph: Mohammed Saber/EPA

Earlier Updates on The Israeli Invasion of Gaza (8 January)
Latest Story: Breaking News: Obama Administration “Prepared To Talk to Hamas”?
Latest Story: How the US is Fighting for “Peace” in Gaza: Bunker-Busting Bombs
Latest Article: Gaza: One Man's Tragedy is Another Man's Marketing Opportunity

1:30 a.m. A bit of downtime. We'll be back in the morning, updating on the discussions at the UN Security Council, on the humanitarian situation, and on any military developments.

12:30 a.m. The Guardian of London is reporting the statement of the head of the Arab League that Arab nations have accepted the US-UK-France resolution to be presented to the United Nations Security Council.

11:20 p.m. Gazan photojournalist and peace activist Sameh Habeeb, who has been blogging on his experience of the conflict, reports via Twitter that his area is under heavy Israeli bombardment.



10:50 p.m. Iran makes it position clear: Speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani, after meetings in Damascus, calls Mubarak-Sarkozy proposal "honey injected with poison"

9:20 p.m. Now here's a twist: part of Israeli information campaigns has been the charge that Hamas has been using human shields in Gaza. This just in from Amnesty International via the BBC:

Israeli troops had forced Palestinian civilians to stay in their homes after taking them over as sniper positions or bases, [Amnesty] said quoting sources in Gaza. "This increases risk to families and means they are effectively being used as human shields."

It should be noted that Amnesty criticised both sides, blaming Hamas for endangering civilians by firing from their homes. Still, the report should make for uncomfortable reading in Tel Aviv, clearly putting an onus for civilian deaths on the Israeli military:

The army is well aware gunmen usually leave the area after having fired and any reprisal attack against these homes will in most cases cause harm to civilians - not gunmen.

9:15 p.m. United Nations Relief and Works Agency says "lack of cooperation" with Israeli is "completely unacceptable" and they have "lost all confidence" in Israeli authorities.

8:35 p.m. CNN is headlining the press conference of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Abbas replayed his endorsement of the Mubarak-Sarkozy proposal as "important to reach a cease-fire", a position supported by Zapatero.

Fair enough. But why, at this important time, is Abbas spending a tangential 24 hours in Madrid? He is due to go to Cairo.

7:45 p.m. Reuters and Al Jazeera offer details, from a Western diplomatic source, of the US-UK-France resolution for the United Nations Security Council. It will "include a call for an immediate ceasefire, action to stop smuggling of arms [to Hamas] and open the border crossings". Trying to overtake the Libyan-drafted resolution, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner presented the draft resolution to Arab foreign ministers.

7:20 p.m. Unsurprising Development of the Day: US Senate passes non-binding resolution expressing strong support of Israel. The Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, explained, "The Israelis...are responding exactly the same way we would."

6:40 p.m. Curious report by CBS News: 10 Damascus-based Palestinian factions, including Hamas, have rejected the Mubarak-Sarkozy proposal, stating that they ""didn't see in the Egyptian initiative any valid basis for any acceptable solution as it includes articles deemed risky for the Palestinian resistance and its future". The aim of the proposal was "to impose restrict on the resistance movement, blockading it while giving the enemy the free hand. The initiative could only help the enemy achieve the results they are unable to attain so far." To my knowledge, this supposed rejection has not been reported in any other American or British media. It is unclear what effect it has on the talks currently underway in Cairo.

6:17 p.m. Barack Obama now delivering a speech calling for urgent action on an economic stimulus plan. Can't help but notice that, when it comes to economy, he has no problem being Presidential but, when it comes to Gaza, he declares that "America cannot have two Presidents at once".

6:15 p.m. The US-Britain-France resolution has been drafted by the British. My suspicion is that the trio have done this to try and forestall formal consideration of the Libyan-drafted resolution, which would undoubtedly have been unacceptable to Israel.

Afternoon update (6 p.m.): Significant shift on diplomatic front? US-Britain-France reported to be working on binding UN resolution for Gaza cease-fire.

Hamas official says organisation is considering cease-fire options. Will agree to proposal if it includes provisions for "end to Israeli aggression" and lifting of economic blockade.

UN aid agency has suspended operations after one of its trucks was hit by Israeli fire. The Gazan death toll is now 763.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has condemned the firing of rockets into northern Israel and says his Government will strive to find those responsible. Israeli Government believes a group called National Front is behind the rocket launches.

Follow-Up on Gaza: Was the Israeli Attack Planned in June?

Latest Updates: The Israeli Invasion of Gaza: Rolling Updates (8 Jan — Evening)
Latest Updates on the Situation in Gaza (8 January)

On Sunday, we suggested that the Israeli Cabinet had planned for attacks on Gaza as soon as the December cease-fire expired. A well-sourced analysis by Steve Niva in Foreign Policy in Focus offers detail on this "strategic escalation":

War of Choice: How Israel Manufactured the Gaza Escalation



Israel has repeatedly claimed that it had "no choice" but to wage war on Gaza on December 27 because Hamas had broken a ceasefire, was firing rockets at Israeli civilians, and had "tried everything in order to avoid this military operation," as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni put it.

This claim, however, is widely at odds with the fact that Israel's military and political leadership took many aggressive steps during the ceasefire that escalated a crisis with Hamas, and possibly even provoked Hamas to create a pretext for the assault. This wasn't a war of "no choice," but rather a very avoidable war in which Israeli actions played the major role in instigating.

Israel has a long history of deliberately using violence and other provocative measures to trigger reactions in order to create a pretext for military action, and to portray its opponents as the aggressors and Israel as the victim. According to the respected Israeli military historian Zeev Maoz in his recent book, Defending the Holy Land, Israel most notably used this policy of "strategic escalation" in 1955-1956, when it launched deadly raids on Egyptian army positions to provoke Egypt's President Nasser into violent reprisals preceding its ill-fated invasion of Egypt; in 1981-1982, when it launched violent raids on Lebanon in order to provoke Palestinian escalation preceding the Israeli invasion of Lebanon; and between 2001-2004, when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon repeatedly ordered assassinations of high-level Palestinian militants during declared ceasefires, provoking violent attacks that enabled Israel's virtual reoccupation of the West Bank.

Israel's current assault on Gaza bears many trademark elements of Israel's long history of employing "strategic escalation" to manufacture a major crisis, if not a war.
Making War 'Inevitable'

The countdown to a war began, according to a detailed report by Barak Raviv in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, when Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak started planning the current attack on Gaza with his chiefs of staff at least six months ago — even as Israel was negotiating the Egyptian brokered ceasefire with Hamas that went into effect on June 19. During the subsequent ceasefire, the report contends, the Israeli security establishment carefully gathered intelligence to map out Hamas' security infrastructure, engaged in operational deception, and spread disinformation to mislead the public about its intentions.

This revelation doesn't confirm that Israel intended to start a war with Hamas in December, but it does shed some light on why Israel continuously took steps that undermined the terms of the fragile ceasefire with Hamas, even though Hamas respected their side of the agreement.

Indeed, there was a genuine lull in rocket and mortar fire between June 19 and November 4, due to Hamas compliance and only sporadically violated by a small number of launchings carried out by rival Fatah and Islamic Jihad militants, largely in defiance of Hamas. According to the conservative Israeli-based Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center's analysis of rocket and missile attacks in 2008, there were only three rockets fired at Israel in July, September, and October combined. Israeli civilians living near Gaza experienced an almost unprecedented degree of security during this period, with no Israeli casualties.

Yet despite the major lull, Israel continually raided the West Bank, arresting and frequently killing "wanted" Palestinians from June to October, which had the inevitable effect of ratcheting up pressure on Hamas to respond. Moreover, while the central expectation of Hamas going into the ceasefire was that Israel would lift the siege on Gaza, Israel only took the barest steps to ease the siege, which kept the people at a bare survival level. This policy was a clear affront to Hamas, and had the inescapable effect of undermining both Hamas and popular Palestinian support for the ceasefire.

But Israel's most provocative action, acknowledged by many now as the critical turning point that undermined the ceasefire, took place on November 4, when Israeli forces auspiciously violated the truce by crossing into the Gaza Strip to destroy what the army said was a tunnel dug by Hamas, killing six Hamas militants. Sara Roy, writing in the London Review of Books, contends this attack was "no doubt designed finally to undermine the truce between Israel and Hamas established last June."

The Israeli breach into Gaza was immediately followed by a further provocation by Israel on November 5, when the Israeli government hermetically sealed off all ways into and out of Gaza. As a result, the UN reports that the amount of imports entering Gaza has been "severely reduced to an average of 16 truckloads per day — down from 123 truckloads per day in October and 475 trucks per day in May 2007 — before the Hamas takeover." These limited shipments provide only a fraction of the supplies needed to sustain 1.5 million starving Palestinians.

In response, Hamas predictably claimed that Israel had violated the truce and allowed Islamic Jihad to launch a round of rocket attacks on Israel. Only after lethal Israeli reprisals killed over 10 Hamas gunmen in the following days did Hamas militants finally respond with volleys of mortars and rockets of their own. In two short weeks, Israel killed over 15 Palestinian militants, while about 120 rockets and mortars were fired at Israel, and although there were no Israeli casualties the calm had been shattered.

It was at this time that Israeli officials launched what appears to have been a coordinated media blitz to cultivate public reception for an impending conflict, stressing the theme of the "inevitability" of a coming war with Hamas in Gaza. On November 12, senior IDF officials announced that war with Hamas was likely in the two months after the six-month ceasefire, baldly stating it would occur even if Hamas wasn't interested in confrontation. A few days later, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert publicly ordered his military commanders to draw up plans for a war in Gaza, which were already well developed at the time. On November 19, according to Raviv's report in Haaretz, the Gaza war plan was brought before Barak for final approval.

While the rhetoric of an "inevitable" war with Hamas may have only been Israeli bluster to compel Hamas into line, its actions on the ground in the critical month leading up to the official expiration of the ceasefire on December 19 only heightened the cycle of violence, leaving a distinct impression Israel had cast the die for war.

Finally, Hamas then walked right into the "inevitable war" that Israel had been preparing since the ceasefire had gone into effect in June. With many Palestinians believing the ceasefire to be meaningless, Hamas announced it wouldn't renew the ceasefire after it expired on December 19. Hamas then stood back for two days while Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militants fired volleys of mortars and rockets into Israel, in the context of mutually escalating attacks. Yet even then, with Israeli threats of war mounting, Hamas imposed a 24-hour ceasefire on all missile attacks on December 21, announcing it would consider renewing the lapsed truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip if Israel would halt its raids in both Gaza and the West Bank, and keep Gaza border crossings open for supplies of aid and fuel. Israel immediately rejected its offer.

But when the Israel Defence Forces killed three Hamas militants laying explosives near the security fence between Israel and Gaza on the evening of December 23, the Hamas military wing lashed out by launching a barrage of over 80 missiles into Israel the following day, claiming it was Israel, and not Hamas, that was responsible for the escalation.

Little did they know that, according to Raviv, Prime Minister Olmert, and Defense Minister Barak had already met on December 18 to approve the impending war plan, but put the mission off waiting for a better pretext. By launching more than 170 rockets and mortars at Israeli civilians in the days following December 23, killing one Israeli civilian, Hamas had provided reason enough for Israel to unleash its long-planned attack on Gaza on December 27.
The Rationale for War

If Israel's goal were simply to end rocket attacks on its civilians, it would have solidified and extended the ceasefire, which was working well, until November. Even after November, it could have addressed Hamas' longstanding ceasefire proposals for a complete end to rocket-fire on Israel, in exchange for Israel lifting its crippling 18-month siege on Gaza.

Instead, the actual targets of its assault on Gaza after December 27, which included police stations, mosques, universities, and Hamas government institutions, clearly reveal that Israel's primary goals go far beyond providing immediate security for its citizens. Israeli spokespersons repeatedly claim that Israel's assault isn't about seeking to effect regime change with Hamas, but rather about creating a "new security reality" in Gaza. But that "new reality" requires Israel to use massive violence to degrade the political and military capacity of Hamas, to a point where it agrees to a ceasefire with conditions more congenial to Israel. Short of a complete reoccupation of Gaza, no amount of violence will erase Hamas from the scene.

Confirming the steps needed to create the "new reality," the broader reasons why Israel chose a major confrontation with Hamas at this time appear to be the cause of several other factors unrelated to providing immediate security for its citizens.

First, many senior Israeli political and military leaders strongly opposed the June 19 ceasefire with Hamas, and looked for opportunities to reestablish Israel's fabled "deterrent capability" of instilling fear into its enemies. These leaders felt Israel's deterrent capability was badly damaged as a result of their withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, and especially after the widely criticized failures in the 2006 Israeli war with Hezbollah. For this powerful group a ceasefire was at best a tactical pause before the inevitable renewal of conflict, when conditions were more favorable. Immediately following Israel's aerial assault, a New York Times article noted that Israel had been eager "to remind its foes that it has teeth" and to erase the ghost of Lebanon that has haunted it over the past two years.

A second factor was pressure surrounding the impending elections set to take place in early February. The ruling coalition, led by Barak and Livni, have been repeatedly criticized by the Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister, who is leading in the polls, for not being tough enough on Hamas and rocket-fire from Gaza. This gave the ruling coalition a strong incentive to demonstrate to the Israeli people their security credentials in order to bolster their chances against the more hawkish Likud.

Third, Hamas repeatedly said it wouldn't recognize Mahmud Abbas as president of the Palestinian Authority after his term runs out on January 9. The looming political standoff on the Palestinian side threatens to boost Hamas and undermine Abbas, who had underseen closer security coordination with Israel and was congenial to Israeli demands for concessions on future peace proposals. One possible outcome of this assault is that Abbas will remain in power for a while longer, since Hamas will be unable to mobilise its supporters in order to force him to resign.

And finally, Israel was pressed to take action now due to its sense of the American political timeline. The Bush administration rarely exerted constraint on Israel and would certainly stand by in its waning days, while Barack Obama would not likely want to begin his presidency with a major confrontation with Israel. The Washington Post quoted a Bush administration official saying that Israel struck in Gaza "because they want it to be over before the next administration comes in. They can't predict how the next administration will handle it. And this is not the way they want to start with the new administration."
An Uncertain Ending

As the conflict rages to an uncertain end, it's important to consider Israeli military historian Zeev Maoz's contention that Israel's history of manufacturing wars through "strategic escalation" and using overwhelming force to achieve "deterrence" has never been successful. In fact, it's the primary cause of Israel's insecurity because it deepens hatred and a desire for revenge rather than fear.

At the same time, there's no question Hamas continues to callously sacrifice its fellow Palestinian citizens, as well as Israeli civilians, on the altar of maintaining its pyrrhic resistance credentials and its myopic preoccupation with revenge, and fell into many self-made traps of its own. There had been growing international pressure on Israel to ease its siege and a major increase in creative and nonviolent strategies drawing attention to the plight of Palestinians such as the arrival of humanitarian relief convoys off of Gaza's coast in the past months, but now Gaza lies in ruins.

But as the vastly more powerful actor holding nearly all the cards in this conflict, the war in Gaza was ultimately Israel's choice. And for all this bloodshed and violence, Israel must be held accountable.

With the American political establishment firmly behind Israel's attack, and Obama's foreign policy team heavily weighted with pro-Israel insiders like Dennis Ross and Hillary Clinton, any efforts to hold Israel accountable in the United States will depend upon American citizens mobilizing a major grassroots effort behind a new foreign policy that will not tolerate any violations of international law, including those by Israel, and will immediately work towards ending Israel's siege of Gaza and ending Israel's occupation.

Beyond that, the most promising prospect for holding Israel accountable is through the increasing use of universal jurisdiction for prosecuting war crimes, along with the growing transnational movement calling for sanctions on Israel until it ends its violations of international law. In what would be truly be a new style of foreign policy, a transnational network that focuses on Israeli violations of international law, rather than the state itself, could become a counterweight that forces policymakers in the United States, Europe, and Israel to reconsider their political and moral complicity in the current war, in favor of taking real steps towards peace and security in the region for all peoples.