Even some prominent Israeli military analysts have acknowledged what a strategic defeat the smashing of the barrier was for them. A study published Tuesday by Israeli Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror and Dan Diker for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs noted that Hamas can utilize its new free access to Egypt to "ease Gaza's depressed condition and diminish the differences between Gaza and the more prosperous West Bank."
Even more far-reaching, Amidror and Diker point out that for the first time, Hamas – "the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and the ideological cousin of al-Qaida – has gained full control over contiguous territory and population, and has now effectively become a state government without real opponents."
Hamas' victory will also dramatically boost its credibility and popularity among the population of the West Bank, Amidror and Diker realize. "In sharp contrast to Fatah's yet unfulfilled promises, the Palestinian public sees Hamas' dramatic opening of the Gaza-Egypt border as the latest in a series of successful actions. Others include Hamas' surprise January 2006 electoral victory over Fatah, its kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, the sustained rocketing of southern Israel, and Hamas' expulsion of Fatah forces from Gaza and the establishment of its control over the government there in June 2007," they write.
Finally, they warn, "Hamas will now be able to obtain weapons, ammunition, explosives, and training more freely via the Egyptian Sinai. Since the border opening, weapons have flowed unimpeded into Gaza, enabling the transfer of higher-grade weapons such as anti-aircraft missiles."
Obsessed with Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization, successive Israeli leaders of every party and ideology have totally underestimated Hamas ever since it was founded in Gaza a quarter of a century ago.
Even though Greater Tel Aviv extends to the very edge of Gaza, the Israeli government and its intelligent apparatus were caught wrong-footed yet again by what they should have expected as an obvious Hamas response to their cumbersome, ineffectual efforts to contain it. The George W. Bush administration and its $30 billion plus a year intelligence services was caught equally flatfooted.
Coming only a couple of weeks after the U.S. president's wrong-footed and ham-handed procession through the region as its next would-be Prince of Peace, the Hamas initiative undermines the irrelevance of a so-called "peace process' that tries to ignore Hamas, Syria and Iran.
Bush no doubt will continue in denial and genuinely believe the mantra he chanted in his recent state of the Union Address that Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas, under his wise guidance, will be able to establish a realistic, just and lasting peace while ignoring Hamas. Once again we see that Middle East realities have no respect for Bush's dreams.