Gershon Baskin, an Israeli advocate for peace and reconciliation with Palestine, and who helped negotiate the release of Gilad Shalit, has an important op-ed in today's New York Times regarding the assasination of Ahamed Al-Jabari. Since others have claimed Baskin was misquoted with regard to certain particulars, I'll let the man speak for himself:
I believe that Israel made a grave and irresponsible strategic error by deciding to kill Mr. Jabari. No, Mr. Jabari was not a man of peace; he didn’t believe in peace with Israel and refused to have any direct contact with Israeli leaders and even nonofficials like me. . . .
Passing messages between the two sides, I was able to learn firsthand that Mr. Jabari wasn’t just interested in a long-term cease-fire; he was also the person responsible for enforcing previous cease-fire understandings brokered by the Egyptian intelligence agency. Mr. Jabari enforced those cease-fires only after confirming that Israel was prepared to stop its attacks on Gaza. On the morning that he was killed, Mr. Jabari received a draft proposal for an extended cease-fire with Israel, including mechanisms that would verify intentions and ensure compliance. This draft was agreed upon by me and Hamas’s deputy foreign minister, Mr. Hamad, when we met last week in Egypt.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
The goal was to move beyond the patterns of the past. For years, it has been the same story: Israeli intelligence discovers information about an impending terrorist attack from Gaza. The Israeli Army takes pre-emptive action with an airstrike against the suspected terror cells, which are often made up of fighters from groups like Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees or Salafi groups not under Hamas’s control but functioning within its territory. These cells launch rockets into Israeli towns near Gaza, and they often miss their targets. The Israeli Air Force responds swiftly. The typical result is between 10 and 25 casualties in Gaza, zero casualties in Israel and huge amounts of property damage on both sides.
Other key Hamas leaders and members of the Shura Council, its senior decision-making body, supported a new cease-fire effort because they, like Mr. Jabari, understood the futility of successive rocket attacks against Israel that left no real damage on Israel and dozens of casualties in Gaza. Mr. Jabari was not prepared to give up the strategy of “resistance,” meaning fighting Israel, but he saw the need for a new strategy and was prepared to agree to a long-term cease-fire.
. . . .
The proposal was at least worth testing. Moreover, it included the understanding that if Israel were to take out a real ticking bomb — people imminently preparing to launch a rocket — such a strike would not be considered a breach of the cease-fire and would not lead to escalation.
Instead, Mr. Jabari is dead — and with him died the possibility of a long-term cease-fire. Israel may have also compromised the ability of Egyptian intelligence officials to mediate a short-term cease-fire and placed Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt at risk.
Why the assasination, and why now? The elections to be held in January, and called for by Netanyahu, are certainly a factor. Another factor is the Palestinians' intention to ask the UN for reccognition of an independent and viable Palestinian state. And another possibility is that the current Israeli government, whose government in the 1970s aided Hamas as a counterweight to the PLO, does not really want a ceasefire with Hamas, but want to keep Hamas's military wing as the face of Palestine. Rather than the more secular, and moderate, Palestinian Authority.
Regardless of the explanation, what is clear is that the Israeli government ended any chance of a long-term cease fire between it and Hamas. The dead on both sides owe them a debt of gratitude.