BB FANS

Welcome to Hell: Gaza's unending misery

A family of nine is among the latest Palestinian civilian casualties as the fighting continues. Ibrahim Barzak, Kim Sengupta, Geoffrey Lean and David Randall report
Independent

Geoffrey Wheatcroft: How Israel gets away with murder

Indifference to criticism of the bombing and invasion of Gaza is the result of indulgence by the West

Sunday, 11 January 2009


When Lord Derby asked Sir Lewis Namier, the great historian of Georgian England, why he, as a Jew, didn't write Jewish history, Namier replied: "There is no modern Jewish history, only a Jewish martyrology, and that is not amusing enough for me." It might be said that the underlying purpose of the Zionist project – which Namier passionately supported – was to reject Jewish martyrology, and to turn the Jews from passive victims to active makers of their destiny.

That has been accomplished to a fault, many would say as they watch the news from Gaza, where one image after another has caused deep revulsion. But then that rejection of martyrdom and victimhood may also explain what has puzzled as well as dismayed onlookers – the fact that Israel seems to be quite oblivious to international opinion.

In Muslim countries there is, of course, intense hostility to Israel, which, in return, has long since followed the Latin principle oderint dum metuant towards her neighbours: Let them hate us, so long as they fear us. Since there's no point in even trying to win their hearts and minds, they should be taught to respect brute force, a precept which, it should be admitted, has enjoyed considerable practical success.

The West is different, and European sentiment can be changed by events, as indeed it has been. Israel and Zionism were once very popular causes in Europe, not least on the liberal left, until the 1967 Six Day War and after. Since then, European sympathy has steadily ebbed away as Israel attacked Lebanon in 1982, and again in 2006, with the suppression of the intifadas between. And yet Israel shrugs off all strictures and rebukes. No criticism from relief agencies or the Red Cross makes any difference.

Even more strikingly, Israel has ignored the Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire. One reason for this is that the only Western country that really counts is the United States, and Israel has for many years been able to rely on unconditional American support. Having threated to veto previous draft resolutions, the US took part in drafting the security council resolution calling for a ceasefire, and was evidently going to vote for it.

Then late on Thursday the American representative shocked other council members by abstaining. This volte face came on direct orders from the White House, after president Bush had spoken to Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, and the Israelis have taken abstention as permission to continue their action. "Israel is not going to show restraint," Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Foreign Minister, told The Washington Post yesterday, understandably enough in the circumstances.

Although Israel is sometimes described as an American client state, which receives huge financial subsidy from Washington, she is unique as a client state: she can do exactly as she likes in the knowledge that she will never be seriously restrained by her sponsor. Even when the White House is privately irritated by Israeli actions, Congress is absolutely reliable, never knowingly outbid in its unswerving loyalty. During the bombardment of Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the House of Representatives passed a resolution of total solidarity with Israel by 410 votes to eight, and the Senate has just passed another on a hand vote, not even bothering to take a formal tally.

Anyone who thought that there would be a change of heart and direction after the last American election hasn't been concentrating. The Senate in question is the newly elected, strongly Democratic one, which has just met for the first time. During the presidential campaign Barack Obama went out of his way to endorse Israel. He has appointed in the form of Hillary Clinton perhaps the strongest supporter of Israel ever to serve as Secretary of State, not excluding Henry Kissinger, a Jewish refugee from Hitler, though even she is surpassed in her commitment by Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff.

But there is more to it, and Israeli intransigence or indifference to outside opinion goes back before the birth of the state. As it happens, Emanuel has something in common with Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni: their fathers all served in the Irgun. This was the intransigent Zionist militia – described as terrorists by Isaiah Berlin among others, and as fascists by Albert Einstein among others – which waged a campaign of violence against the British, and the Palestinian Arabs, in the last years of the British Mandate in 1946-48. Its exploits included the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, with great loss of life, the hanging of two captured British sergeants in reprisal, and the massacre of villagers at Deir Yassin.

Behind that brutality lay something else. Men take revenge for small wrongs, Machiavelli said, unable to avenge the larger, and the Irgun was avenging an incomparably and unimaginably greater crime just suffered by the European Jews. The Jews had tried to be nice to the goyim, Zionism said in effect, and see where it had got them. A Jewish state would now be created and guarded with all necessary force, indifferent to what the outside world thought. If need be, Israel will borrow the old chant of the Millwall fans, "No one likes us, we don't care"– and no more Jewish martyrology.

Not that Namier was the only Zionist to use "Jewish" in a derisive sense. When someone mentioned Trotsky's phrase "No war, no peace", David Ben-Gurion said that it was "some stupid Jewish idea", and there is a well-known Israeli story about Moshe Dayan, the military hero of the Six Day War. When he taught at the Israeli staff college, Dayan used to expound a problem, ending with the words, "And I want no Jewish solutions here."

He meant that, on the sand table or the field, he expected his battles to be won by dash and ferocity, rather than than by the traditional Jewish virtues of subtlety and patience. Zionist toughness has worked for a long time, but it could be that Israel will one day discover that there's something to be said for Jewish solutions.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft's books include 'The Controversy of Zion: Jewish Nationalism, the Jewish State, and the Unresolved Jewish Dilemma'
Independent

In Israel, a Consensus That Gaza War Is a Just One
By ETHAN BRONNER
NYT

'More than 1,000 killed in Gaza'


Palestinian deaths in the Gaza Strip have passed 1,000, medical sources in Gaza say, as diplomatic efforts continue to reach a ceasefire.
BBC

Israel strike sets UN refugee agency in Gaza ablaze
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guardian

Robert Fisk: Tin-pot rockets won't open a second front



The "Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command" – the quotation marks are necessary since this outfit controls at most 500 cadres – is responsible for all the tin-pot rockets fired into Israel from Lebanon this past week.

It is not the next "front". It is not the beginning of the "northern front". No one was injured when three rockets fired from southern Lebanon fell in open areas near the Israeli town of Kiryat Shemona yesterday. A blaze of outdated rockets on northern Israel – "about 1944, I date them", as one Palestinian put it in Beirut – is not going to ignite another conflict for Hamas in Gaza. In Lebanon, the guns are silent – and when they are not, the world will know about it.

The Hizbollah are not behind them – though it is strange that the Iranian-supplied militia failed a second time to prevent the PFLP-GC from firing over the border – and the organisation's preposterous attempt to ignite another conflict did little more than advertise the divisions within the Palestinian refugee community inside Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp east of Sidon. For the West, the PFLP-GC is an unspeakable problem. Most Arabs suspect theywere behind the Lockerbie bombing. Thus did most Western "analysts" believe, until the PFLP-GC's Syrian supporters were needed after Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 – Syrian troops were sent to Saudi Arabia to help defend the kingdom – after which Libya and a certain Mr Megrahi became the culprits, and the PFLP-GC became the blameless boys of the Middle East.

The UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon should have spotted the latest attack – but, relying on Hizbollah to defend them from their "al-Qa'ida" enemies – they did not keep their eye on the ball. The Israelis know all this. Nor did they want to smear the UN yesterday (that will come later).

The Israelis do not want a second war right now. It's not the moment to claim that the PFLP-GC, with its nests around Sidon, is the "centre of world terror". That will be a surprise for the West's "analysts" – and for the Obama administration – in due course.
Independent

Airstrike kills senior Hamas minister

By Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters
Thursday, 15 January 2009


Israel killed a senior Hamas leader in an air strike today after unleashing its heaviest shelling of Gaza neighbourhoods in what might be a final push against the Islamist group before a ceasefire.

In a step that could bring a deal closer, Washington promised security guarantees addressing Israeli demands in Egyptian-brokered truce negotiations.

Saeed Seyyam, who as interior minister in Hamas's government oversaw 13,000 Hamas police and security men, was killed in an air strike in Jabalya refugee camp, Hamas said.

Palestinian sources said he had been in a house rented by his brother, who also killed along with Seyyam's son.

"The blood of Seyyam will be a curse on the Zionist entity," Hamas official Mohammed Nazzal told Al Jazeera television.

At least 15 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza city, medical officials said.

Hamas official Ayman Taha called the street warfare, in which Israeli fire struck a UN compound, a hospital and a media building, an attempt to force the group to accept Israel's terms for a truce. A hospital was also hit in the fighting.

In Cairo, an Israeli defence official held talks with Egyptian mediators who have been negotiating with Hamas officials on a ceasefire. He was to report back to Israeli leaders later in the day.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told him by telephone that Washington would sign an agreement on measures to stop Hamas from rearming after a ceasefire, Olmert's office said.

"The secretary of state noted that the United States would be prepared to assist in solving the issue of smuggling and to sign a memorandum of understanding with Israel on the subject," Olmert's bureau said in a statement.

Israel has said that a ceasefire must ensure that Hamas can no longer smuggle in weapons through tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border, as well as end the group's rocket attacks on its southern towns.

Hamas wants Israel, which launched its Gaza offensive on Dec. 27, to withdraw its troops and lift a long-standing blockade of the Gaza Strip.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said its compound, where up to 700 Palestinians were sheltering, was struck twice by Israeli fire and three staff members were injured. Thick smoke rose from its food and fuel depot.

UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon called it an "outrage". Meeting Ban later, Olmert apologised but said the shelling was prompted by fire from Palestinian gunmen at the compound.

"It is absolutely true that we were attacked from that place," Olmert said in broadcast remarks.

In Geneva, a spokesman for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said al-Quds hospital was hit by either Israeli shelling or air strikes.

"We can't be certain in the heat of the conflict whether it was deliberate targeting," the spokesman, Paul Conneally, said.

No one was reported hurt at the hospital, where its administrative offices were set ablaze and dozens of patients moved in panic to the ground floor, seeking safety.

A rocket hit the downtown Al-Shurouq Tower, where the Reuters bureau and other media offices are located. Gulf-based Abu Dhabi Television said it believed its two journalists were targeted by an Israeli aircraft as they filmed from a 14th-storey office.

The Israeli military had no comment throughout the day on the attacks on the hospital and media offices.

About 25 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip hit southern Israel on Thursday, wounding six people, police said.

The Palestinian death toll from the air-and-ground offensive has risen to at least 1,095 and there were more than 5,000 wounded, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. A Palestinian rights group said at least 670 of the dead were civilians.

Thirteen Israelis have been killed - 10 soldiers and three civilians hit by Hamas rocket fire since Israel launched on Dec. 27 a military campaign it said was aimed at ending such salvoes.

Dozens of terrified residents of neighbourhoods near the Gaza city centre were seen fleeing on foot. Thousands more huddled in their homes as explosions tore through rubble-strewn streets clouded by smoke.

"It is a catastrophe," one woman said, walking quickly away from the area and carrying a child in her arms as two other children ran behind her to keep up.

"We took our money and passports. We have to carry some identification with us in case we get killed," she said. "Hamas can claim victory if it wants but we just need this bloodshed to end."

A senior Western diplomat said Israel appeared to be trying to make last-minute gains on the ground before a truce could be imposed.

"It's a classic Israeli strategy," the diplomat said.

Diplomats said Egypt's proposals centred on a phased-in ceasefire, starting with a lull to let in aid, followed by an Israeli pullout and border crossing openings.

In talks in Washington and Cairo, Israeli officials have said they wanted security guarantees to fall under an American "umbrella" and include Egyptian acceptance of U.S. and European advisers and technology to help combat smuggling through the border tunnels, diplomats said.

In addition to bolstering security along the so-called Philadelphi corridor that separates Gaza from Egypt, Israel has demanded an international maritime monitoring programme to track and halt vessels carrying rockets to Hamas.
Independent

'Efforts To Report Are Blocked'


Dominic Waghorn, Middle East correspondent
For three weeks and counting the media have watched the conflict in Gaza from a distance.
Skynews

Britain to send warships to Gaza as Israel prepares for ceasefire
Britain will send warships to the eastern Mediterranean to prevent arms being smuggled into the Gaza Strip after an Israeli ceasefire.


By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent, and Damien McElroy in Jerusalem



The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown also appeared to suggest that Britain might put people on the ground to help secure the crossings into Gaza.

"Germany, France and Great Britain have just sent a letter to Israel and Egypt to say they will do everything we can to prevent arms trafficking which is at the root of some of the problems," Mr Brown said. "I believe that will help get a solution to this crisis."

His declaration came as the Israeli government appeared poised to end its three-week assault on the Palestinian territory by adopting a unilateral ceasefire plan.

Intense fighting marked the closing hours of Operation Cast Lead as Israel sought to entrench its military superiority over the radical Islamic movement Hamas.

The Prime Minister said that he had been in talks with Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and with European leaders over the last few days.

"I believe there is general understanding that the appalling violence and the tragedies that have happened should come to an end as quickly as possible," he said.

Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, declared the country had achieved its goals for the 22-day conflict as he toured military units involved in the offensive.

"After three weeks of Operation Cast Lead, we are very close to reaching the goals and securing them through diplomatic agreements," he said. "The defence forces must continue their operation and be ready for any development."

Israel appeared to have come to its decision after reaching a bilateral agreement with America to establish a tough monitoring regime to stop weapons being smuggled to Hamas through tunnels under Gaza's border with Egypt.

The Egyptian government has said the tunnels are mainly used for food while most arms are being smuggled into Gaza by sea.

Mr Brown said that if the ceasefire held, Britain would send in extra humanitarian aid. "We're prepared to help move children, to take them out of the area so they can be treated elsewhere."

Thousands of people gathered in Britain yesterday to demonstrate against the continuing Israeli attacks on Gaza.

While Israel has conceded that Hamas has not been wiped out by Operation Cast Lead, it is determined to deprive the Islamic group of any attempt to claim a victory.

Israeli officials said their decision to declare a ceasefire unilaterally would make Hamas responsible for any fresh clashes.

"It doesn't matter what Hamas says now, its what they do," said Mark Regev, an Israel government spokesman. "The world will see that after this Hamas will be responsible for what happens."

The ceasefire announcement was expected to be made after a meeting of the security cabinet at the end of the Jewish Sabbath holiday.

The government's key figures - Mr Barak, the prime minister Mr Olmert and foreign minister Tzipi Lipni - presented a united front to push for a cessation of the campaign.

However a top Hamas official vowed the group would continue its attacks on Israeli forces. Osama Hamdan, who is based in Lebanon, said: "If any vision does not achieve these things, then we will continue in the battle on the ground."
BBC

Standing against a tide of hatred
It is not Israel's action, but the vitriolic reaction to it that has been disproportionate. There's only one explanation: antisemitism



Elizabeth Wurtzel

Is it good for the Jews?

If you were so inclined, you could ask that question about the Madoff mess, the Gaza offensive, the latest screed from Alan Dershowitz – or about a new recipe for angel-food cake. Which is to say, if you are looking for antisemitism, you can find it anywhere, even in a dessert cookbook. But if even paranoids have enemies, I think it's fair to say that these are tough times for Jews.

While I would prefer to equate the fate of the Palestinians with that of Israel – meaning, I'd like to believe we're all on the same side – I think that might be a difficult political fiction to maintain at the moment. And while I'd like to artificially separate anti-Zionism from antisemitism, like most American Jews, I'm not willing to make that false distinction: when there is more than one Jewish state, the world's hatred of Israel might become no different from its exasperation with any other country, but since Israel is the only homeland, and really it is nothing more than six million Jews living together in an area the size of New Jersey, I can't pretend that the problem with Israel is that it's a poorly located country that happens to be at odds with its neighbours and only coincidentally happens to be Jewish. The trouble with Israel is the trouble with Jews.

This situation makes me profoundly uncomfortable. As the kind of left-leaning liberal who tends to agree with the positions taken by The Nation in most instances, I hate having to differ so completely on the Israel issue with many I otherwise would align with. As it is my good fortune to be American, I live in the only country that as a matter of policy is pro-Israel regardless of party allegiance; Democrats and Republicans equally unite behind the blue-and-white. But to communicate with anyone I think of as rightminded (and left-leaning) in any other part of the world is to experience the purest antisemitism since the Nazi era. In fact, in Europe right now, it is de rigueur to liken the current regime in Israel with the Nazi party, and to view the experience of the Palestinians as a form of ethnic cleansing. Hamas and Hezbollah are thought by the French and British to be social welfare organisations, and Israel is viewed as a terrorist state. Here, we honor the linguistic discoveries of Noam Chomsky and otherwise experience him as a quaintly brilliant crank, but in the bookstores in London there are entire sections devoted to his political thought – and he is read as if the distinctions between Leninist and Trotskyite philosophy had genuine consequence in today's world.

Excepting a business trip I took to England, Scotland and Ireland in early 2002, I have not been to Europe since 9/11. It's become an unbearable place to be, as the anti-American feelings in light of the Iraq war have mingled with antisemitism to a point where they are indistinguishable, the new phobias of the First World. Because I like taking the occasional trip abroad, especially now that even the Euro is sinking, I am doing my best to understand the European perspective, or somehow excuse it. After all, beyond being a Jewish homeland, Israel is also a geopolitical actor with nuclear weapons, and it might be construed as fair to criticise the actions the country has taken as a very well-armed American client that is dropping bombs on Hamas targets, to the terrible detriment of the civilian population. It's impossible not to feel sorry for the plight of the Palestinians, and it's even more impossible to imagine how any Palestinian could feel anything for Israel but animosity. I can see the problem.

But I think it is this very fact – my attempt to understand both sides – that disturbs me the most. Because trying to see all sides, such an instinct is particularly Jewish. The most vehement critics of Israel and champions of the Palestinians – hello, Professor Chomsky; greetings, Norman Finkelstein – are always Jews: we are always trying in our even, level, thoughtful way to see reason in the behaviour of those who are lobbing rocket grenades at us. As a people, we are hopeless Talmudists, we examine all the arguments and try to sort out an answer. What is both strange and difficult for Jews to watch in the case of Israel is that, as a nation surrounded by enemies, it does not make such calculations; it does not have the luxury of rationality that is eventually irrational. Israel fights back, which is very much at odds with the Jewish instinct to discuss and deconstruct everything until action itself seems senseless. Israel, hell-bent on survival, has learned to shoot first – or, at least, second – and blow away the consequences. Whereas it actually hurts my feelings when someone says something nasty about Israel, or even the United States, for Israelis, this is just the way of the world: they probably manufacture their flags to be flammable.

So, it is quite difficult to be Jewish, on the sidelines of this international crisis. Or maybe it's just difficult to be Jewish. Before his death, the literary philosopher Jacques Derrida described the experience of living in the Jewish ghetto in Paris during the Nazi occupation: because Jews were not allowed to work or attend school, but had always been the most brilliant professors and teachers, this shtetl existence was gloriously intellectual and incandescent – the only problem was that they were stuck, imprisoned by their Jewishness. This, Derrida explained, is what it's like to be Jewish: to know everyone around you is gifted, and to wish you could find a way out. Jews pride themselves on the over two hundred Nobel Prizes the group has won; and Jews pride themselves on being told: "But you don't seem Jewish." Or better still: "You certainly don't look Jewish."

Judaism will be enmeshed in pride and shame for as long as it endures. But to endure as a country, Israel must shun both these tendencies.

I watch the pro-Palestinian rallies that have been staged in capitals across the globe, and I try to tell myself that these people are not against me, or even Israel; that they just are dismayed with all the violence. I tell myself, as Jean Renoir pointed out with such pellucid irony in The Rules of the Game, that everybody has their reasons. But here is what I finally know: with all the troubles in the world, with the terrible things that the Chinese do in Tibet, and do to their own citizens; with the horrors of genocide committed in Darfur by Sudanese Muslims; with all the bad things that Arab governments in the Middle East visit upon their own people – no need for Israel to have a perfectly horrible time – still, the focus is on what the Jews may or may not be doing wrong in Gaza. And it makes people angry and vehement as nothing else does. The vitriol it inspires is downright weird. But that makes sense, because antisemitism itself – creepy, dark, ancient and insidious – is, more than anything else, just plain weird.
Observer

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Jackie Mason: Israel's Worst Enemy? Liberal Jews!
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Gaza was demolished in three weeks. Rebuilding it will take years

By Patrick Cockburn in Jerusalem


The rebuilding of Gaza after the Israeli bombardment already faces unique problems and is likely to be the most difficult reconstruction project in the world. This is because of the sheer scale of the devastation, the economic siege of the Palestinian enclave by Israel and Egypt, and the attempt to exclude Hamas, the elected rulers of Gaza, from any role in the rebuilding.

The difficulties are all the greater because of the destruction of much of the tunnel system linking Gaza to Egypt. Israeli and European leaders talk of the tunnel system – by one estimate there are 1,100 of them – as if it was exclusively devoted to supplying weapons and ammunition to Hamas. In reality, "the tunnel economy" has been the way in which food, fuel and everything else has reached Gaza since Israel and Egypt sealed off the Strip 18 months ago, when Hamas drove out the rival Palestinian faction Fatah in 2007. Military supplies were always a very small part of Gaza's imports through the tunnels.

"Everything from Viagra to diesel entered Gaza through the tunnels," said one source. At one point before the Israeli attack, the price of petrol went down in Gaza because a pipeline had been threaded through one of the tunnels, all of which are privately dug and owned. Cooking-gas bottles are in short supply because they previously came in through tunnels that are now closed.

"I know middle-class families in Gaza cutting up their furniture to build fires so they can cook their food," said an aid official yesterday. Spare parts are desperately needed for generators.

The Palestinian tunnels and the Israeli-Egyptian border closure were two issues at the centre of the war and their future is still unresolved.

Until Gaza has continual access to the outside world, any real reconstruction will be impossible. A senior EU official said no aid would be spent rebuilding buildings and infrastructure while Hamas remained in control.

Israel says that it will have withdrawn all its troops from the Gaza Strip by the time Barack Obama is inaugurated today. A first priority forthe UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) will be to bring in foodstuffs and medicines and rebuild its supply system stretching from the Israeli port of Ashdod to the Gaza Strip. Then it will try to restore the electricity, water and sewage systems wrecked by Israeli bombs and shells. Amnesty International yesterday accused Israel of war crimes, saying its use of white phosphorus munitions in densely populated areas of Gaza was indiscriminate and illegal.

UNRWA will probably carry out the preliminary assessment of damage and initial repairs because Israel, Egypt, the US and the Europeans are boycotting Hamas, although UNRWA is nervous of acting as a substitute government of Gaza. One Palestinian estimate suggests that the cost of rebuilding will be $1.4bn (£970m). Saudi Arabia has already pledged $1bn but promises on aid are seldom kept in full.

Rebuilding will take place in a 139-square-mile enclave that is packed with 1.5 million Palestinians, of whom 70 per cent are from refugee families expelled from Israel during the creation of the state. More than a million are already receiving UN food supplies.

The initial assessment is that 20,000 homes lived in by 120,000 people have been somewhat damaged and can be patched up so they are habitable again. The 4,000 homes that have been destroyed cannot be rebuilt because Israel is refusing to let construction materials cross the border into Gaza.

Israel, the US and their European allies are eager to prevent Hamas taking charge of reconstruction because this might add to its political standing among Palestinians. They recall that after the Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2006, many Lebanese at first blamed Hizbollah for provoking the assault. But Hizbollah took charge of rebuilding and Iran reportedly gave $14,000 to every family which had lost its home, money that was channelled to grateful recipients through Hizbollah.

The major potential donors for Gaza will try to get aid distributed through the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas. But he is, if anything, more discredited in the eyes of Palestinians and the Arab world as an Israeli and American stooge than he was before war in Gaza. Hamas, which won the heavily-monitored Palestinian election of 2006, will not want to dilute its power but there will be international pressure on Palestinians to form a government that is acceptable to donors.

If Gaza is to be restored even to the miserable condition it was in before 27 December, then the economic siege has to be lifted. But Israeli leaders like the Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, and the Defence Minister, Ehud Barak have claimed success in the war. If the blockade is raised, then Hamas will say it won the war – and the election of Benjamin Netanyahu as the next Prime Minister of Israel in the election on 10 February will become even more certain.

So were there any winners or losers?

What was Hamas's aim? Rocket attacks intended to force Israel to end blockade that has trapped 1.5m Palestinians inside Gaza Strip since Hamas takeover. Hamas also seeking recognition by West

What happened? Security arrangements are to be imposed on Hamas and no ceasefire agreement has been signed with the Islamists

Did they succeed? No.

What was Israel's aim? Gaza offensive launched to "teach Hamas a lesson". Some Israeli politicians called for overthrow of Hamas, while contenders in next month's election sought improved ratings

What happened? The majority of the estimated 20,000 Hamas fighters escaped with their lives. Hamas rockets were still being fired at the end of Israeli offensive when Israel declared unilateral ceasefire

Did they succeed? No.

What was Egypt's aim? To secure end to offensive through ceasefire agreement leading to truce, border security, reopening of crossings, Israeli troop withdrawal and Palestinian reconciliation

What happened? US negotiated separate deal with Israel on arms smuggling. Hamas set its own truce conditions and refused reconciliation with Fatah. Egyptian mediation deepened split between moderate Arab states and others

Did they succeed? No.

What was the EU's aim? To profit from power vacuum in US and play lead negotiating role. To map out road to peace and promise support for Palestinian leadership afterwards

What happened? Plethora of negotiators undermined EU credibility as did the incompetence of Czech EU presidency

Did they succeed? No.

Indenment