With nearly 1200 Palestinians dead in the Gaza Strip after three weeks of fighting, Israel has offered a ceasefire. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has declared that Israel has achieved its objectives. This is highly doubtful.
What will be the achievements of Israel's 'shock and awe' campaign in Gaza? The objective has been to destroy the infrastructure of Hamas in order to prevent the firing of further missiles at Israeli cities.
This was a very tall order. Not only because it expected the Israeli Defence Force to accurately target Hamas fighters in the densely populated Gaza Strip when they could simply blend in with the general population, but also because it did nothing to prevent the resurgence of Hamas, which is inevitable once the IDF leaves Gaza.
The overwhelming show of force was supposed to act as deterrence against future Hamas missiles. This is a tried and failed tactic. The 2006 operation against Hizbullah was conducted along the same lines.
Instead Hizbullah surprised Israel with its resilience and grew in esteem in the Arab world. The 2006 campaign in Lebanon proved to be a major embarrassment for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who was criticised by his peers for not defeating Hizbullah once and for all. Now the Israeli leadership claims to have learned from that experience. That is why the military operation in Gaza has been so intense. The IDF threw all its weight on Hamas.
But that was a wrong lesson. It must be obvious to any observer that even in the unlikely event of the IDF destroying the fighting capability of Hamas, the grievances that propelled Hamas onto the political stage in 2006 when it won the parliamentary elections, will continue to sustain it.
This is bad for Israel and bad for the Palestinians. Mahmoud Abbas, who is still recognised by the international community as the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), has been losing popularity and support because of his failure to achieve Palestinian statehood.
A veteran of the Oslo peace process which established the PA in 1995 as a first step towards statehood, Abbas must seem like a spent force. His diminishing popularity and that of his associates among the Palestinians leaves the political stage open to less accommodating leaders. The intensity of Israel's operation in Gaza has sidelined moderate Palestinian leaders who have lost credibility to the more radical factions.
For the Palestinians, it must seem like the whole world has turned a blind eye to their plight. The ineffectiveness of the international community to stop the disproportionate use of force by the IDF sends a worrying signal to the Palestinians.
Israel chooses to ignore the UN Security Council resolution for the immediate cessation of hostilities (passed 9 January 2009) and the international community appears powerless to do anything about it. The IDF shells a UN run school, killing Palestinian refuges, and the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza and get away with it.
The situation in the Gaza Strip is a very unfortunate diplomatic failure. As far as the Palestinians are concerned it leaves little room for hope. Hopelessness and the feeling of being forgotten by the world are very dangerous. It is exactly the kind of sentiment that puts Israel at more risk.
The ineffectiveness of international diplomacy in halting the Israeli operation is even more striking in relation to Arab states. For more than five decades the Arabs have lamented the Palestinian plight. They even went to war with Israel. But since their defeat in 1973 and the failure of the oil embargo to influence US/international policy in favour of the Palestinians, they have no stomach for more confrontation.
Besides, they now have a real worry about al-Qaeda type groups within their own domains and are quietly delighted to see Hamas receive a pounding. Unfortunately for the Palestinians, all this means that they cannot hope to receive any support beyond rhetoric from Arab states.
This leaves the door wide open for Iran and its highly exaggerated position on Israel. As far as the Palestinians are concerned, President Ahmadinejad is the only world leader who has been unequivocal about the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. His calls for the destruction of Israel and reported arm shipments to Gaza, places Shia Iran right in the middle of the on-going Israeli/Palestinian dispute.
With its growing esteem as a champion of the Palestinian cause, however misguided, the Shia Iran has managed to bridge the gap with the Sunni Arabs.
Israel's choice for a disproportionate use of force in Gaza and the inevitable loss of civilian lives will have long term repercussions. This experience will make it even more difficult to garner popular support for diplomatic negotiations regarding the future of Palestine.
Associate Professor Shahram Akbarzadeh researches the politics of Central Asia and the Middle East, political Islam, and US relations with the Muslim world. He is Deputy Director of the National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne.