On Saturday evening, Israel declared victory in its war on Gaza and announced a unilateral ceasefire.
"Trying to hide a smile and a sense of self-satisfaction Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faced the cameras at the Defence Ministry and declared to the Israeli public, 'We won.' The Israel Defence Forces objectives for its operation in the Gaza Strip were 'obtained in full'. Hamas was 'surprised and badly beaten,' the government 'made decisions responsibly and wisely,' the IDF's performance was excellent and the southern home front 'displayed resilience'," Haaretz reported.
"The Israeli decision to opt for a unilateral ceasefire, instead of pressing ahead with efforts to reach a ceasefire based on the Egyptian initiative, caused Cairo some discomfort. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Saturday accused Israel of being drunk with power. Egypt is fearful that a pullout not backed by an understanding between the parties will soon result in a another round of hostilities."
Hamas said on Saturday that it would fight on despite Israel's ceasefire declaration.
"A unilateral ceasefire does not mean ending the (Israeli) aggression and ending the siege. These constitute acts of war and so this will not mean an end to resistance," a Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told Reuters in Gaza.
He also criticised Israel for taking a unilateral approach rather than entering into a deal with Egyptian mediators: "It is an attempt to pre-empt the Egyptian efforts and any other efforts that seek to achieve a withdrawal of the occupying forces, an end to the siege and a ceasefire."
Despite the devastation and loss of life in Gaza, Hamas is widely seen as emerging from the war politically strengthened.
"On the international stage, it has benefited from the war's exposure of the deep rift in the Arab world between US and Iranian allies," AFP reported.
"Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority (PA) immediately called for a ceasefire while their rivals Iran and Syria, backers of Hamas and Lebanon's Hizbollah, loudly championed the struggle against the Jewish state.
"On Friday Hamas received a huge political boost when its leaders for the first time attended a top-level Arab summit in Doha that was boycotted by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and [Mahmoud] Abbas.
"Hamas 'is coming out of this war with huge political gains,' said Naji Sharab, a political science professor at the al Azhar university, traditionally close to Abbas's Fatah movement.
" 'It reaffirmed its position as a major actor not only in the region but in the world,' he said. 'On the Palestinian scene, it has succeeded in embodying the resistance during more than 20 days.' "
In an expression of the international support that Palestinian resistance has gained during the war, 300 British academics signed a letter published in The Guardian, that calls for a a programme of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.
"The massacres in Gaza are the latest phase of a war that Israel has been waging against the people of Palestine for more than 60 years. The goal of this war has never changed: to use overwhelming military power to eradicate the Palestinians as a political force, one capable of resisting Israel's ongoing appropriation of their land and resources. Israel's war against the Palestinians has turned Gaza and the West Bank into a pair of gigantic political prisons. There is nothing symmetrical about this war in terms of principles, tactics or consequences. Israel is responsible for launching and intensifying it, and for ending the most recent lull in hostilities.
"Israel must lose. It is not enough to call for another ceasefire, or more humanitarian assistance. It is not enough to urge the renewal of dialogue and to acknowledge the concerns and suffering of both sides. If we believe in the principle of democratic self-determination, if we affirm the right to resist military aggression and colonial occupation, then we are obliged to take sides... against Israel, and with the people of Gaza and the West Bank.
"We must do what we can to stop Israel from winning its war. Israel must accept that its security depends on justice and peaceful coexistence with its neighbours, and not upon the criminal use of force."
In contrast, in a war that won massive support inside Israel, the idea that the Jewish state had been fully justified in its devastating use of disproportionate power was summed up by Dr Dan Shiftan, head of the National Security Studies Centre at the University of Haifa. In a commentary for Ynet he said: "The results of the war will not be determined by the nature of the diplomatic agreement that ends it, but rather, by Israel's willingness to pulverise Hamas during the war, and especially to respond wildly to the first rocket launched after the war; for example, by assassinating Hamas leaders after they emerge from their trenches.
"Destruction in Gaza contributes to the prevention of war with Lebanon and Syria, assists Egypt and Jordan in fighting radical elements, and signals Israel's limits of restraint to Iran."
An agreement signed by the foreign ministers of Israel and the United States set the stage for Mr Olmert's declaration of a unilateral ceasefire.
"In Washington, Israel secured one of its objectives Friday by signing an agreement with the United States designed to help stop the smuggling of weapons into Gaza. Under the pact, signed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the United States pledges to help track and thwart smugglers attempting to supply Hamas with rockets and other munitions," The Washington Post reported.
"Rice told reporters the agreement would be part of a broader international effort - including similar arrangements with European countries - to stem the flow of arms into Gaza.
"The US-Israeli deal 'should be thought of as one of the elements of trying to bring into being a durable cease-fire,' Rice said. A key element, she said, 'is to do something about the weapons smuggling and the potential for resupply of Hamas from other places, including from Iran.' "
Although weapons are alleged to have been entering Gaza through Egypt, Egypt itself is not at this point a party to the new security agreement.
Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit told reporters that Egypt "is absolutely not bound by this agreement."
As President George W Bush prepares to leave office, an New York Times/CBS poll found that in his last days in office Mr Bush had a 22 per cent approval rating. Just 17 per cent rated his presidency as having been very good or good. In contrast, when Bill Clinton left office, 59 per cent of Americans regarded his presidency as having been very good or good. The Economist noted: "Mr Bush's role model throughout his presidency was not his father but the patron saint of the modern conservative movement, Ronald Reagan. He regarded Reagan as a man who had unleashed free-enterprise and defeated the Soviet Empire, and he tried to do the same with his huge tax cuts and his global war on terror. He mimicked Reagan's Western style, even relaxing on a Texas ranch where Reagan had taken his holidays on a Californian one; and he echoed Reagan's enthusiastic use of the word 'evil'. "Other facets of Mr Bush's personality mixed with his vaulting ambition to undermine his presidency. Mr Bush is what the British call an inverted snob. A scion of one of America's most powerful families, he is a devotee of sunbelt populism; a product of Yale and Harvard Business School, he is a scourge of eggheads. Mr Bush is a convert to an evangelical Christianity that emphasises emotion - particularly the intensely emotional experience of being born again - over ratiocination. He also styled himself, much like Reagan, as a decider rather than a details man; many people who met him were astonished by what they described as his 'lack of inquisitiveness' and his general 'passivity'... "Lack of curiosity also led Mr Bush to suspect intellectuals in general and academic experts in particular. David Frum, who wrote speeches for Mr Bush during his first term, noted that 'conspicuous intelligence seemed actively unwelcome in the Bush White House'. The Bush cabinet was 'solid and reliable', but contained no 'really high-powered brains'. Karen Hughes, one of his closest advisers, 'rarely read books and distrusted people who did'. Ron Suskind, a journalist, has argued that Mr Bush created a 'faith-based presidency' in which decisions, precisely because they were based on faith, could not be revised subsequently."
pwoodward@thenational.ae
