Questions linger over tactical gains

Occupied Jerusalem: When the firing eventually stops in the Gaza Strip, the question of "who won?" will hang heavily over the death and destruction. Neither Israel nor Hamas will be able to answer it with any certainty or immediacy.

Israel claims it launched its offensive on December 27 to put a stop once and for all to Hamas's firing of rockets and mortars over the border into southern Israeli towns and cities. That objective, at least, has been stated very clearly.

Yet after two weeks of fighting, the rockets -more than 4,000 of which have been fired since 2001 - are still coming, even if in far fewer numbers than two weeks ago. Israel believes the Palestinians are still capable of firing 200 rockets a day.

So if Israel can't wipe out Hamas or completely halt rocket fire, what will it be able to show for weeks of fighting in which more than 850 Palestinians and 13 Israelis have died, and international condemnation has been heaped on the Jewish state?

While acknowledging Israel's need to tackle the rocket threat from Hamas, US security analyst Anthony Cordesman argues that its strategy could backfire.

"It is far from clear that the tactical gains are worth the political and strategic cost to Israel," he wrote in commentary for the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

"Has Israel somehow blundered into a steadily escalating war without a clear strategic goal or at least one it can credibly achieve?

"Will Israel end in empowering an enemy in political terms that it defeated in tactical terms? "To be blunt, the answer so far seems to be yes," he wrote.

Likewise, Hamas can hardly declare itself an outright winner, either now or once the guns have fallen silent.

As Hezbollah did after its 34-day war with Israel, Hamas may well cast itself as the underdog that held off the might of the hi-tech, US-sponsored Israeli army, and draw praise for that.

But for all those Palestinians in Gaza who will feel pride at the resistance Hamas put up, others will gaze at the ruined buildings and freshly dug graves and wonder if it was worth it.