Today, another dubious truce was announced between Hamas and Fatah. This is the fifth attempt at such a truce in the last two weeks or so and although there has been sporadic fighting, it seems in the last few hours to have largely died down. There have been exchanges of hostages (many on both sides shot in the leg before release to prevent them re-entering combat) and it looks, well, crappy, but better than it has the last two weeks. Qassam rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel continue, with 9 launches so far today. Israel has sporadically responded over the last few days, sometimes returning artillery fire at launch sites and launching a couple attacks at Hamas operational leadership believed to be behind the launches.
The situation is still extremely flammable, but there appears to be a window. What do Israel, the Arab World and the West do now?
The Arab League, for the second time in as many years (Lebanon was the first) is taking Israel's side against it's nearest neighbors. This is largely the result of realpolitik, where you have quotes from the Saudis in the same day that the Palestinians need to stop fighting each other and Israel, and that Iran should stay out of negotiations as this is an Arab issue.
The climate is one of hopelessness and vengeance for the Palestinians, as they have watched their society militarized to an unprecedented level since the beginning of the 2000 intifada. The average person has to endure all the hardships of the occupation while the militants who instigated the crackdown over the past 7 years run the government and spend money on guns instead of butter.
Israel is in a tough place as they would prefer most of all to have nothing whatsoever to do with Gaza. Unfortunately, disengagement does not seem to be the end of their problems. Dozens of qassams come out of foreign territory a day and the last thing Israel wants is to be tied down in occupation of one of the least friendly places on earth.
So how to end the qassam launches? I believe they have their roots in the Palestian factional war, but Israel cannot assist Fatah visibly. Domestic outrage is building on Olmert, as the publicly damaged prime minister looks impotent to stop attacks into undisputed Israeli territory. My suggestion so the Israelis is to keep a cool head. Continue intelligence gathering and targeted assassinations to stop the launches, and lay off of the retaliatory shelling or major operations - that just kills innocents and achieves nothing. As far as the civil war goes, the only people capable of negotiating ceasefires seem to to be the Egyptians and Saudis. Some Saudi oil money or Egyptian technical assistance could go a long ways here - let's see a payoff from the Arabs to the Palestinians to try and create peace. The Arab nations read the same news and know what all parties are really up to, not just what they say in English.
Lastly, I'd like to address the prospect that if Israel would only leave the West Bank right now like they did Gaza two years ago, everything would be fine:
It's a 45-minute drive through the West Bank from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. The West Bank is filled with hills that are perfect to launch rockets off of, and in range of the most populated sections of Israel (except for Haifa). Instead of a short border with Egypt that is heavily patrolled, it has a long porous border over a river and the dead sea with Jordan. This isn't like Iraq where if we leave, oh well it's on the other side of the world they can deal with it there. If Israel leaves right now, there's probably an 80% chance that they'll be forced to come back with a security crackdown that makes what's going on now look nice. That's just how it is.. the Israeli public, politics aside, will vote for security first when their homes are being targeted.
So how to achieve peace? How to stop the infighting and the rocket launches? These need to be accomplished before any Israeli leader will be able to pull out of the West Bank.