Israel's acceptance of the Egyptian cease-fire proposal effective immediately and to be implemented within 12 hours is not just an agreement to halt this round of hostilities, but rather a calculated move by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to begin the process of disarming Gaza and castrate its Islamist rulers of its military capabilities once and for all, with the backing of the Arab world and the international community.
Hamas immediately rejected the offer, declaring it "meaningless," and continued its rocket barrages on Israel with rapid fire, launching short-range rockets over the course of the morning and long-range missiles at Haifa and the Tel Aviv area in the early afternoon. Netanyahu declared within hours of the cabinet decision that Israel would escalate its attacks against Hamas should the latter refuse to the proposal, and ordered the Israel Defense Forces to strike the Gaza Strip mid-afternoon in response to the ongoing rocket fire. Even if Hamas agrees to Egypt's offer, the crossfire should not be expected to cease until seconds before implementation.
The proposal - which calls for an end to Israel's aerial, naval and ground strikes against Gaza, and for Hamas to halt its rocket fire against civilians and border attacks - stipulates that the two sides will meet in Cairo under Egyptian mediation within 48 hours of the cease-fire implementation. Gaza crossings will be opened to allow the passage of people and goods only once the security situation has stabilized, according to the proposal.
The Cairo meeting is intended not only to monitor the two sides' adherence to the cease-fire and to discuss the security issues, but to enable Israel and the mediators to advance to the real mission on the agenda: the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.
Israel has maintained over the course of its eight-day operation in Gaza that it will not agree to any temporary truce with Hamas that would put a "band-aid" on the situation and allow it to resume its rocket fire on the civilian population this week or anytime in the future. Its goal is to "dismantle the terror machine."
The sole outcome the Israeli government is willing to accept is a complete destruction of Hamas' arsenal and a total disarmament of the Gaza Strip under an international resolution that forces the political echelon of the Islamist organization to drop its military capabilities and agree to a demilitarized Palestinian government there.
Both Israel and Egypt, along with most of the Arab world, have a vested interest in disarming Hamas entirely. Hamas is weaker now than it has ever been and will likely be coerced into agreeing to the cease-fire. Despite its currently stated objections, it has no other avenue on which to proceed. The Islamist movement is isolated and it is cornered.
Nearly 50 percent of Hamas rocket launchers and 40 percent of its projectiles have been destroyed in the last eight days; it has launched nearly half of the long-range missiles in its arsenal prior to the outbreak of the war, and without the support of Syria to refresh the influx of weapons, it will not be able to continue its rapid bombardment of Israel for long, with or without a cease-fire. A cease-fire would enable it to regain a place in the Arab world, from which it is now completely isolated and denounced. The pro-Islamist government in Qatar has been enlisted by Egypt as a partner in the mediation process set to commence in two days, to help in the rebuilding and rehabilitation of Gaza once the operation has ended.
Israel made it clear over the 24 hours that preceded its acceptance of the Egyptian proposal that a cease-fire was not on the agenda. Troops and tanks were deployed en masse on the Gaza border, poised for a ground operation, but government officials declared cautious willingness to actually invade.
Israel's acceptance of the cease-fire, therefore, is not surrender in the face of mass rockets, but rather its next calculated military move in its operation against Hamas, an alternative to a ground invasion.
A ground invasion would have enabled Israeli troops to search door-to-door for Hamas' leaders and its arsenal, but at the price of human lives, both Israeli and Palestinians. Former Israeli diplomat and analyst Danny Ayalon told me yesterday that Israel was willing to continue its aerial strikes on Gaza and sustain rocket fire for another 7-10 days, until Hamas' arsenal was exhausted. Israel is prepared to keep fighting, but knows that playing this round to the end will not prevent a future resumption of hostilities.
Israel was no doubt privy to the drafting of the Egyptian proposal and its careful stipulation of the "security issues" to be discussed in Cairo following implementation of the deal. Hamas officials told Arab media this morning that their rejection of the proposal was in part because they had not been told of its clauses in advance.
Egypt's mediation is its way of stepping into the operation, allied with Israel, to put an end to the terror machine in the Gaza Strip. If Hamas refuses to accept the cease-fire, it will in effect mean surrender to Israel. With the rest of the Arab world and the international community ready to clean Gaza of its arsenal, Hamas has no choice but to comply - if not today then tomorrow or in the next few days. Otherwise, the Israeli strikes will only intensify as will the Islamist movement's humiliation and isolation.
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