Palestinian lives that are being lost under the bombs of the Israeli offensive include children and women, added to the destruction of civilian homes and of government and security headquarters. Yet this offensive, and the consequences that will result from it, provides a political occasion to many, who consider it to represent a favorable opportunity for them to benefit from. At the forefront of such profiteers is Benjamin Netanyahu's government, which will be facing elections in two months. Israeli newspapers have not delayed in linking the assassination of Ahmed Jabari and the raids that have followed it with the coming January 22 date. Why now, ask commentators, while the situation in the Gaza Strip has been in a state of tranquility since 2009, and while information indicates that Jabari himself was one of those guaranteeing this truce in the face of other factions, particularly the Islamic Jihad? Moreover, he was the one who oversaw the mediation with the Egyptians that ended with the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit at the end of last year. Of course, Netanyahu's electoral gains are not guaranteed. Indeed, past experiences, and in particular Operation Cast Lead in the winter of 2008, have proven that there were limits to what the Israeli army could achieve by attacking a populated area like the Gaza Strip, despite the killing and destruction that it causes. Indeed, the best that this offensive could end in would be returning the situation to what it had been, in terms of the Hamas movement's security and political authority becoming entrenched and the Israeli army returning to its position of besieging the Gaza Strip from its borders. It will in such a case be difficult for Netanyahu to wage his electoral battle under the slogan of having succeeded to restore security for Israelis and to prevent Palestinian rockets from landing in their cities. On the other side, the internal situation within the Hamas movement bears heavily on its political and security decisions, among them those connected to the decision to escalate against Israel. Indeed, with Chairman of the Political Bureau Khaled Mashal announcing his wish to resign, competition is taking place between what has become known as the “domestic and foreign Hamas" over who would best represent the traditional line of “defiance" adopted by the movement in the past. And it is only natural, in a situation such as this, for confronting Israel, and distinguishing oneself from the “truce-seeking" behavior the Fatah movement in the West Bank is accused of, to represent the headline of the coming battle within the Islamic Palestinian faction. Added to this is the process of enticement the two sides (the domestic and the foreign) are engaged in to earn the sponsorship of the parent leadership of the Islamist movement, as represented by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. This is why it is important here to examine the extent that will be reached by President Mohamed Morsi's support for the Gaza Strip in the face of the Israeli offensive, as well as the possibility of raising the response level beyond merely the rhetoric of support, the decision to summon the Ambassador and the Prime Minister's visit, to more effective decisions – decisions that would be connected to the future of treaties with Israel or to facilitating the passage of military support to Palestinian fighters through the Rafah Border Crossing. In other words: will Egypt's leadership bear the costs of getting dragged into an open battle with Israel, in the form that is being called for by military leaderships inside Gaza, from among the more stringent within the ranks of Hamas? The offensive on Gaza also represents an opportunity to be made use of for both the Syrian opposition and regime, each for their own interests and from their own perspective on the nature of the confrontation. The regime of course considers that Israel's offensive against the Palestinians represents confirmation of its own slogans, which state that the priority in the region is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the nationalist requirements it involves. It will also provide this regime with an opportunity to outbid the regimes of the “Arab Spring" and the limits of their support for the Palestinians. As for the Syrian opposition, it looks at Israel's planes shelling the homes of Gaza's inhabitants, and sees no difference between them and the planes of President Assad's regime shelling the homes of Syrians. In fact, one slogan that was raised at opposition protests last Friday went much further that this, with the caption: “Bashar to Netanyahu: take revenge on Hamas for me, I'm busy slaughtering people" – pointing to the current state of enmity between Damascus and the leadership of the Islamist movement. The Israeli offensive on Gaza also provides the countries of the “Arab Spring" with the opportunity to return the issue of Palestine to their own slogans, which have been dominated by domestic concerns for the past few months. It was no coincidence for Egypt's Prime Minister and Tunisia's Foreign Minister to race one another to the Gaza Strip, and for one of the sponsors of this “Spring", Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to stand in Cairo and call for “holding [Israel] to account for [this] massacre", asserting the strength of the relationship with Egypt. Indeed, inasmuch as the Hebrew state wants to test the commitments of the new regimes to the central issue of Palestine, those regimes are adopting the only policy available to them – that of denouncing the offensive so as to meet the calls of their peoples. Yet such a policy does not provide the opportunity to go any further than this. This is about Palestinian lives, in exchange for speeches and promises... and condemnations too.
