By J. Zel Lurie
DEL RAY BEACH, Florida — The most important fact about the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas is that it was announced in Cairo by an American and an Egyptian, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. The Israeli and Hamas representatives were nowhere in sight.
Here is the complex story of this strange footnote to history in simple terms. A large sum of money is involved.
The eight-day miniwar began with the targeted assassination by Israel of a Hamas commander Ahmed Jabari. Israel said he was the mastermind behind the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Jabari kept him alive for five years while Isael dithered over his outrageous terms — Shalit’s release in exchange for over a thousand Palestinian prisoners.
Since the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes over thirty years ago, when the Mossad employed scores of agents to kill the perpetrators, Israel has never forgotten a successful enemy.
Hamas responded forcefully. The skies were filled with Hamas rockets landing in Israel while the Israeli air force raided Gaza every night destroying government buildings and other structures.
Many Hamas rockets were hit by the American-financed Iron Dome batteries, which worked with 90 percent efficiency. That is, one $30,000 Iron Dome rocket could take out one Hamas rocket that cost a few dollars while scores of cheap rockets got by.
But something new and ominous had been added. Hamas had a small stockpile of powerful Iranian rockets that could reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. They had been taken apart and smuggled through the tunnels from Egypt. They were put together and fired from underground launching pads. One reached a field outside Jerusalem, 45 miles away, and a couple hit Tel Aviv. Others were destroyed by Iron Dome.
Avital Leibovich, the IDF spokesperson, told CNN that Iran tried to speed up the smuggling of long-range rockets through the tunnels during the fighting. How they were stopped was snipped out of the broadcast.
But unlike Iran’s nuclear ambitions, these rockets were an immediate danger to Israel’s cities and the IDF mobilized 75,000 troops with their tanks and APCs for a rapid march to Rafah to destroy the tunnels.
Before they took off, President Obama, who was on a tour of Asia, decided to intervene. Secretary Clinton, who was accompanying the president, was diverted to the Middle East.
In Jerusalem she asked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu what Israel had hoped to achieve in a war with many Israelis and Palestinians killed and wounded. Israel’s demands were simple: An end to the smuggling of Iranian rockets and an end to the firing of homemade missiles into Israel, which had been going on for years; Hamas should use its police and intelligence service to stop the firing of rockets into Israel’s southern towns by the Islamic Jihad and other radical fringe groups.
Then she traveled eight miles to Ramallah, the Palestinian capital. After a courtesy call on President Mahmoud Abbas, who played no role in this drama, she headed to Cairo to meet indirectly and possibly directly with Hamas people and their mentor, President Mohammed Morsi.
Hamas had two demands. One, that targeted assassinations of its leaders be stopped. Israel agreed. Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Ehud Barak had probably already decided that they were not worth the cost.
Hamas further demanded a lifting of the Israeli-imposed siege of Gaza; free movement of Gazans to the West Bank and back; a gradual improvement of the import of goods; a lifting of the one-mile limit on Gazan fishermen and an end to the buffer zone created by Israel on its border with Gaza. The IDF had ordered Gazans not to come within one thousand meters of the fence. This buffer zone must end so that farmers can once more work their land.
Israel agreed to discuss all these demands on condition that President Morsi agree to destroy the tunnels and end the organized tunnel traffic. President Morsi was a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and a blood brother to Hamas, which does not recognize Israel. It would be most difficult for him to agree to Israel’s security demands.
Mrs. Clinton had a secret weapon to convince President Morsi to agree to take a leading role in Israel’s security.
Mrs. Clinton’s secret weapon was money, lots of it.
Egypt’s economy had gone down the drain since the Arab Spring revolution almost two years ago.
Before Morsi had been elected president, Egypt had applied for a loan of $4.8 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Negotiations had been slow and difficult because of the harsh conditions laid down by the IMF, who wanted to be certain that Egypt could repay the loan.
On Tuesday, while Mrs. Clinton was en route to Cairo, a London paper published an interview with a UK official who said that Morsi could not agree to the IMF’s conditions.
But on Wednesday morning simultaneously with Mrs. Clinton’s arrival, agreement on the loan was reached. A CNN commentator said: “There must be a connection to a cease-fire that was announced that evening.”
End of story, temporarily. President Morsi is caught in a vise between Egyptian protesters and his promises to curb Hamas.
Because of deadline pressure, this is being written a week before its publication on December 5.
Mahmoud Abbas will be at the U.N., capturing the headlines with his demand for recognition of the Palestinians as an observer state.
December 5 will be an important milestone for me. It will be the first day of my hundredth year. In other words, the previous day was my 99th birthday.
Happy birthday to me. And may the Israelis in Sderot and the Palestinians in Gaza live in peace and prosperity in my hundredth year and thereafter.
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Lurie is a freelance writer based in Florida, whose work appears in the Jewish Journal of Southern Florida, He may be contacted at jzel.lurie@sdjewishworld.com