Hamas is a terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of many innocent Israeli civilians; its founding charter called for the elimination of Israel. In addition to its military wing, Hamas provides humanitarian programs throughout the Palestinian territories. Hamas is also a grass-roots resistance-religious-political movement that won a democratic election in January 2006 by defeating Fatah, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' corrupt and ineffectual political party. In spite of an international embargo imposed by Israel, the U.S. and the European Union following its election, and a full-scale Israeli assault on Gaza in June 2006, Hamas maintained an agreed-to cease-fire and offered a 10-year truce with Israel in exchange for ending the Gaza siege.
In March 2007 Hamas and Fatah, under the auspices of the Saudi government, formed a national unity government. Israel refused to negotiate with a Palestinian government that included Hamas and plotted with the U.S. to instigate a Palestinian civil war with the ultimate aim of crushing Hamas. In June 2007, when Hamas thwarted the coup attempt by Fatah, the blockade of Gaza was tightened.
Last April, Hamas, in a reversal of its founding charter, offered implicit recognition of Israel if it withdrew to its pre-1967 borders, thereby accepting as a practical political matter a two-state solution; it also agreed to abide by any peace deal with Israel as long as that agreement was approved by the Palestinian people in a referendum.
While this explains Hamas' multifaceted character, it by no means exonerates Hamas from the war crimes it committed in the form of suicide bombings, from the Kassam rockets it - or groups not under its control - fired into the Israeli village of Sderot, killing 12 Israelis since 2001. Israel, of course, had a right to act in self-defense, but its response to the rocket attacks was disproportionate. In 2005-07 alone, the Israeli Defense Forces killed 1,290 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children.
The Gaza Strip is an area one-eighth the size of Rhode Island. It is approximately 25 miles long and 7 miles wide. Gaza, home to 1.4 million Palestinians, is the most densely populated place on the planet.
In August 2005, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon unilaterally disengaged from Gaza, pulling out 7,800 Israeli settlers - but Israel continued to control all access to Gaza by land, sea and air. Surrounded by concrete walls, Gaza became an open-air prison. Israel restricted the number of trucks carrying food, fuel, cooking-gas canisters, spare parts for water and sanitation plants, and medical supplies to Gaza. These are forms of collective punishment forbidden by international humanitarian law.
The war unleashed by Israel on Dec. 27 was the culmination of a series of provocations aimed at a Hamas response. In a broader sense, it was also a war between Israel and the Palestinian people who elected Hamas to power over Fatah, a corrupt entity incapable of obtaining even minimum concessions from Israel to improve Palestinians' lives. The declared aim of the war was to weaken Hamas and to intensify the pressure until its leaders agreed to a new cease-fire on Israel's terms. The undeclared aim was to ensure the Palestinians in Gaza are seen by the world simply as a humanitarian problem, thus derailing their struggle for independence and statehood.
As of Jan. 17, 1,133 Palestinians had died. Of the 4,000 severely wounded, one-third were children. Thirteen Israelis died over the same period, 10 of them soldiers, including four from so-called "friendly fire." The damage done to Gaza's infrastructure surpassed $1.4 billion.
There are no winners in this conflict. The Israeli Army, one of the most powerful in the world, has failed to stop some 2,000 Hamas fighters from firing rockets into southern Israel. Hamas, while dramatically weakened, has not been defeated. On the contrary, its stature among extremist groups across the Middle East has been elevated. The losers in this conflict are the Palestinians and - to a smaller but no less tragic extent - the Israelis living in Sderot.
Life as Gazans once knew it has been replaced by surveillance drones, F16s, tanks and Apache helicopters. People listen, hearts pounding, calculating where the next deadly strike will hit: which house, school, clinic, mosque or government building. Will it be another U.N. building housing hundreds of frightened refugees or an aid storage building full of supplies?
The greatest tragedy of Gaza is that this loss of life and destruction could have been avoided. Perhaps the latest cease-fire will be respected by both sides. But in the meantime, what an incredible, senseless waste of human life and dignity.
With the appointment of former Sen. George Mitchell - the person who successfully negotiated a peaceful solution to the decades-old conflict in Northern Ireland - as special U.S. envoy to the Middle East, we may finally see a just solution that will enable Israelis and Palestinians to live peacefully side by side.
Sultan, of Eau Claire, previously lived in Beirut, Lebanon, and travels frequently to the Middle East. She is the author of three books about the region.
