加沙停火为何如此艰难

WHY A GAZA CEASEFIRE IS SODIFFICULTJACOB STOILJULY 29,2014COMMENTARYFrom President Barack Obama,to the U.N.Secretary General,to the U.N.Security Council,there has been no scarcityof calls for a ceasefire to end the fighting between Israel and Hamas;yet,there are few signs that these attempts havemade significant progress.Previous rounds of the Hamas-Israel conflict have all ended with ceasefires fairly soon afterthe conflicts escalated.In the last six years there have been four major increases in the tempo of fighting.Operation HotWinter in March 2008,Operation Cast Lead less than eleven months later,Operation Returning Echo in March 2012,and Operation Pillar of Defense roughly nine months after that,all ended with an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza anda ceasefire which returned the situation more or less to the status quo ante bellum.Three of the four ended with arelaxation of border restrictions.So if all of the previous flare-ups ended this way,why is this time around different?Why is a ceasefire proving so difficult to attain?Part of the problem lays in the pattern.Euphemistically called“mowing the grass”,the Israeli military responses to Gazaflare-ups seek to denude Gaza-based mi