Why Is Hamas Pressured?

"Hamas Fires Rockets Into Israel"
Published November 17, 2008; Page A7
By Ethan Bronner and Taghreed El-Khodary

Reporters Ethan Bronner and Taghreed El-Khodary place a lens on the pressure Hamas is feeling – who's directing it and Hamas' reaction. However, the issue of why Hamas is being pressured would make for a more illuminating piece.

Readers learn that Hamas fired a barrage of rockets into Israel, sending 18 Israelis to the hospital. The reporters cite Hamas officials who say the rockets were "revenge for the deaths over the past 11 days of 11 militants and the recent increased Israeli closing of Gaza crossings."

Israeli officials are reported as saying the Gaza crossings have been shut "in retaliation for the rockets, thereby greatly decreasing the availability of supplies and fuel". So which came first, the rockets or the border closings? Here, the Times should've elaborated upon the rockets to which Israeli officials refer.

Rockets and mortars have repeatedly violated the truce well before Israel's operation to destroy Hamas' tunnel, or what is obliquely referred to as "five months of relative calm". What made this time relatively calm were the aforementioned rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel. The firings and Israel's targeting the launchers may have been in mind when the reporters write that "confrontations began to spike this month".

Thus, readers are left to believe that Israeli officials are making excuses – switching cause and effect – for their closing the borders. In reality, one cannot operate a border crossing with rockets and mortars flying overhead.

Any full accounting of the rise in "tensions" must center on the tunnel Hamas was to use to abduct Israeli soldiers. Worried that its operation would be construed as a violation of the truce, Israel "asked Egypt to pass that message to Hamas in advance, "but," readers are next told, "six Hamas militants were killed during the tunnel's destruction." Well, sort of. Attempting to destroy the tunnel, the IDF came under fire from Palestinian gunmen. The IDF responded in defense.

According to Bronner, it was the deaths of these militants that led Hamas to "retaliate with rockets, which led to more closings and operations and then more rockets." The problem of Hamas' kidnapping tunnel has been buried under the supposed "tit-for-tat" which followed.

This paragraph thus leads readers to believe that if only Israel hadn't killed these militants (in what may have been an unnecessary operation), the region may have been spared all the mayhem that followed.

"Beyond the tit-for-tat of the last week," Bronner explains "several factors at work". One is that Hamas is feeling "unusual pressure" after Fatah has arrested hundreds of its men in the West Bank. The second factor is lack of Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, with Hamas complaining that Fatah "has not made good on a prisoner release".

"Finally, under American and Israeli pressure, Egypt has started to destroy or shut tunnels into southern Gaza that have been a major source of supplies and fuel — and weapons — that have offset the Israeli closings. As a result, Hamas is now feeling besieged not only by Israel, but also by Fatah and Egypt."

Are readers to believe that the amount of supplies and fuel smuggled in from these tunnels is comparable to the amount that could come from Israel? Furthermore, Hamas' weapons buildup through these tunnels during the ceasefire has been a major concern in Israel – warranting more than the breezy mention it gets here.

The issue of Hamas' unreliability as a government is pushed further out of view as we hear from Oxfam. "As a matter of humanitarian imperative, Israeli leaders must resume supplies into Gaza without further delay." If the truce isn’t maintained by both Israel and the Palestinians, the statement said, it could be "catastrophic for civilians both in Gaza and in nearby Israeli towns." If crossings aren't opened by Israel – regardless of acts of war and dangers directed against it – Israelis will suffer rocket attacks? Is Oxfam actually warning Israel against this inevitability, rather than warning Hamas stop its belligerence? This is a horrible statement, one apparently fit to print.

Readers learn that "Israeli officials suspect that there is actually enough fuel, and say that Hamas officials are trying to embarrass them by closing electricity plants." Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev says Israel has "no desire to see a humanitarian crisis there. Unless the rockets stop, though, how can we move the supplies in?" These important mentions, however, do not offset this story's misguided approach.

Hamas is dedicated to Israel's demise through armed struggle. Even a policy that would benefit its people, like operating a border crossing, is off limits since it involves working with Israel. Yet here, Hamas' recent behavior seems to be the result of its feeling "under pressure" and "besieged". Such feelings could've easily been avoided had Hamas had at heart at least the short term interests of its citizens.

To repeat, the focus here should've been on Hamas' behavior, not the reaction to it.