Victory elusive for both Israel and Hamas

By Luke Baker - Analysis

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - When the firing eventually stops in the Gaza Strip, the question of "who won?" will hang heavily over the death and destruction. Neither Israel nor Hamas will be able to answer it with any certainty or immediacy.

Israel says it launched its offensive on December 27 to put a stop once and for all to Hamas's firing of rockets and mortars over the border into southern Israeli towns and cities. That objective, at least, has been stated very clearly.

Yet after two weeks of fighting, the rockets -- more than 4,000 of which have been fired since 2001 -- are still coming, even if in far fewer numbers than two weeks ago. Israel believes the Palestinians are still capable of firing 200 rockets a day.

A ceasefire in which Hamas agrees to halt rocket fire might well be struck, but the chance of it holding forever, as Israel would like, is next to nil, and there are other militant groups in Gaza which could violate the deal, reigniting the conflict.

Israel also wants a "mechanism" to stop arms smuggling into Gaza from Egypt and thus starve Hamas of rocket materiel. But it is unclear what this would entail, not least as Cairo has balked at calls for international forces on its side of the frontier.

That is why some Israeli leaders argue the operation needs to go much further and seek to destroy Hamas completely, killing off its leadership and causing so much hardship in Gaza that the population turns against the Islamists they elected in 2006.

Yet eradicating Hamas is a much tougher objective and one that Israel is unlikely to achieve in the time left before it has to give in to international pressure and halt operations.

So if Israel can't wipe out Hamas or completely halt rocket fire, what will it be able to show for weeks of fighting in which some 850 Palestinians and 13 Israelis have died, and international condemnation has been heaped on the Jewish state?

STRATEGIC ERROR?

While acknowledging Israel's need to tackle the rocket threat from Hamas, U.S. security analyst Anthony Cordesman argues that its strategy could backfire.

"It is far from clear that the tactical gains are worth the political and strategic cost to Israel," he wrote in commentary for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"Has Israel somehow blundered into a steadily escalating war without a clear strategic goal or at least one it can credibly achieve?

"Will Israel end in empowering an enemy in political terms that it defeated in tactical terms? Will Israel's actions seriously damage the U.S. position in the region, any hope of peace, as well as moderate Arab regimes and voices?

"To be blunt, the answer so far seems to be yes," he wrote.

Israel believes it has succeeded in reducing Hamas's ability to fire rockets, proved its "deterrence" capability, killed many Hamas commanders and perhaps made more Palestinians in Gaza question the wisdom of the strict Islamist group's behavior.