Motivations Behind Israel's Gaza Raids

Of all the criticisms direct at the Olmert government one of the most important has been the question of what does Israel hope to achieve by all of this? It goes without saying this is an important question, but so far Olmert's government has not really answered it.

If the goal was to permanently destroy Hamas as a threat to Israel, I assume that this operation would have more support from those of us who don’t wish for the Jewish State to be destroyed, just get upset about its daily actions. No one in Jerusalem however is talking about this as a realistic goal, because everybody knows it isn't. As long as one Hamas member is left standing, they're going to declare victory. Maybe Israel feels that if it can get a new treaty; one that allows it to manage the southern border. Then it can effectively cut off any new supply of weapons that may come in. This would be a victory in one sense, but it's not just the rockets that are the problem with Gaza. A whole host of other issues loom large over what to do with the Hamas run territory.

Two of the most common theories as to why the strike took place have to do with elections, both in the U.S. and Israel. The first is that Israel knew it would have to get this strike out of the way while Bush was still in office, as an Obama administration wouldn't be so tolerant. That's probably true, but Israel has demonstrated a willingness before to skirt the United States approval if it feels it needs to do something.

The theory that this was done because of the upcoming Israeli elections seems far more probable – and far more egregious. It did look like Netanyahu would have won fairly handily, and to be sure this would have been disastrous for the region, but I don't know if it can all be attributed to that. This move does put Likud in a box. After all, Netanyahu can't move to the right by claiming he would have unleashed a bigger military campaign. It takes a pretty cold person to start an operation like this just to stay in power however. Of course you could always argue that less Palestinians will be killed this way than whatever would happen with a Likud government. That's pretty hypothetical however.

My theory is that after the 2006 war with Hezbollah, Israel has been planning for anther war in which it could redeem itself, especially its air force. Although Israel made some strategic victories in Lebanon, the general perception was that Hezbollah won the day. The fact that the group is now stronger than ever only reinforces the notion that Israel is in fact beatable. I think Israel wants to erase that memory by making the most recent one of an overwhelming victory. The Israeli media effort has been more impressive from the start. They've downplay any notion of wiping out Hamas, giving them more room to declare victory.