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24 november 2012, did we miss something ?

Whilst being enormously relieved about the gaza ceasefire, and optimistic it will hold, I also think something happened we don't yet know about. For hamas it was a clear victory. Reaching tel aviv and flaunting much-improved rocketry buoyed their reputation and won concessions easing the blockade; surely the first step to israel actually negotiating with hamas. For abbas and the palestinian authority, equally clear defeat, as they show themselves and their engage-israel strategy impotent. But what about israel ? Though the usual suspects rush to fill the pro-israel mass media vacuum, there was a distinct lack of israel's own usual bravado. Rarely have I heard israeli spokespeople, least of all in the netanyahu era, sound so uncertain. And this with an israeli election just weeks away. In a first precedent-setting round in the brave new world of a muslim brotherhood-led egypt, how was a hard right israeli prime minister persuaded to accept the status quo ante as an outcome, a clear hamas victory ? Convincing netanyahu of this would surely have taken the great persuader himself. And funnily enough, who was actually skipping around when the ceasefire was brokered and agreed - hilary. And it is she who surely deserves the real credit for this, as it was she who was the only party in the room who had anything to offer israel wanted. That is the missing ingredient: a classic rumsfeldian known unknown. We can only speculate what she actually gave, but logic points strongly to the one thing that is a real existential threat to israel. Not gaza, which is ultimately a manageable irritant, but iran, on which israel has been desperately trying to bring the americans round for years. My guess is they finally did, and I'm also guessing we'll know something about it before january 22 2013, as netanyahu has an election to win.