An accidental war

The current crisis in Gaza has only further revealed the paucity of imagination within the Israeli military and political elite. The Hamas-led destruction of the wall between Egypt and Gaza was a coup for the democratically elected Government (despite the fact that very little has changed for the average Palestinian, still forced to live under Israeli bombardment).

After its initial shock at the breakout, Israeli authorities have expressed hope that Hamas will economically disengage from Israel and embrace Egypt. Haaretz editorialised that the siege of Gaza had "failed" and yet the Australian Jewish News could only issue a typically clueless, "there are no easy solutions". Challenging Israeli Government policy would obviously upset its Israeli Foreign Ministry minders.

Perhaps it should have endorsed the suggestion of ethnic cleansing by one of Israel's leading rabbis, who argued recently that Gazans should be moved to the Sinai. Egypt rejected the proposal. Dissenting Jews in Britain, Independent Jewish Voices, were one of the few mainstream Jewish groups to condemn the actions in Gaza.

But Israel now faces an even greater challenge - and one entirely of its own making. The Western-led division between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority is bound to fail. Washington patsy, PA President Mahmoud Abbas, is forced to humiliatingly denounce Hamas when he surely knows that peace will never occur without both parties establishing a united front against Israel's desires.

The Bush Administration and its Zionist courtiers are starting to realise that the Arab world is no longer willing to accept directions from Washington, London or Tel Aviv. Days after the Gaza breakout, Hamas warned the world that it might lead 500,000 Palestinians into Israel to claim the land and homes stolen by the Jews in 1948. It was a revolutionary idea whose time may soon come.