No subject

t would trade a full ceasefire for the opening of Gaza's border crossings -=
 which reflects Hamas's own terms - combined with an international force on=
 the Egyptian border to police arms-smuggling tunnels. So long as that didn=
't challenge Hamas's authority or involve stationing foreign troops inside =
Gaza, the Palestinian movement could clearly live with such an arrangement.=
=20

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The Israeli government yesterday declared it accepted the principles of the=
 plan, while the details had yet to be agreed. But it's hard to see how a d=
eal that could have been struck without war would be seen as anything other=
 than a Hamas victory. And the domestic electoral boost won by Tzipi Livni =
and Ehud Barak as a result of the firestorm they have unleashed would then =
be lost. That's why the logic of what they have started is likely to push t=
he Israeli government to set impossible conditions, blame Hamas for a break=
down and intensify its onslaught still further.=20

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If Israel's leaders are going to be able to declare the victory they failed=
 to achieve in Lebanon, they can hardly be seen to leave the power and appe=
al of Hamas intact, let alone strengthened. At the very least, they would w=
ant to arrest or kill key Hamas leaders and stage a humiliating parade of c=
aptured fighters - combined perhaps with a buffer zone in the north of the =
strip.=20

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But that would require Israeli troops to take their land invasion into the =
heart of the strip's cities and refugee camps, at a certain cost of heavy c=
asualties and public support. They would then face the choice of whether to=
 drive Hamas underground and reimpose a full-blown occupation - or face int=
ensified guerrilla war against sitting targets in a security zone, as happe=
ned in Lebanon in the 1990s. No wonder Livni and Barak are divided about wh=
at to do.=20

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Whichever choice they make, the war is already cutting the ground from bene=
ath Israeli and western policy across the region. Among Palestinians, it is=
 undermining Mahmoud Abbas - whose presidential term runs out tomorrow - an=
d his Fatah movement, while increasing support for Hamas in the West Bank, =
where US-trained and EU-financed security forces have now arrested hundreds=
 of activists and banned Hamas demonstrations.=20

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It is also strengthening those inside Fatah who want to break with the west=
ern-enforced schism between the two wings of Palestinian politics. Hussam K=
hader, a West Bank "Young Guard" Fatah leader, is one of those now demandin=
g direct unity negotiations with Hamas, and for the Fatah-linked Al-Aqsa Br=
igades to fight alongside Hamas against Israel's onslaught.=20

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"Israel has made a big mistake," he told me this week, "because Hamas will =
become stronger and Fatah weaker as a result of the war, even if Israel re-=
occupies the Gaza Strip." Comparing Hamas's resistance in Gaza to the battl=
e of Karameh that secured Yasser Arafat's leadership of the Palestinians in=
 1968, Khader predicted: "After this war, Hamas will lead the PLO."=20

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The same trend can be seen in the wider Middle East, where Hamas has won po=
werful new supporters, including democratic Turkey, while western allies, s=
uch as the Egyptian and Saudi dictatorships, have lost more credibility by =
being seen to have tacitly supported Israel's attempt to crush Hamas at the=
 expense of the Palestinians of Gaza.=20

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Most of those Palestinians are in fact refugees or the families of refugees=
 from the towns of southern Israel, including Ashkelon and Ashdod, which ha=
ve been targeted by Hamas - and from which they were ethnically cleansed wh=
en Israel was established in 1948.=20

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But the bulk of the western media would have us believe that the cause of t=
his war is Hamas's firing of mostly home-made rockets into Israel - which n=
o state could tolerate without retaliation. In this myopic fantasy land, th=
ere is no 61-year national dispossession, no refugee camps, no occupations,=
 no siege, no multiple Israeli violations of UN security council resolution=
s and the Geneva conventions, no illegal wall, no routine assassinations, n=
o prisoners and no West Bank.=20

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Nor would you have much sense that - as Akiva Eldar, the Israeli Ha'aretz c=
olumnist, wrote this week - "Gaza is still, practically and according to in=
ternational law, occupied territory", and part of one political entity with=
 the occupied West Bank. Or that the US, Britain and the EU, while paying l=
ip service to ceasefire calls, prepared the ground for this barbarity with =
money, arms and diplomatic support as hope of a viable two-state solution h=
as disintegrated before our eyes.=20

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Pressure now has to be brought to bear not only on Israel, but on those gov=
ernments that support it - including Britain's. That's why the call by Nick=
 Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, for an arms embargo on Israel and the =
suspension of the EU's new cooperation agreement with Israel - the first ma=
instream party leader to do so - is so significant. David Miliband, the for=
eign secretary, calls it naive. In reality, the naivety lies in imagining t=
hat the west can continue to underwrite the injustice and bloodshed inflict=
ed with no respite on the Palestinian people, without paying a price for it=
.=20