Analysis: Positions remain entrenched after Gaza conflict

"All the places where Israeli settlers used to live in Gaza are now areas from which rockets are launched [toward Israel]," says Mesodi Sugaker, a resident of Kiryat Malachi, where three people were killed by rocket fire last month. "They couldn't do that before.... All the people who died, died because Ariel Sharon made a big mistake."

Palestinians, too, criticize Ariel Sharon. Because Israel withdrew unilaterally, "Hamas was able to claim, 'Our resistance drove out the occupation in Gaza, so follow our line to drive out the occupation in the West Bank,' " says former Palestinian Authority (PA) spokesman Ghassan Khatib.

Ariel Sharon could have negotiated with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, bolstering the Palestinian leader's insistence that negotiations are an effective means of ending the occupation, Mr. Khatib adds.

Diplomacy doesn't pay?

Mr. Abbas, who has pinned his career on diplomacy, rather than armed resistance, lobbied to upgrade Palestine's UN status from "observer" to nonmember "state," which the United Nations did on Nov. 29.

He benefited from an 11th-hour show of support from key European countries, which may have stemmed in part from concern that Palestinians would walk away from the Gaza conflict with the impression that missiles, not diplomacy, are the way to Israeli concessions. In the Nov. 21 cease-fire agreement, Israel agreed in principle to open crossings into Gaza, potentially easing restrictions on goods and freedom of movement imposed in 2006.

"The cease-fire definitely strengthened Hamas. It looks as if Hamas managed to get concessions on the siege, and this was through missiles ... while [Abbas] is sitting aside quietly," says veteran Israeli diplomat Alon Liel, now retired.

"So it's definitely the wish of Europeans to show that through diplomacy you can also gain achievements, not only through missiles."

Some Israelis are skeptical that Abbas's Fatah party has sworn off armed resistance for good, saying it was only because of Israeli military pressure.

But Israel hopes Hamas will follow suit, even if it won't guarantee lasting peace.

"We first have to bring Hamas to the point where Fatah is," and airstrikes do that, Kuperwasser, of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs said in an interview after the cease-fire.

After the second intifada, "Fatah said to themselves, 'Terrorism is a lost cause.... We lose a lot, we gain nothing. We want Hamas to say the same."

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