Big bang or chaos: What's Israel up to?

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Why did Israel attack Gaza with such brutality? Did Israeli officials think, even for a fleeting moment, that their army's attacks could halt, as opposed to intensify, Palestinian rockets or retaliatory violence? Indeed, was Palestinian violence at all relevant to the Israeli action? Was the Israeli bloodletting in Gaza solely relevant to the Gaza/Hamas context, or is there a regional dimension that is largely being overlooked?

There are two lines of military logic that Israel resorts to. One is motivated by the "chaos theory", the idea that seemingly minor events accumulate to have complex and massive effects on dynamic natural systems. For example, Gaza might have been attacked with the hope of provoking a streak of suicide bombings that would eventually be blamed on Syrian planning and Iranian financing - thus provoking a major showdown in Lebanon. The history of Israeli-Arab conflicts demonstrates how many major invasions are justified by seemingly irrelevant events, such as the 1982 Lebanon War.

But is Israel capable of sustaining another conflict in Lebanon after its miserable - and costly - failure in July-August 2006?

That's when the US becomes even more relevant. Just as Israeli attacks occupied major headlines around the world, the USS Cole and two additional ships - including one amphibious assault vessel - were quietly making their way from Malta to the shores of Lebanon. The ships were dispatched as a "show of support for regional stability", according to US Navy officials.

With the gung-ho George W Bush administration's time in office coming to an end and waning public enthusiasm for war against Iran, Israel cannot afford allowing the regional setup to be stacked in the following way: Hezbollah dominating south Lebanon, Hamas dominating Gaza and Iran becoming an increasingly formidable regional power.

This leads to the other line of Israeli military logic, the "big bang" theory. The self-explanatory logic of this theory is applicable in the sense that a regional war - accompanied by mini civil wars in Palestine and Lebanon, along with other attempts at destabilizing Iran and Syria - could work in Israel's favor.

...The facts - as demonstrated by the US-Israeli role in the turmoil in Lebanon, the consistent attempt to arraign Iran, and the Israeli provocations and bombings in Syria - all indicate that Israel's plans are regional, with Gaza being a testing ground, and the least costly target to isolate and brutalize. Already a massive concentration camp with a largely starving population, Gaza has provided Israel with a perfect opportunity to start sending stern messages to the other players in the region.

Asia Times