I've been to Gaza....

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Saturday December 27, 2008 · 10:46 PM PST

2008/12/27 · 22:46

I imagine I'm one of the few people on DailyKos who has been to Gaza. I stopped there in December 1999-January 2000 during a round-trip car trip from Cairo (where I was living and working) to Tel Aviv. And yes, I bet I'm one of the few people in the U.S., or indeed anywhere, who ever made that car trip. (I can tell you that neither the Egyptian nor Israeli authorities made that a very easy trip.)

I also lived in the Mideast for more than 3 total years (mostly in Egypt), have visited Jordan, Israel (several times for a total of several months) and the West Bank, and have studied both Arabic and Hebrew (albeit neither at a very proficient level).

OK, now that I have your attention, here are my predictions for how this will turn out. (More beneath the fold.)

(1) Israel will continue military activity until Hamas is dislodged from power. I believe that is the underlying purpose of this military campaign.

(2) I think they will succeed in that. This is not like Lebanon, where Hezbollah had a huge rearguard that was continually reinforced by Iran via Syria. Gaza is a small, flat, densely populated territory, and Hamas has no allies on any side. Both the Palestinian Authority (PA)/Fatah and Egypt will collude in the overthrow of Hamas (the PA more openly, Egypt more clandestinely), and Jordan and Saudi Arabia will look the other way. This will not occur so much through a total invasion of Gaza, but through continuing to strike at Hamas and weaken it until an alternate power emerges (see next point).

(3) The PA will take power in Gaza. They have already made clear that is what they hope will result out of this.

(4) Kadima (the current governing party in Israel) will win the Israeli elections currently scheduled for February 10, 2009. The elections may end up being postponed, and the conflict may still be going on when the elections occur, but whenever they do take place Kadima will come out as the largest party and will work to piece together another coalition government. Even before these latest events, Kadima had already assumed a narrow lead in the polls, after far right extremists (even further right than Netanyahu) gained power in recent internal Likud elections. The attack on Gaza is presumably wildly popular in Israel and will help Kadima further in the polls.

(5) The Obama administration, Kadima, and the PA will work to achieve a major peace agreement and will succeed in doing so before Obama leaves office.

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