IN THE ABSENCE OF COHERENT GOVERNMENT:

How Israel, Hamas define victory in Gaza: Israel has hit at hundreds of targets across Gaza but has not seriously damaged Hamas's fighting force, which continued to fire rockets on southern Israel on Sunday. (Joshua Mitnick, 1/05/09, The Christian Science Monitor)

In the 2006 Lebanon war, the Shiite militant group Hezbollah showed the world it could not only survive Israel's superior firepower but that it could confront them on the battlefield. Israel withdrew from the 34-day war with Hezbollah claiming a "divine victory."

So far, Hamas has succeeded in stirring up regional and domestic sympathy under the Israeli pummeling during the first week in the war. But as the fighting continues, the militant group risks seeing its fighting force quickly degraded.

"There may be a push to unseat its hold on Gaza," says Nicolas Pelham, a regional analyst for the International Crisis Group. "It still appears to have retained authority and control in Gaza. There's no internal forces seeking to challenge Hamas."

Israel is a state without a government, so it lashes out at Hamas in order to help Israelis feel things haven't slipped totally out of control. Hamas is a government without a state--war is an acceptable substitute. Both sides are getting just what they think they need.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 4, 2009 9:09 PM