by Saud Abu Ramadan
Majority Palestinians in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip have agreed that the 22-day Israeli military offensive on the strip that ended on Jan. 18 was part of an Israeli elections campaign.
The Gazans said they believe that each leader of each party in Israel was competing with his or her other rival party by focusing on how many Palestinians were killed and how many houses were destroyed by the Israeli army.
"All are the same, all are Zionists, and all have the same ideology which is based on considering the Palestinian people an enemy and that Israel should keep fighting them, killing them and kicking them out of their land," said Na'el Hammad, a Gaza-taxi driver.
He added that the Palestinians, mainly in Gaza don't count that much and who will win in the coming Israeli elections and who will loose. "They just compete on who will be brilliant in repressing and humiliating us."
During the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, in which Israel said the war was against Hamas, around 1,400 Palestinians were killed, 5,500 wounded and over 20,000 houses were either completely or partially destroyed.
According to the Hamas-ruled ministry of health and other international humanitarian organizations in Gaza, more than half of those killed are civilian men, women and children, who were not involved at all in the conflict with Israel.
Thousands of houses, which were destroyed, also belong to civilians that were not firing rockets at Israel.
"They (Israelis) said in their election campaign that they had strongly hit Hamas and the Islamic movement had received a painful strike, which is totally untrue and just a propaganda for their election campaign," said Fawzi Barhoum, Hamas spokesman in Gaza.
He added that Hamas movement and the Palestinian resistance "are still very strong and Israel, mainly Kadima and the Labor parties, will loose the elections because their theory on destroying Hamas had failed."
Barhoum also said that Hamas "will not be happy if the Likud wins the elections, because ( its chief Benjamin) Netanyahu had already promised that if he wins "he will smash Hamas."
Palestinian academic As'ad Abu Sharkh said the war on the Gaza Strip had strengthened radicalism among both the Israelis and the Palestinians. "I expect that the radical right wing in Israel will be the leader of Israel, while the war on Gaza had strengthened Hamas and the militants instead of weakening them."
"As long as there are statements made by all leaders of the political parties in Israel to destroy Hamas, this means that we should not make peace with them, and we have to strengthen our armed resistance against it," said Barhoum.
However, other Palestinians said they don't care about who will lead Israel and all what they care about is "to have peace, end the siege on Gaza, reopen crossings and establish an independent Palestinian state in both Gaza and the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its capital.
"We really want peace, we get very tired of wars, killing and destruction. Since 1948 until now, all what I hear and all what I can remember is that we spent our ties with Israel allover the past years in wars and conflicts," said the 72-year-old-Palestinian man Haj Abu Ahmed from Jabalia refugee camp.
The official stance of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) is that it doesn't interfere into the Israeli elections "because it's an internal Israeli affair, and they don't care who will be the next Israeli prime minister."
Saeb Erekat, Palestinian negotiator said that the Palestinian leadership "is looking forward to deal with an Israeli government that stops settlements, stop the separation wall and resume the peace process based on implementing the international resolutions related to the Palestinian cause."
Palestinian observers said that all polls shows that Netanyahu and the right-wing in Israel are growing up and the Israeli people is becoming more hardliner than before, which means that the coming stage will have more conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians.
Talal Oukal, a Palestinian academic from al-Aqsa University in Gaza said "even when Netanyahu was one day a prime minister, Wye River agreement was reached in 1998 and he reached Hebron agreement with late leader Yasser Arafat."
"I believe that when the right-wing in Israel makes a decision to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians, it means it, and their decision would get a consensus more than middle and left-wing Israeli parties," said Oukal.