The Israel Gaza Conflict and Why Neither the IDF nor Hamas Will Win

There is much talk of late, from media coverage to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, to heads of state around the world, about securing a cease fire between Hamas in Gaza and the Israeli military.
Unfortunately, as is often the case in armed conflicts, the only two parties that do not truly want to see a cease fire are the two armed combatants involved in the conflict.
For varying reasons Hamas and Israel would prefer to continue combat on their own terms, with no formal cease fire. This, however, will not be soberly reported by your local, state or national news service.
Hamas, as well as their terrorist brethren in the Middle East, use Israeli military action as their primary propaganda and recruitment tool. Each time an Israeli bomb falls or mortar explodes, there are innocent, impressionable young men who feel the pain of this long standing conflict like never before.
The leaders of Hamas, Al-Qaeda and others relish news reports which cover the loss of innocent life in Gaza. Middle Eastern, African and European television broadcasts cover Israeli offensives without so much as mentioning the rockets Hamas has fired into Israeli towns and cities. These broadcasts in essence legitimize the propaganda being spread by terrorist groups. They tell innocent, angry civilians they have done nothing to provoke this “Zionist aggression” and the world media, by saying nothing, agrees. For this reason and this reason alone, Hamas will not stop attacking Israel by use of terrorist tactics such as suicide bombers, and military tactics such as rocket attacks.
This is not to say that Hamas wishes to see hostilities continue at the current rate. As a matter of survival, Hamas almost depends upon some military response from Israel to continue to stir its own populace and recruit for upcoming jihadist campaigns against both Israel and other western interests. They just cannot afford to see it continue to escalate at the current rate, for it will mean an utter end to the Gaza strip as a nation, or even as a remotely habitable region on the planet. Even at modest rates Gaza is not capable of withstanding a true, full on military action by a technologically superior enemy. With years of occupation of the region, not to mention detailed infrastructure intelligence based upon the fact that Israel created a large part of the Gazan infrastructure itself, Gaza is little more than a shooting gallery to the Israeli military. At roughly 136 square miles, it is hard to imagine their being much left of the Gaza Strip after a protracted military campaign with a prepared and determined enemy.
Hamas would much prefer the sort of armed conflict where they can continually provoke Israel with a few well misplaced rockets that minimize Israeli civilian casualties yet continue to present enough of a threat that Israel feels it must respond. If they could continue, on a small enough scale, to aggravate Israel into tit for tat exchanges which cost them a few to a few dozen innocent lives on occasion, they would gladly do so. This is the method which allows them to recruit new blood into the order without losing too many warm bodies on the top end of the military structure.
The status quo, for Israel, is likely a much more positive scenario than it is for Hamas. At least, from the Israeli perspective, they are achieving some primary objectives. They continue to destroy infrastructure used by Hamas to smuggle rockets and other arms into the country, and they continue to attack Hamas militants and strike at Hamas leadership as targets of opportunity. Rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel have decreased dramatically as the conflict grinds on, indicating that either the military response from Israel is taking its toll on Hamas as a military structure, or that the destruction of key supply routes into Gaza has significantly interrupted the supply of rockets into the Hamas caches.
The downside of all this for Israel is that when they are forced into large scale military conflict, the civilian toll in Gaza is unacceptable to the international community. With hundreds or thousands of potential targets in such a small area and moving around in civilian residential zones, Israel will without a doubt, kill and injure more innocent civilians than any conscionable government can accept.
What Israel would much prefer to do is stay in a state of pseudo-war with Hamas, in which it more selectively chooses targets, with strikes coming sometimes in rapid succession and sometimes sparingly, but minimizing innocent casualties. This would allow them to continue to weaken the militant arm of Hamas without proffering tremendous amounts of international propaganda, and minimize the infrastructure damage they will very likely be held responsible for in the court of world public opinion.
Unfortunately, as is illustrated by this article, while their may be from time to time, stages and depths of conflict which are preferred by one military combatant over another, there is ultimately no right way to go to war.
Let us all pray that someday soon this terrible loss of life in the Middle East will end and all involved will find another avenue through which to settle their differences. The entire world will be a better place if, and when this happens.