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Last update - 03:40 05/07/2009
High hopes for Shalit release, Hamas-Fatah truce prove premature
By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff
Tags: Gilad Shalit, Fatah, Hamas 

In recent weeks, the media proposed that an imminent agreement between Fatah and Hamas, along an Egyptian outline, will lead to the release of Gilad Shalit. But last week another round of talks in Cairo ended in failure, and the hope ought to be that the negotiations being conducted by Israeli coordinator Haggai Hadas for Shalit's release have been separated from Egypt's ambitions to obtain an inter-Palestinian accord.

The sixth round of talks in Cairo began with much fanfare last Sunday, with a higher level of expectations than in the past - for several reasons. There was the sense of historic moment and expectation of change created by U.S. President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo; the Egyptian ultimatum to the parties, naming July 7 as the signing date for a reconciliation agreement; the new, positive tone of statements from Hamas officials regarding the United States; and also America's decision to return its ambassador to Damascus, suggesting Syria, too, would pressure the Hamas leadership to agree to the Egyptian compromise.

There was another reason for the high hopes: Egypt's marketing efforts, joined by European and American interlocutors, implied that a resolution to the Fatah-Hamas conflict would quickly bring about a "mega-truce" (tahadiyeh): the lifting of the blockade of Gaza, Shalit's release, early elections in the territories - perhaps to be followed by a new era in which Hamas would no longer in power. The United Nations, the European Union, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and officials in the current American administration responded enthusiastically.
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The bigger the hopes

As usual, the grand schemers did not give sufficient consideration to the detailed positions of Hamas and Fatah, and especially to what is going on within the Islamic organization. Fatah and Hamas officials are much more skeptical than the West about a dialogue's chances of success. Last Wednesday, a Fatah official explained to Haaretz that he was not disappointed. "Disappointment is for those who harbor great hopes for such an event. I didn't have any expectations," he said.

Hamas clearly saw the difficulties inherent in the Egyptian proposal. Hamas was not being asked to consent to the establishment of a unity government that would recognize Israel, or to cede its control in Gaza. However, the special committee that the Egyptians sought to manage the funds designated for the rehabilitation of Gaza would sooner or later have stolen authority away from the Hamas government. And the plan to establish a joint Hamas-Fatah security force was intended to weaken the organization's military grip on Gaza. The heads of Hamas' military wing were not prepared to consider the entry of an Arab force into Gaza. General elections also might not have served Hamas well, given its weak showing in recent polls (18.8 percent support versus 38.5 percent for Fatah).

But Hamas did not object to any of these points outright. In fact, it agreed to almost all of them. Its insistence on the release of all its prisoners held by the Palestinian Authority prior to the signing of any accord begs the suspicion it viewed this as an excellent pretext to torpedo the emerging agreement and thus avoid discussion of all the other sections it found troubling.

The radicals in Hamas ultimately proved decisive in the refusal to sign an agreement with Fatah, at least for now. A good number of Hamas officials, in Gaza and Damascus, are interested in reconciliation now. However, it appears the military wing in Gaza, headed by Ahmed al-Ja'abari, is not prepared at present to consider any concession lessening its control in Gaza, with backing from Hamas officials abroad, such as Imad al-Ilmi, who is known for his close ties with the regime in Iran.

A breakthrough may yet occur in the next round of talks, set for July 25. But given the disappointment of both sides, the "war of arrests" between the organizations is likely to resume, with Hamas arresting Fatah people in Gaza and Fatah returning the favor in the West Bank. If that happens, a further round of talks may not get off the ground.

The latest failure in Cairo is a blow to the Obama administration's efforts to unstick the Israel-Palestinian negotiations. Israel will again be able to argue there is no partner on the Palestinian side as long as Hamas rule in Gaza continues. Obama may try to concentrate the pressure on a settlement construction freeze, but his real and immediate problem remains "Hamastan" in Gaza.

If the July talks fail as well, PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) will have to make some tough decisions. He'll have to decide whether to call for new elections for the presidency and the parliament in January 2010, no matter what. Then Hamas will also have to decide whether to participate in the elections - and risk losing - or be portrayed as responsible for torpedoing the elections. In a recent interview on Russian television following the failure of the talks in Cairo, Abu Mazen revealed that the PA's security forces had uncovered a Hamas conspiracy to assassinate PA officials in the West Bank and to attack Fatah institutions.

A few words about intelligence

Even now, more than three years after Shalit's abduction, Israeli intelligence has little precise information on his whereabouts. The Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet security service, which are often able to locate every last Hamas suspect in Gaza and to identify a Qassam stockpile hidden beneath a minaret, have been unable, apparently, to come up with solid information on Shalit. On this point, supreme responsibility lies with the Shin Bet, which leads the intelligence coverage for Gaza and has available to it human intelligence sources -(known as HUMINT). In the first months after the abduction, most of the Shin Bet's attention in Gaza focused on how to prevent further terror attacks from there; locating the kidnapped soldier was pushed down relatively low on the scale of priorities. The situation was exacerbated by the tension between Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin and then IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz, and by turf battles between the Shin Bet and the IDF's intelligence and operations branches over the allocation of resources for the task.

A lot of time has now passed, and the intelligence working procedures have been ironed out. Still, political leaders, generals and intelligence officials all admit they are unable to put their hand on any exact information.

The Arab and Palestinian press frequently report that Hamas moves Shalit from hiding place to hiding place to evade Israeli monitoring. Hamas also took the trouble to leak that the abducted soldier is being held in an isolated, underground location and wears an explosive belt to thwart any attempt to rescue him alive. Whether this information is accurate, or a bit of psychological warfare, one can be quite certain Hamas is implementing every lesson it learned from previous abductions, especially the case of Nachshon Wachsman. In 1994, Wachsman was not rescued alive because the Sayeret Matkal commandos who broke into the house where he was being held were delayed by having to breach a heavy iron door. Hamas, with guidance and know-how from terror experts in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and from Hezbollah, is surely employing maximum compartmentalization, keeping all phone devices far from the captive and leaving as little trace possible for intelligence to pick up on.

The Wachsman rescue operation was relatively simple compared to trying to secure Shalit's release by force. Wachsman was held in an isolated house in the village of Bir-Naballah, north of Jerusalem, in the heart of an area under Israeli security control. The IDF had relatively precise intelligence prior to the raid on the house, the ability to isolate the area and complete control there. If one assumes Shalit's captors are holding him in the heart of the densely packed refugee camps in Gaza, it will be immeasurably more difficult to isolate the area of operation, to quietly infiltrate the location and to rescue the captive without injury to Shalit or the rescue force.

Even if one assumes that, at some point, the intelligence barrier will be broken and sufficiently accurate information obtained, will it be possible to come up with an operational plan that will succeed? The IDF explicitly told former prime minister Ehud Olmert that a rescue operation was impossible under the circumstances.

At the end of June, outside the annual memorial service for Lieutenant Colonel Yoni Netanyahu, the hero of the Entebbe rescue operation, the prime minister's brother-in-law, Haggai Ben-Artzi, demonstrated against a prisoner release in exchange for Shalit. Ben-Artzi called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to return to the rescue methods of the past. Who more than the prime minister is aware of the legacy of Operation Entebbe, and of the heavy price that was paid? In Entebbe, the gamble paid off, but it is far from a sure bet where Shalit is concerned.
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  1.   Bring Gilad home now 04:14  |  Steve 05/07/09
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  3.   The release of Gilad Shalit? 09:02  |  Lane 05/07/09
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