Thousands of Gazans gathered at the border fence on Tuesday night, throwing rocks, burning tires, and launching incendiary devices attached to kites and balloons. Meanwhile, Egypt is still trying to broker a truce between Hamas and Israel, while Israeli politicians are considering steps to improve the economic and humanitarian situation in the Strip—such as expanding fishermen’s access to coastal waters or building a port—in order to end the rioting. Hillel Frisch argues that ever since the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, there has been no correlation between economic improvements in the territory and reductions in terror.
If humanitarian gestures had in fact led in the past decade to a reduction of violence, there should be a visible correlation between low levels of missile launchings and the following: 1) a high number of trucks full of produce moving into Gaza, 2) a high number of trucks full of Gazan exports moving out, and 3) a high number of Gazans allowed to travel to Israel or beyond for business and healthcare. . . .
The findings between 2012 and 2014 are [especially] telling. The number of trucks increased [in these years]. According to the humanitarian argument, the number of missile launchings should then have decreased—but [instead] launchings in the first half of 2014 vastly increased, leading to the most lethal and long-term bout of conflict to date. Hamas does not appear to be swayed in the least by humanitarian gestures. . . .
[Instead, in today’s circumstances], Hamas calculated first that Israel had moved many of its Iron Dome [missile-defense batteries] north to the Golan, rendering Israel’s south more vulnerable; and second that Israel would be restrained from reacting in a massive way so as to preserve the focus on Iran, especially the oil sanctions that the U.S. will impose on that country in November.
It was a good gamble. Hamas achieved both the restoration of the status quo that had prevailed before the March of Return [as the protests, riots, and attacks that have been going on at the border fence for the past six months are known] and Israeli acquiescence in Hamas violence during the March—violence that is primarily designed to secure a prisoner deal that will free hundreds in return for the release of two Israeli citizens and the remains of two others. If no progress is made toward a prisoner release on Hamas’s terms, violence will likely continue no matter how much the economic welfare of the inhabitants of Gaza is improved.
Read more on BESA Center: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/hamas-concessions-violence/